Hello and welcome to Kentucky Afield.

I'm your host, Chad Miles.

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

This week, we're going to load the beagles up and head to Henry County for a rabbit hunt.

Then we're headed out to Nolan River Lake to find out what a reef ball is and what it's used for.

But first we're jumping in a deer stand for a modern firearm.

Buck hunt.

Well, it's the opening morning of gun season.

I'm in a stand that I finished out the early archery season.

I only hunted here one time, and I had some really close encounters with some does.

I didn't see any bucks, but back in here today, If I get a close encounter with a doe today I am going to take one.

I actually brought a handgun as well as my rifle.

If I can get a deer as close as what I had them in here the other night, I will try to take one with a pistol.

The bucks are moving, the bucks are on the move.

Hopefully I can get a decent mature buck in here, get a shot.

(Grunt) (Double Grunt) (Grunt) Deer Right here.

Small buck, coming down the trail.

Walking right to us.

Little bitty buck, right here.

15 yards.

That's the range we like.

It's going to hit the trail I walked in on.

Keep that head up, there you go.

That deer might be ready in two or three more years.

Well, if you ever wanted to shoot a deer with a pistol, there, there you go.

Twelve or thirteen yards.

All right, there's the other buck.

That's exciting though.

Here we go.

Smelling for does.

Looks like a basket eight pointer.

Probably be a pretty good deer in a couple of years.

Here comes the bigger one right here I think.

There█s two potential deer for a year or two.

I haven█t seen either one of them take a bite of food.

It█s obviously not about feeding.

Which actually, is kind of beneficial because they█re not as likely to smell me if there heads are up as they would be where I walked right through there.

I figure the big bucks have got the does, because we haven█t seen no big bucks.

Yet.

Those bucks showed up about 15 minutes after a grunt call.

Give them some time to move on, maybe make another grunt call, see what happens.

Sometimes it's hard to tell if a grunt call or rattle actually brings a deer in, but, when you grunt or rattle and 15 minutes later deer cruise through, mouths open, not feeding, just smelling for does.

Makes me feel like that's probably what brought that deer in.

(Rattling) Any time you come out here and see four bucks and something else, that█s a pretty good morning.

And you know what?

I feel just as confident right now as I did at daybreak this time of year.

Another buck.

Wow, that's a big bodied deer.

We█ve got a perfect wind for him.

Feels weird having a mature buck walk in to you and you put your rifle down, but it might walk right beside me for a pistol shot.

You got it?

Man, as far as racks go, that was not a giant buck.

But, man, that was an old deer.

Definitely mature buck.

Definitely on the downslope.

So, first day of archery season.

I probably wouldn█t have shot that deer.

Now that gun season's in, you get a mature old buck like that in there, who cares how big his rack is?

It was a fun hunt.

I saw a lot of, a lot of bucks.

Far and away the biggest bodied deer I saw of the Morning.

So, went ahead and took a shot.

Let's hope it was a good shot.

Wait about 20 or 30 minutes and we█ll go take a look.

There definitely was a crashing noise right back here where he went.

You know, I thought the deer was going to walk right back out.

I, I said earlier that I brought my handgun with me.

When the deer got right on this trail, I thought, oh my gosh, this would be a perfect deer for a handgun.

I set my rifle down and then when he didn't turn, I had to then put the handgun back up, get the rifle out.

You know, hunters find unique ways to challenge themselves.

Why some people like archery, hunting.

Some people build their own bows, some people are just rifle hunters.

Whatever you like to do, whatever suits you, however you want to challenge yourself, that's really what it's all about.

You can see some of the buck activity that█s been in here.

There's a scrape and a rub, and a giant rub right here on this tree.

Saw a lot of bucks this morning, unfortunately no does.

But now it's time for me to shed a layer of clothes and go over there and see if I can't pick up a blood trail.

So this is about where I was at.

The deer, you can, you can still see where the deer was in there.

It spun and came through.

I don't know exactly where, but somewhere in this vicinity.

Well, it looks like there's my deer laying right there.

I'll tell you what, walked up through here, I didn't see any blood, but I heard a crash noise and I thought it was in this area.

Go over here and see what we got.

I know one thing, when he decided it was time to go down.

It was time to go down.

Man, that's a big bodied deer.

Now we've got some video, some camera pictures, and I'm pretty sure this is the big seven pointer that we've seen.

So not a real big rock.

But look you kind of look at the size of this deer.

You can tell it's an old bruiser.

Turned out to be a really cool hunt.

How many times you get in a tree stand and you see 5 or 6 bucks?

Now, this was far and away the oldest, biggest body deer.

Rack, it's probably the biggest racked deer I saw today too, but I saw some potential for the next couple of years.

And that's always a good thing.

So this deer, I don't know if it's going on the up upturn or downturn, but it's a seven point deer, old big body deer.

This is a mature deer.

And I can't say for sure this is the best that he█d ever been.

But this is the type of deer that no reason to wait till next year, because you're probably going to be looking at pretty much the same thing.

So I'm happy to have it.

And this thing is going to provide a ton of back straps and ground venison because it is a big, big body deer.

My favorite way to spend time with family and friends in the field is behind a pack of beagles chasing rabbits.

Well, today we're out here in Henry County and we're getting ready to do one of my favorite things.

Getting ready to start rabbit hunting.

You know, this is an interesting day.

We like to do big rabbit hunts.

A lot of times we'll have eight, ten dogs and five or six hunters.

And those are a lot of fun.

But today this is more of a typical rabbit hunt.

A couple of buddies get together, just a few dogs, put some dogs on the ground and get after them.

So this is going to be a lot of fun.

It should be a good spot.

So, KC, So you kind of grew up doing some rabbit hunting, haven█t you?

Yes.

Tell me a little bit about where we're hunting today.

We█re hunting in Henry County.

This is actually a neighbors farm that they█ve been gracious enough to let us hunt.

It's always been in the past just a great farm to rabbit hunt.

And we've run some dogs before and we've always had some luck.

I brought my two little dogs here, two little females.

Josie is the lemon dog and then the black dog there, that's checkers.

Paul, you and I talk a lot about hunting and you kind of got into hunting a little bit later on.

You█ve always fished, but hunting is something that you really picked up in the last 20 years, isn't it?

Yeah, that's right.

Being from Jefferson County, I didn't have a whole lot of access to hunting grounds and finally met some folks out here in Henry county.

And I haven't stopped hunting since.

There's nothing like meeting friends through the outdoors.

And, you know, we met later on in life, and, you know, we've been doing this quite a bit.

Well, these dogs are ready to go.

They've been on the ground twice this week, so they should be ready to go.

Should be a good hunt.

I█m going to keep them on the collar.

We're going to walk up and turn them loose up here.

You going to come with me?

Yeah.

All right, let's go.

Ready, Josie?

Ready, Checkers?

Go.

Hunt ‘em up.

Let's go, Let's go.

There he goes!

Here!

Well, that didn't take long.

We got a rabbit up.

Let's see what happens here.

Oh, there it goes.

All right, put the dogs on it.

There's a big sinkhole behind us, and every year we've hunted here, rabbits end up coming in the sinkhole.

If you don't shoot them before they get to the sinkhole, then they get away.

So what we're doing is just waiting on the rabbit.

Hopefully he'll circle back and Paul or Chad will get a shot, but if not, he's probably going to come this way.

So we're going to sit right here and try to get shot at him.

Here you go, hunt in here.

Let's go.

Hunt in here.

Get in there.

There he goes.

Coming at you, Paul!

Hold still it█ll come back.

Right there.

Must█ve been Chad that shot twice.

Hey, hey, hey.

Right here.

Dead.

Dead.

Checkers, checkers.

Hey, here he is.

See?

It tells you how much beagles rely on their nose.

Look at this.

That dog can see that rabbit, but it wants to smell right where he went.

Right here.

Hey, hey, hey, hey, dead dead, dead, dead!

All right, let's get another one.

Let's get another one.

there he is.

That was a pretty cool chase.

We jumped this rabbit about 150 yards back, and it was just staying way out in front of us that whole time.

Got lucky.

We got lucky.

There he is.

Coming to you, KC.

Coming right to you.

I believe he got it.

You get it?

Yeah, we got it.

Sweet.

Nice job.

Here he is.

Here he is.

Dead, dead.

Here, here, here, here.

Here he is.

Good boy.

Dead, dead, dead.

Ah, no.

I saw him for a split second.

Come out the second run around, but then he come popped out right 30 yards.

Perfect.

Well, nice job.

Yeah.

I'll tell you what.

Poor Paul has been over there guarding that sinkhole.

Yeah.

Well, let's get the dogs gathered up and go over there and find out if he's still awake.

All right.

Hey, Here he goes!

Right at you, Paul, right at you.

Right here!

Paul, maybe we can call Amazon and have them drop you off some more shells.

instead of 50, I got 47.

There he goes, there he goes!

Sorry, man.

I got your bunny.

Its alright.

He was headed back up that fence line.

If I didn█t shoot, we were going to be here a while.

So KC said that we can go over there.

Right next door?

Yeah.

Try to get you a bunny or two.

Oh, good.

Hey, hey, there he goes!

Get ready, Paul!

There you go.

Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.

Here he goes!

Hey, hey, hey, hey.

Coming to you, KC.

Yeah.

Nice shot.

That was awesome.

So he ended up under that truck?

Yes.

Ended up underneath the old truck and ran right out here in the open.

Couldn█t get any easier.

Well, I tell you what, we got a lot of fence-line left, there█s plenty more.

I'll throw it up in the truck.

There you go.

Nice shot.

Thanks.

There it goes.

Moving backwards.

Oh I see it.

Right by KC.

Poor Paul.

One of those days you can't be in the right spot.

But we're going to get him a Bunny here in a minute.

Yeah, there's been one in here.

Here he comes!

Checkers.

Dead.

Oh, let go.

Had to shoot pretty quick.

But you know what that's four.

So I got a limit of rabbits today.

Any time you can go out and get a limit of rabbit, that's a heck of a day.

Coming up your side of the bank, right at you.

There you go.

Yeah, I think it's the biggest one today.

Nice job.

Yeah.

Thanks.

we've had some really good runs today.

And for having three people and only two dogs, you know, we probably could have killed a few more rabbits.

And we may get one or two more on the way to the truck.

But this is how the vast majority of people rabbit hunt.

It's a couple of friends, one or two dogs, helping the dogs out a little bit, kicking up some brush and letting the dogs bring the rabbits back by.

That's the rabbit hunting█s all about.

They had some good long runs.

They have.

They have.

I tell what they've done pretty well today.

Have you ever been traveling down the lake and seen a giant concrete golf ball.

And wondered.

What is that?

Well, here's what it is and how it got there.

We're down here at Nolan Lake.

I'm here with Jeremy Shiflett.

Jeremy this is called a reef ball, right?

What is the benefits of a reef ball?

Well, reef balls got their start initially out in the marine environment, and they were using them to protect and enhance coral reefs.

And we kind of saw that the work that they were doing there and we saw it, its application in the freshwater system and thought that they would make some good fish habitat.

They're a very versatile structure.

And actually, the thing that stands out the most of us is that they're going to last forever.

Yeah.

You know, a lot of all of our reservoirs, the habitat is degrading as they age.

And so we're constantly out here refreshing everything.

So trying to be more efficient with our time and our effort and resources, looking for materials that are going to last a long time.

So you guys are actually building those yourself, these things in three different sizes, right?

Yes, sir.

generally it's a, it's a three piece fiberglass mold that then has tethers or bladders or, that are affixed to the inside of the mold so that once you pour concrete in it, it creates these voids once you pour that.

Okay.

And then we spray the inside of the mold with sugar water when we pull that mold off, it allows us rinse it off and get some of this aggregate coarse texture on there.

other wise It's going to stay smooth, just finish concrete.

But we do that to allow that texture for, for the for the para fight, the algae, the insects, all that stuff too, to adhere and stick.

So once we have all our bladders set at the right, pressure, then we bring the concrete truck in and just have them start dumping a pretty flowable mix because we got to get it down in, around all the bladder.

So once it starts flowing down in as the mold starts filling up, we're just tapping with a rubber mallet.

We're tapping around just to make sure the concrete settles fills all the voids, So what we have to do when we're done is we bring a forklift tela skid or something to come in and just ease up, lift that up.

And because the the screw caps out of it, it pushes the air out as it eases it up.

wow, and then we can rinse them off, move them.

And then what we normally do is because we've got all that stuff out, we just set them back up and try to do multiple pores while we have everything out.

Okay.

The Corps of Engineers has been because they've been the main partner in all this.

they're, they've allowed us to use their maintenance facility up there to have all our materials to set up to pour.

because you do need.

So you can't just do it anywhere.

You do need power.

You need some electric, you need water.

You need air for the bladders.

So it's a process.

But by us having this mold system, we can pour them for about a quarter of the cost of buying them.

wow.

And you pour them close to the location where they're going.

You poured them right here at the Army Corps of Engineers site at Nolin.

So they don't have to be transpo very far from that point, some of these are different depths in the water because this is a lake that's managed by the Army Corps of Engineers.

It comes up and down fluctuates.

So the fish also fluctuate on what depth they want to be at.

So you guys take that into account and you look for contour lines that allow you to space these out at different depths, right?

Yeah.

So instead of instead of putting everything at one one constant down, say, six or eight feet all the way across the reservoir, knowing that the water goes up and down and that water quality changes and thermocline changes throughout the year, we've kind of taken that approach to where we kind of stagger them perpendicular to shore at different depths to allow those fish to kind of stay on site and just move up and down in the water column and not have to completely vacate and go to find another structure somewhere else.

So the Army Corps of Engineers, obviously, They want good fish habitat, but they have a bigger concern with what these things can help out with.

Which is what?

Yeah.

Shoreline stabilization.

Shoreline erosion is a big problem.

These lakes, again, with the drawdown and then with the recreational and angling boat traffic, you know, the shoreline takes a beating.

And so we started a research project with them where we're using some of these the big ones and some of the next size down to put them near shore to help as a wave break, to help protect those shorelines, help them naturally heal.

But then also they're in a couple of feet of water.

So they're going to provide fish habitat as well.

So if you see these and you see them in an area and you're like, well, man, they didn't get them deep enough.

They're there for a purpose.

If you look above where you see them in the water, you usually see some spots where you see a lot of erosion and you're trying to limit that.

So the Army Corps of Engineers is trying to protect the shoreline, but also allowing us to put these in areas where it will definitely have a positive impact on fisheries.

Absolutely.

We've we've had people get on Facebook, you know, a day after putting them out, saying, I don't know what these are, but I just caught some fish here.

So they definitely work just about like anything we do, it definitely works, but they work quickly and they're going to be there for the to stand the test of time.

So it's a really, really cool project.

And I, I, I'm glad to see it right here.

Especially, you know, Nolin, is one of my home lakes.

so glad to see them going in here.

We're expanding statewide.

Yeah, there are some in rough, in Nolin, and in Cave Run.

Okay.

And we have plans to expand.

if you see one of these big alien looking things, it's a fish habitat and a shoreline stabilization tool.

And it's a project we're going to monitor for a little while and see what the benefits are.

And very thankful to have the Army Corps of Engineers on board.

Absolutely.

To help us out with this.

Well, thank you so much.

I appreciate that you gave it out.

Appreciate your time.

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

Sawyer Davis took his first deer on the opening day of the youth season.

He got this nice eight point buck and Greene County.

Congratulations.

Here we have six year old Carson Chastain who took this nice buck during the Youth Firearms season.

Congratulations.

Here we have Eric Hudson of Meade County, who took this beautiful nine point buck while bow hunting on Halloween.

Nice job.

Check out this beautiful white crappie that was caught by Drake Holt of Jamestown, Kentucky.

This fish was caught at green River Lake.

Nice job.

Check out this beautiful 12 point buck that was taken by a crossbow by Greg Stansell.

This deer was taken in Allen County.

Nice job.

Here we have Chris Kelsey and Asher Gregson of Stanford, Kentucky.

They went out to green River on a pheasant hunt.

Nice job.

Check out 13 year old Parker Buchanan with a beautiful buck that was taken with a crossbow in Ellington, Kentucky.

Nice job.

Check out this beautiful 11 point buck that was taken in Campbell County by Ben Dryer.

He said he was up in a deer stand, and he caught this buck freshening up scrapes.

It's that time of year.

Modern firearms season for deer is about halfway through.

Hopefully you've already punched your tag, but if not, don't worry, you still have time.

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.