Hello and welcome to Kentucky Afield.

I'm your host, Chad Miles.

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

The 2025 Kentucky deer archery season is now in.

And that means it's time to get in the deer stand.

Then we're headed out west to get in a boat with Jim Doom, using some interesting bait to target catfish.

But first, me and my son Leo are going to Nolin River Lake and target white bass.

Oh right here.

Get in- They're everywhere.

Just cast out there.

I█m hooked up.

Here we go.

What do we got?

Real fast.

Real fast.

Look at this.

Oh, that white bass got off right there.

Oh, he got off right off me.

Here we go.

Oh, small white bass lookie here.

Got him?

Oh!

Lookie there, Leo.

I've already got a white bass.

This is a smaller one.

They get a lot bigger.

But they're here.

Hey, we're gonna have a good morning.

When you catch a fish on your first cast, sometimes that can be a bad sign if you're superstitious.

But today, feeling good about it.

Now Leo today.

We're out here super early in the morning.

We're going to try to get in these jumps.

You█re starting to see these fish come up.

These could be white bass, largemouth spotted bass, bluegill.

I█ve even caught crappie doing this, But, normally I don't keep a lot of fish.

But today, this is operation fish tacos.

So anything that we can get, we're going to go ahead and keep them.

So you want to cast those jumps, cast right past it.

As soon as the bait hits the water, start reeling and real, real fast.

Go.

Here we go.

You want one Leo?

No, you got it.

I'll tell you what.

On a real light action rod.

Like this.

These white bass.

I don't care even when they're small.

They'll bend this rod straight over.

There you go.

That's what we're here for.

Right there.

Oh, man, I love fishing Nolin when they're in the jumps.

You know, this, this spring, the water was so high you couldn't fish them during spawn.

And now, time to take revenge.

Get out here and get after these things They█re fantastic to eat.

And they're really great for a taco.

Now, why is this just pulling drag?

Hold on.

Let me tighten it down a little bit.

Keep your rod tip up.

Trying.

There you go.

Pulling drag because they fight like crazy.

Keep that- There you go.

There you go.

I got you, I got you.

Perfect, perfect.

That's the kind of release you like right there.

They fight, don't they, buddy?

Yes.

Nice job.

Here we go.

Hey, this Operation Fish Taco is going to be done in about five minutes.

We only need about ten.

Just got hit again.

I can tell that one.

Now look at this.

Hey, this is different.

Oh, well, that was a spotted bass.

This little bait I'm throwing is a little bitty quarter ounce bait that I can throw a long way.

It gets a bunch of strikes.

The problem is little bitty, bitty, bitty bitty hooks.

So you lose a bunch of fish.

But I'd rather get bites and lose fish than not get bites.

So we'll have some fish flop off today.

But that's okay.

This one█s hooked up.

Hook up?

I got him.

Oh, what we got here?

Man, look at that and this fish aint even very big doggin█ and rippin█ drag.

Oh he come off right there.

Come back and hit it again.

All right, Leo, look at this.

Now, you know a largemouth bass and smallmouth bass.

This is a fish that's in that family.

This is a spotted bass.

Or a Kentucky spotted bass.

These, you don't have to have a certain size limit.

And I'll tell you what.

There's so many of them in Nolin like that.

You know what?

You're allowed to keep six per person.

And if we catch them this size, these are extremely good to eat.

And you know what?

You can actually do the lake a favor by keeping some of these all your bass anglers for the last 25, 30 years, it's been catch and release, catch and release, catch and release.

And that's a good idea.

But when you get a lake that's overpopulated with fish this size, the best thing you can do is to keep them.

And let me tell you what they make great table fare.

You're allowed six a person that's a combination of all the black bat species.

And once they get up around 10, 12 inces, they go in the livewell Why are you keeping the spotted bass?

Well.

So there's only so much food when you got too many predator fish, the best thing you can do is take some of them out and it allows the other fish to be healthier, grow bigger.

You know, coming out here and catching 50 small fish is a lot of fun.

But every now and you want to catch bigger fish and it just you're actually helping the lake.

So that's what we're doing today and we're helping ourselves.

They're good to eat.

They're great for tacos.

And if we catch a bunch of them we're going to eat them.

This side, Buddy, get out there.

Here we go.

A little better one.

There you go.

That's perfect.

Absolutely perfect.

These little bitty hooks.

I swear, If I have caught everything that is bitten this bait today, I'd already be back in bed.

We may have a, maybe not a limit.

We may have all we need before we even see the sun this morning.

This reminds me so much of doing this with my dad.

He used to bring me out here.

We'd fish for these white bass.

There's so many different ways you can catch these things.

He- He'd always, like, taking like a popper.

And- oh he come off?

Oh.

came back.

But my dad, he used to always like take a popper and put a about a 18 inch trailer with a what's called a popeye a little crappie jig or a bluegill jig.

And we█d catch them two at a time.

Look at that big, beautiful white bass.

Just fierce fighting fish for their size.

If you think, man, how's that thing ripping drag and bending a rod.

If you█ve ever catched one of these.

You understand they are, extremely, extremely hard fighting fish.

Oh, my gosh.

That took my rod out of my hand.

What do we got here.

Another white bass.

I figured as aggressively as that thing hit.

That█s what we have.

Oh my goodness.

Lookie there.

You know, these are good sized white bass.

They're not giants, but they're really good sized fish.

I think the Ohio River produces the biggest white bass in the state of Kentucky.

I think Nolin is a close second.

Oh.

All right, when he's pulling just rod tip up.

You don't have to reel when he's pulling.

My gosh, that might be the biggest one we've caught.

Hold on.

I may have to get the net on that one.

Hold on one second.

All right.

There you go.

Don█t want you to lose that bait.

Wow, look at that bruiser.

Look at that.

Here we go.

It's a white bass.

I'm hooked.

Hooked.

This one's tiny.

Oh, man.

Keep coming off.

That's okay.

They're going to come off that.

Oh.

It's a big one.

They're going to come off.

That's not a you don't need to worry about that.

When you're throwing hooks this small.

They're going to come off.

A little bigger.

Your poor dad's going to be he's going to say, hey, I don't need to clean anymore here very shortly.

I'm about done.

There you go.

Keep that rod tip up.

You don█t have to reel so much.

Just keep the rod tip up.

Oh, I love it.

I love watching.

Oh, I don't hit the bait.

There's something so exciting about getting, a kid out here.

Leo's got to experience this a few times, but you really don't get to fish that much.

Everybody's like, oh, bet your kids they get to fish all the time.

Well, with school and sports.

Oh!

To get out here with my son and catch these fish and end up making a meal out of them.

This is a. Oh, perfect morning on the water right here.

Deer hunting in Kentucky's early archery season can be warm, but if you're lucky enough to be in the deer stand and get a cooling rain come through.

Hold tight.

Things may get productive.

The leaves are just starting to turn, and it's cooled off a little bit.

I tell you what, the acorns have really fallen, and we're going to focus on getting into an area tonight where there are a ton of oak trees.

So if I can get in a spot where those deer are coming in and feeding those acorns, it ought to be perfect.

I hunted this spot one time before, and I had very close encounter with a couple of does Now my wind wasn't perfect, but tonight the winds have changed a little bit and it should be a perfect situation to get me a close deer encounter.

And you never know.

Could be a big buck.

Well that little doe showed up completely quiet.

Looked up and it was standing 15 yards away.

We watched her for about 30 minutes.

A little bit small.

And its so early in the hunt.

Little did we know that it's going to rain.

So now we're setting up here second guessing that maybe I should have shot it, but it's still early.

We got a lot of leaf cover, so not that much rain is getting through.

We█re going to gold tight.

We'll see what happens The deer are moving though.

It was early, 20 minutes into the hunt and a deer in range.

Pretty exciting.

There's a buck right there.

40 yards looking right at us.

Smelling.

Turn around.

Here he comes.

Right there.

Get ready, get ready.

Ready right here.

Wow!

What a crazy hunt I got up in the stand.

I've been here 20 minutes and look down.

There's a doe standing ten yards from us.

And It started pouring down rain.

In the meantime, I just hunker down, let the rain come.

Deer don't get a chance to go in.

So why should we?

All sudden the sun starts to come out.

Then I look up.

Here comes in.

It looks like a ten point or something to the woods, but I was able to get an arrow in it for what I think was a good shot.

The question is, is it going to rain anymore?

I'm not going to push this deer, but I don't want to lose a blood trail either.

So I'm hoping this rain dries up.

I give it 30 minutes like you're supposed to and see what happens.

Okay, here's an arrow.

So you're about ten yards away and it's blood soaked to about.

There.

Oh, man.

So that's telling me that I got that arrow 15in deep in that deer.

That's a good sign.

We're going to leave this right here.

We got to get on a blood trail, locate this deer.

Here we go.

Here we go.

We got a lot of blood here.

We've been about 60 yards with nothing.

And now we got a bunch.

Here we go.

Looking for quite a bit of blood in here.

Definitely went down right here.

You know, one of those situations where I'm not exactly sure where this buck was hit.

I know it was hit in the front.

I know I got good penetration, making me wonder if I need to back out or I'm going to go a little further.

As long as I still got blood and hopefully the blood trail gets a little better.

Well, last night we shot a pretty decent buck.

We knew we got good penetration.

The rain had stopped, and at that point in time, we looked at the weather and it got down to 46 degrees.

So I happened to have a friend that has a dog that you've been training.

Yep.

To find deer.

And she's actually found 3 or 4 already right.

Yeah.

She's done pretty good.

She's still a puppy.

So no promises yet, but I feel like she'll do pretty good.

There's a lot of different breeds of dogs that people use for this.

But tell me what what kind of dog she is.

So she's a wire haired Dotson thought this breed was cute.

First of all, you know it's a wiener dog.

Come on in.

But, the benefit for them, too, is they're smaller, so they're easier for me to keep up behind.

I left the arrow.

All the blood is there.

So I think the best way is to start at the shot location.

Yep.

See what she does.

You guys have an idea of where the deer went.

For anybody else that is hunting and needing to use a dog, just keep a mental picture of what exactly happened so you can lead the dog in the right direction.

But we'll just let her make all the decisions this morning, and you're going to keep her on lead the entire time.

Yeah, it's required in the state of Kentucky.

So we'll keep her on lead, keep her close to.

We want to make sure if by chance the deer has inspired yet, then she█ll be close enough, I can get her back.

The crazy thing is too, as the dogs this size it's pretty easy to handle and control, but yet she's going to be able to go right through the brush.

And pretty much she's going to lead by her nose only.

Hunt them up, hunt them up.

Find him, find him.

You know, all this is pretty darn new to me.

You know, I've bowhunted for a while, but even at a bow hit site, the amount of just splatter that would go everywhere that we can't see with our naked eye is pretty incredible.

So you got to kind of let them work it out at the hit site because they're getting all kinds of stuff here.

I believe she's headed in the right direction right now.

Easy, easy, girl.

Yep.

There's blood right here.

Good girl.

Sookie.

Good find.

Here we go.

We got blood right here.

She's on it.

That█s a good girl.

Deer?

Yes.

Okay.

Good girl.

Awesome.

Well, Rachel, Sookie did such a great job.

I'll tell you what.

I can't tell you how impressed I was with this dog.

It's so young and there's so many times we weren't seeing blood for 50, 60, 70 yards.

And the dog would be leading us off of the path where my mind's telling me wait that deer█s not going up hill.

Right?

Sure, sure.

And then we found a drop of blood.

Yeah.

You're like, wait a minute.

This dog is on to something here.

It's hard.

I think as humans, it's hard for us to say, well, that doesn't make sense to us, but just trust their noses.

It's really incredible what her nose could do.

And we would never be able to see it.

What a what a nice recovery.

I'm super excited.

I'm so proud for you.

It's a really good buck.

It's a nice deer.

Yeah.

It's you know, it's a mature buck and I'm super, super happy to have it.

Every time I get in a boat with Jim Doom, I learn something new.

And this time, he taught me that the perfect bait choice might be right in front of your nose.

So, Jim, back down here on the Barkley tailwaters.

What are we fishing for today?

Catch an old catfish I guess.

Okay, we're running up toward the dam.

What are you looking for now?

Looking for an Asian carp that, I can get him in the cast net but they tear my cast net all to pieces.

Now we can find some that█s fresh dead come through the dam.

You were telling me that you're repurposing those fish and that they were excellent bait.

They are excellent bait.

They made our catfish fat.

Well, there are fish floating here everywhere.

Dead.

So I can imagine if you're a catfish and you're hungry right now, it█s you█re own, problem.

There's plenty of bait, huh?

You're just going to take bits and parts and pieces and, use that for bait.

Right?

Guts.

Guts, okay.

Man, those are some good sized ones too, aren█t they?

Easy as that, huh?

Does that stuff stay on the hook pretty good?

It does.

There you go.

It really is just fat.

So that ought to put a big ol█ slick down there and aught to- a catfish aught to be able to smell that from a mile away, huh?

I would think so.

Go ahead and fish.

Go ahead?

Don't wait on me.

All right.

So we're going straight down to the bottom with this and then pick it up just a little bit of that plan?

Yeah.

This new fancy trolling motor I've got here.

We're anchored.

So.

Okay.

There you go.

Bent down there pretty good already.

Where's your net at?

It's always somewhere else.

You know, blue catfish.

And he's got a big belly too.

There you go.

That's a pretty fish.

It is an absolutely beautiful fish.

Hooked right there.

Right there in the corner of the mouth.

Just like those circle hooks are supposed to do.

And this is a really good size.

If you want to keep one to eat.

What do you think that fish is?

Probably eight pounds?

Eight pounds.

Yeah.

So I figured about 8 pound fish.

Probably going to be supper tonight.

There you go.

Nice fish.

You get bit?

Yep.

All right.

I believe I got this one that is not a blue.

Oh, it's a channel.

Sure is, channel catfish.

You want to keep that one?

No.

Let him grow.

I saw that.

He's got another.

If you're going to take a couple home, these are the ones.

Not the 30, 40 pounders these are the ones right here.

To me, that's the perfect size.

Easy to clean and got a lot of meat on them.

Oh, yeah.

Good stuff right here is what I really want: Roe.

Oh, okay.

Will that stay on the hook pretty good too?

It will... enough.

Good enough.

If you want to, bring yours up.

I'll put you some roe on there.

Okay.

Here we go.

This is a little better fish here.

If that's a channel cat, he's a big█n.

Yeah.

There you go.

That's a good fish right there isn█t it?

That's a nice one.

What do you think?

Is that one going in there?

No, let him grow.

Let him grow?

I don't like cleaning them that big.

A little bigger than the ideal eating size, huh?

Yeah.

Another bite.

That's another eater right there.

I got one trying to jump.

Look at that.

That's a nice fish.

Look at him out there, rolling.

Rolling like a small mouth.

There you go.

Thank you, my friend.

That's a nice fish.

That is a good fish right there.

Oh my gosh.

He's barely skin hooked.

He won't even he won't feel a thing.

Look at that.

That's a healthy fish.

That fish is as wide as he is long.

I'll tell you what.

Coming down here and catching these fish is so much fun.

I'll tell you what.

It's a beautiful blue catfish.

It is.

Always have a good time.

You're a lot of fun with to be in the boat.

And we always catch fish.

Check out the smile on seven year old Hudson Hartilage.

His face as he holds his first squirrel.

The squirrel was taken while hunting with his uncle Matt and Henry County four year old Madison Maples caught her very first bass while fishing at rough River Lake over Labor Day weekend.

Nice job.

Fall is right around the corner, and these mild temperatures we're having here in Kentucky make it a perfect time to get outdoors.

And remember hunting and fishing on private property is a 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.