Hello and welcome to Kentucky Afield.

I'm your host, Chad Miles.

Join us as we journey the Commonwealth in search of outdoor adventure.

Dove season is right around the corner, and this week we're going to jump in the field for some fast flying action.

Then we're headed down to Eastern Kentucky to jump in a stream with biologists to do some electro fishing.

But first, we're headed to the Falls of Ohio to do a little catfishing in a very nontraditional way.

Hard on your bones out here.

This rock ledge has probably been here a couple million years.

It's not real easy on the wrist and ankles, and butt when you fall.

No.

Tell you what Bob, summertime at the Falls of Ohio.

This is kind of a sight to see.

And the opportunity to catch fish here is pretty crazy.

You really got to take whatever bites, right?

I think so.

So what do you think the potential is today?

What type of fish?

I think we could get on the the stripers or the hybrid stripers.

And hopefully we get into some blue cats today, too.

Drum.

Carp.

Gar.

Those are all possibilities as well, right?

Maybe even see a sturgeon or spoonbill swimming around.

It's crazy.

You know, there's so many different fish that are moving up here this time of year.

Everything's hot.

There's not a lot of flow, but yet you've got oxygenated, cooler water coming through.

So if we can find us a good pocket, we may just smash them.

Ready Chad?Yeah.

I just walk straight out in here.

See how slippery it really is today.

We've already seen a couple fish I'd like to catch.

What are you going to start off with today?

I think it's always a good bet running a swim bait and see what bites.

Even the catfish will strike on the swim bait.

That sounds good.

I got two tied on, so I'm ready for that.

I'm going to leave this jacket and keep my fanny pack jacket on.

Just grab what we need.

We can always come back if we forget something.

Sounds good.

Yeah, we're pretty close.

So which area you like to fish up here?

Well, I like to find the groups of Asian carp.

Okay.

And then wherever the Asian carp are stacked up, kind of looking into the rapid.

A lot of times your predator fish are underneath of them.

Oh, okay.

So we're literally trying to focus finding asian carp.

Yeah, they're pretty easy to pick out with that big dorsal fin.

Have you ever fished with parts and pieces of these Asian carp?

I█ve had a lot of luck using the swim bladder.

You know, a buddy of mine showed me that trick years ago.

He took a swim bladder out of one.

It's like fishing with a squid.

It was phenomenal catfish bait.

If we want to make some cut bait for a big catfish, we can go for that route.

Yeah.

Can't go wrong.

All right, let's let's get out there and catch a fish.

Here we go.

I don't know what this is, but it's.

It's strong.

Oh, it's it looks like a big drum or something.

Wow.

Golly.

Look at that.

This thing got drag on it.

I mean, let the drag.

Oh, not that much.

It wasn't going anywhere.

That's a catfish there, I think.

Oh, no.

That was a catfish.

Oh no.

Down he goes.

Here we go.

What do we got here.

Gummy bears.

Now look at that.

That's an Asian carp hooked right in the mouth.

Now it looks like that fish intentionally tried to eat that bait.

I'm not saying that he didn't, but these are filter feeders and really don't have a stomach system that is suited to eat a bait fish like that.

I don't want to release this anyway.

These are an invasive species.

You mind taking the bladder out?

Not at all.

You sure?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, we can get that out.

We'll get one catfish line out here in a minute.

All right.

Sounds good.

Sweet.

Thank you.

Oh.

Oh, that is why I let him do the walking.

He's got those belt bottom shoes on.

Oh, that was about bad.

There'll be more of those to come.

I promise you.

I got a Carolina rig one ounce sinker here with a bead to kind of protect my knot down here by my swivel, a couple feet of, some about 25 pound test and like a circle hook style.

I'm going to run, this swim bladder that came out of the Asian carp we caught a few minutes ago.

They really hook up well, and they don't come off.

Hopefully we get a few good fish out of this.

What was that?

I think it's a carp.

I still got him.

Looks like air bladders are cheap today.

Look at that.

That's crazy how there's just that many of them out there, and we're hooking them in the mouth.

Oh.

Snapped my line.

He break you?

Yeah, I had a good bite, actually.

I don't know why the line broke.

Here we go.

We got here.

Oh, you see that thing jumping?

Make it real appealing, you know.

If I was a big catfish I would eat that.

You would eat that.

If I was a big catfish.

There we go.

A buffalo, isn't it?

It's a buffalo on this one.

Everything up in there.

Oh, about took you down stream.

Oh, that's a big fish.

Look at the asian carp jumping away from it.

Oh, man, that's a good one.

Oh, this is going to be something to see if I can get this fish in.

Oh my gosh.

He's way out there in that current.

Oh.

Oh.

Oh my goodness.

It looks like a standoff.

I swear if you can't come down here and enjoy this, you just don't like fishing.

We just got to hope he wants to come this way.

Because this is about a 25 pounder, and he's out there in that current a little further.

Bob's going to need his Missouri fishing license.

It probably won't be up to me.

The fish got to want to swim this way to catch him.

Or I may get spooled right here.

Oh, just broke.

My line snapped.

Oh my goodness.

What have I got?

That's why I went and got the big rod.

Man, I saw you hooked up.

I said I better get a big stick.

I ain't going to be able to handle a fish like that on the other rod.

Hit hard.

And ran straight for the current.

Took me downstream with her.

That's nice.

It's hard to beat.

Chad had one hit about like that a second ago.

I got a freshwater shark.

Yeah.

Oh, a big one.

That thing's 15 pounds or better.

Good Lord have mercy.

You want to have some excitement?

You come out here and get it moving current.

Then you hook one of those on a moving lure.

You are in for a treat.

Thank goodness that fish didn't hit on the other rig I had, because I would have had a heck of a ride.

I brought the big stick out.

You got hooked.

That's a beautiful fish.

That's a long nose, gar.

That's blue catfish, drum, gar, Asian carp and a buffalo.

Golly.

Gotta get more gummy bears.

Mouthful gummy bears.

Keep me going.

Look at all of them.

Half going down.

Half coming back up.

They don't know where they want to be.

Every cast I'm getting a bite.

And it's just like a just like playing roulette.

Okay, what kind of fish is this going to be?

That one is a drum.

Oh, that's a good one.

That is a good one.

Pretty fish too, though.

This is absolutely crazy.

How many catfish were catching out of extremely shallow water?

I can see these Asian carp fins in there.

And these catfish are just sitting right below them, two and three feet deep.

They're just so incredibly strong and fun to catch.

I don't know how many we've caught today.

We thought we might catch some hybrids that didn't happen, but the water depth was absolutely perfect to catch a boatload of these blue catfish.

And we caught them all, almost all on swim baits and bladders out of these Asian carp.

What a pretty fish.

Well, Bob, I'll tell you what.

This was an absolute blast.

I appreciate you bringing me up, and I want to know how did you stay dry?

I'm not sure.

I think just the preparation, expecting to be wet kept me dry today.

Bob, I say we pick up our rods and reels and gear.

We got about a 200 yard hike.

Hopefully we stay upright and, get back in the canoe and head out.

What do you think?

That sounds like a good plan.

Well worth the trip.

Here in Kentucky, dove season opens up every year on September the 1st.

And I hope you're ready.

So, Thomas, how long had your family been here in Spencer County?

They█ve been on the farm since about 1980.

Okay, so this is a pretty much all, you know, that this is it's been here longer than I've been alive.

So you put some work in here.

I see you've got sunflower seeds.

I see some heads out here.

What else you got planted?

So in this field, we have some, sunflowers, mixed in with that.

We have some foxtail, and unfortunately, the Johnson grass came back.

I tried to spray it and kill it off.

But we had already seen it out, and it came up thick.

But still, once it's bush hog, you can see we're walking in the feed.

It's still a full of seed on the ground.

And, that's what we're hoping to use to pull in some birds today.

There's probably more people on September the 1st hunting in the woods in Kentucky or in the fields than any other day of the year.

I believe that it's, you know, nobody's been able to hunt since of spring turkey.

And, today's their first day to kind of get the first crack at it, so I don't doubt it one bit but I've been itching, you know, for months.

You know, I know a lot of people like yourself put a lot of time and energy and you may hunt, what, three or 4 or 5 days all year starting dove season starts getting real good hunts.

Yeah.

Really good.

Absolutely.

It's a lot of work, but it's a it's a it's a love.

It's a passion to get out here and do this.

Well hey I hope we shoot good.

It's been a while since I've shot a shotgun, but I am looking forward to it.

Let's get spread out here and hopefully get a couple shots.

What do you think?

Let's do it.

All right.

One.

Go on.

There you go.

Nice shot.

Thank you.

Chad.

Nice shot.

That felt good.

I'm backing up, and I didn't even have to pull the trigger.

You smoked it, all right.

It feels good to get on the board.

First one down.

Let's get a few more.

10:00 Chad.

Hard left.

Nice shot.

All right, now we're starting to get some action.

Pulling the trigger a little bit here, better walk up to and grab that one real quick before I forget where it's at.

Well, that's the first dove of 2021.

Started out slow, but we're starting to see a lot more birds.

Still not doing a lot of shooting, but it's just a nice casual afternoon with good friends out here.

Shooting doves.

So one nice thing about having your own field is that, you know, I've been watching this for the past week, and right here in front of us, this seems to be where the majority want to come in and start feeding.

We've got this power line to our left.

They, like, landing up there to look for danger.

Obviously, we're not going to shoot them off the wire.

That would be unsafe.

I'm thinking it's going to start lighting up.

I think it's going to be good.

Here we go.

Nice shot.

got one.

I see the feathers.

All right.

Birds starting to fly a little better.

Hopefully this last two hours is going to get pretty hot and heavy with some bird action.

They█re actually flying different then how they were scouted, they were always coming in from this way.

And now today they're coming in behind as well.

You can't see them until they're almost right on top of you.

So you're going to make have to make some pretty quick shots.

But hey, that's all right.

I'm out here to shoot.

I don't I don't have to hit them.

All that's missing them is part of the game.

Coming our way.

That█s a low bird.

At the mojo landed at the Mojo.

Think we should walk out there and flush out first.

Now we can get to this first row.

It's like a quail hunt.

Got to jump shoot the doves.

I'll tell you what.

That, that's something that if the field was really full, that's not something you'd want to do.

But in this situation, we're hunting 127 acre farm with four people.

You know exactly where everybody's located.

So he was able to walk out there, knows exactly his target and what's behind him, and was able to go out there and take that bird.

Knowing his back stop where everybody was that that was a safe shot.

Good job man.

Nice shot.

Thanks, bird.

I know I missed him, I never shot, I thought I'd taken it off.

You know, we've all been there.

Well, can't can't handle them if you don't shoot them.

But I had my safety on and pulled the trigger and nothing.

No bang.

There we go.

Here we go.

All right, everyone, right here.

Starting to fly now?

Yes, sir.

There's one more down.

Let's see if we get a few more.

I think they're starting to fly a little better.

Let's see what happens.

It's not as though he likes that mojo though.

I've seen those mojo decoys work extremely well.

I've seen it really turn birds and bring it right to them.

I'm a firm believer, you know, I've seen if there's a dove flying across a field and they get a glimpse of it, they'll turn 90 degrees and come straight to it.

There's one coming in from behind again.

Nice shot.

You just shot the wing off him.

Excellent shot.

You got two of them.

I didn't see yours.

I didn't see it till it was fluttering on the ground.

That was a good shot.

I appreciate that.

Coming from this way.

Nice shot.

Thank you.

Dropped it right on the decoy there.

Oh, yeah.

You may flush a bird or two, and you get out there.

That.

There was a good shot.

That thing came around looked like It was going to hit that decoy wasn█t very high.

And then started to take off right about the time he smashed it.

He.

Coming right to us.

Oh, you got that?

Oh, yeah.

Nice shot.

I don't know if you or I got that, but I believe that was you.

I got the first one and you got the second.

We got two down.

That was good here.

We thought this this game was about over, and, here they come.

That there's some good teamwork Chad.

Yeah good job man.

Nice shot.

They wanted that mojo.

He took a second to find.

Well, Thomas, I appreciate you having us out for the opening day.

The weather was great.

We saw plenty of birds.

We didn't get a limit, but we had a little worrth of fun, I would agree.

You know, it's opening day.

The weather was perfect.

I think this is the first time we were mentioning that, you know, I haven't been sweating.

It's very comfortable.

What a great way to spend an afternoon.

Haven't had a gun in my hand in a while.

Come out here and get to shoot at some birds miss most of them, but that's the way it is.

It's good.

That's what it's all about, isn't it?

Absolutely.

Thank you for having us out.

No problem.

Glad you make it out.

Thank you.

If you've spent much time out on the water here in Kentucky, you've probably seen biologists sampling fish by electro fishing.

But have you ever wondered how they do that on a small stream.

Today we're here in Clay County, and I'm here with Jay Herrala.

Jay., what stream is this?

So we are on Redbird River, which is one of the two waterbodies that kind of feeds in and forms the south fork of the Kentucky River.

Okay.

today we're doing some fish sampling, but we're not using the typical equipment that we're used to seeing, which is a shocking boat and for obvious reasons.

Yeah.

So, you know, typically when we can get a boat in somewhere, that's our best option, right?

It's mobile.

Plenty of power in really small streams.

We can take a backpack, but we've got a lot of streams and water in the state that are kind of in between.

This being one of them.

It doesn't have a whole lot of access where we could even think about getting a boat in, So this is a micro shocking boat, but it just floats and you walk alongside it, which means you got to take a lot of extra precautions.

That's right.

We've got non-tradable waders on.

So, you know, neoprene canvas, you don't want to be wearing breathable waders.

You start sweating that gets kind of permeable.

And you can you can feel a little buzz coming through your suit.

So we'll also be wearing lineman's gloves.

So in the event that we accidentally maybe touch the water with our hand while we're dipping a fish, we don't get shocked.

So what type of fish are we looking to sample today?

So we'll be doing a general sport fish survey today.

Basically what that means is we're going to be looking for your black bass species.

So small mouth, large male spotted bass We'll also be looking for a rock bass bluegill crappie if we see them.

This is also a historical muskie stream, so we might have our hands full in the water with a muskie if we get one.

tell me the other components of this boat and how it's going to work.

Yeah.

So we've got a shock box, which is what you see on the back that's going to convert that AC power from the generator into DC.

what they're holding here are two anodes that are going to send the electricity into the water And any fish that is within range of us is going to be stunned by that anodes kind of flip over on its belly.

We'll be able to dip it, put it in our makeshift live well.

and after that transect is done, will measure and weigh those fish and send them back on their way.

You see they have to keep their elbows above the water If their elbows go down and touch that water It will literally give them a shock.

Any time you get in a stream and start moving.

You always want to make sure you█re moving up stream So that the So all the dirty water is going behind you.

A lot of the time what that does is pushes all the fish Up as far as they can go so, My guess is that when they get up here and push these fish up to the next riffle, they█re going to start seeing more fish.

what are the reasons why you'd want to know what species are in here, what the populations are like?

Well, quite frankly, this program was fairly young that we've just been strictly looking at streams.

So maybe ten, 11 years.

So we're still trying to get baseline data on a lot of streams and we haven't had this piece of equipment very long.

So we're still trying to get some of that.

The last time that this stream was sampled was, you know, back in the seventies or eighties when some Muskie projects were going on.

we really need to have an idea other than just what anglers tell us, which is honestly the best thing we have to go off some of these streams so you can create a baseline.

And if you see a huge decline, you can start looking at what the reason could be.

Could it be the lack of bait?

Could it be, you know, over harvest?

Could it be other environmental issues?

Could it?

It could be a multiple multitude of things.

And we also want to if we found a fishery, that's great, it may be underexposed and we want to promote it an opportunity for the people around here or for anybody to come in and create, you know, dollars and cents for for the towns around here.

So six, six.

Back in 20.

72 All right.

So your first little run here was literally just a small little section and we did see some other fish.

You never going to get them all in the stream like this.

So we got some that got over here in this deeper water, which it put you over your head.

Yep.

Can't quite.

Definitely one of the limitations of the gear.

We also just had a little rain, so we got a little mud.

So a few things and we may have pushed them up upriver.

We may hit them here on the next round or two.

So you guys are now going to make one more pass on up to the ripples and see what you may have pushed up and then you're going to bring back your next catch.

Absolutely.

We'll be back here to show you what we got.

How did you guys do on this trip?

Well, we did a little bit better.

We definitely got a a nice small mouth in here this time, so.

Oh, yeah.

There you go.

Now, that█s the kind of fish that people would come to the Redbird and, you know, that'd be a target species to come here and try to catch a nice.

Absolutely.

15 inch fish?

Yeah.

We'll see here in just a second.

16 two over 16 inches.

2.02 Yeah.

So this is a, you know, a smaller stream, obviously.

So I really wouldn't expect to see a whole lot of fish.

Much bigger than that.

That fish is probably getting close to the end of his lifespan.

But I mean, you know, for small water in some current.

That's a great fish.

Yeah, that's great.

Yeah.

Oh, that's a fantastic fish.

Did you guys see the fish before it come up?

No, he was hidin out underneath a log jam.

Wasn't he Brandon?

So that just tells you these type of fish.

You come in here and you look and you think, Well, there's no fish.

I can't see any one, they█re camo out very well.

Absolutely.

All the fish species that are in here.

And then you get some wood or some timber or some rock overhang, you never know what might be in there.

Yeah.

And as clear as this water can get, at times, they're going to see you before you see them a lot of the time.

So that's a good fish.

Now let's check in and see who else has been out having fun in this week's ones that didn't get away.

Here we have Savannah Hillman, who headed out to Taylorsville Lake to do a little fishing with her grandpa and caught this nice white crappie.

Congratulations.

Check out this great catch a 30 pound flathead catfish while limb lining on Paintsville Lake.

This fish was caught by Kenny Rowe.

Check out this beautiful photo of Milla Lilpum.

She headed out to Taylorsville Lake and caught this nice largemouth bass.

Check out this unique piebald catfish that was caught by Robert Mason Dixon at Taylorsville Lake.

This fish was caught photoed and released.

Nice fish.

School is right around the corner.

Take advantage of these last couple of weekends to get those kids outdoors.

And remember hunting and fishing on private properties of privilege.

Always ask permission and thank the landowner.

Until next week, I'm your host, Chad Miles and I hope to see you in the woods or on the water.