Five steps in.

They█re small, but that is definitely a smallmouth bass.

This week on Kentucky Afield, we're doing something that everybody would love, and that's creek fishing.

Next, we'll learn about one of the most important aspects of hunting.

Food sources.

Then, we're looking ahead to rabbit season, and breaking out the beagles.

It's all next on Kentucky Afield.

Hello and welcome to Kentucky Afield.

I'm your host, Chad Miles.

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

Here in Kentucky, one of the best opportunities for fishing is stream fishing, where Kentucky has more miles of water than any other state, other than Alaska.

Well, today is super exciting.

This is how the vast majority of people in Kentucky and how I learned how to fish.

And that is at a pond or a stream with a couple of hours to kill.

You know, days are getting shorter and summer is winding down.

That makes stream fishing really really, really good.

These fish know that they need to feed up before winter gets here.

So soon as you get those couple of cool nights If you got an hour or two to kill, it█s a great time to go jump in a pond or in a stream like where we're at today, we're actually on Floyd's Fork in the Parklands in Jefferson County.

We've got this beautiful stream that comes through that I know has a lot of small- mouth, because as a kid I was raised fishing this stretch of water.

So I can't wait to get out here and see what█s feeding today.

You know, a lot of times I like fish out of a boat or a kayak, but when you just got a couple of hours, it's just not feasible to go load a kayak up plan and drop in and take out or go hook up to the boat.

Those are more half day to full day trips.

This is how I really like to fish.

Just an hour or two, go hit my favorite couple spots and see what you can catch.

I come to a stream like this, which there are thousands of them in Kentucky.

I mean you really look at the bluewater trails and it's pretty much covers a lot of them.

I like to focus really in two areas, and that is very, very, very small, minnow imitating lures like this little bait here.

This happens to be a three inch keitech easy shiner or crawfish imitating baits, like what I have here, that goes right on the bottom.

So really keep it simple.

Those two options right there.

About all you need.

Oh.

Right there he is.

What do we got here?

It looks like a little smalley, maybe.

And I mean little.

That's what we... Nope.

I've actually got a large mouth bass here.

That's about as small as they come.

Well, I hope to catch a couple small mouth, but that right there is a very small largemouth bass.

Two steps into the creek, and I've already got a fish, So that, that's pretty promising.

Oh, here we go.

Well.

Five steps in, they█re small, but that is definitely a smallmouth bass.

You know what?

They're still a lot of fun.

Wade fishing when I get into the water.

I want to walk upstream.

And the reason you do that is because as you walk, you can see I'm kicking up a plume of stuff behind me.

So I like to fish upstream and cast at fish before I walk past them.

Here we go.

I don█t know what this is.

Looky there.

Beautiful Floyd█s Fork smallmouth bass.

That one there's probably nine or ten inches long.

It's a little better fish.

Here we go.

Putting on a show.

There we go.

Another small mouth.

That fish, You know, you have no way to know it's exactly the same fish.

But I cast it out and before I even engaged my reel he hit.

Pulled it about five or six cranks, came back and he just smoked it.

We've had a little bit of a deep pocket.

When I say deep, I mean over three feet for a long stretch.

Right where that water comes in, where it's moving, that is where I intend to catch some fish.

And hopefully bigger fish.

Better fish.

There we go.

Just hard fighting stream smallmouth you just can't beat them, they're just so much fun to catch.

Get it back.

Oh, that soaked me.

This one here hit right by me.

Another smallmouth bass.

Man they're bunches of them in here in that ten inch range.

This is the third or fourth one, I mean, in a row.

It almost looks like I'm catching the same fish over and over.

This one's a little shorter than the others, but looks like he might have a chance to be a little fatter, too.

Pretty fish.

You know, the small mouth in these streams, you kind of see this coppery color that's in them.

They're really, really, really pretty.

Now, when they get bigger and they get out on the lake you've got this barring on them like this, when they get bigger, you start seeing those bars show up.

But these are very pretty little smallmouth bass.

I tell you what, that moving water right there looks like a perfect opportunity if I can get something that's got a little more weight to move it across the bottom to maybe catch a little bit bigger fish.

So got this little jig here.

It█s hard to be catching as many fish as I'm catching now and go, Oh, it's time to change tackle.

But this is a perfect spot to go to a little bit bigger fish bait.

Here we go.

Oh, yeah.

Looky there.

That's a respectable smallmouth bass when you're in a little creek or stream fishing here in the state of Kentucky.

Here you go.

Look at that pretty fish.

These fish are looking for easy opportunities and I made it as easy as I possibly could.

And he smoked it on like the second cast.

Here we go.

Looky there.

It█s a rock bass.

I'll tell you what.

You hear these called a lot of different things.

Rock bass, google eye, goggle eye, whatever you call them.

They're plentiful and they're fun to catch.

And man, they love a jig.

I█ll tell you what, I got so many bites on the swim bait earlier, Even though I think I can catch bigger fish on the jig.

I'm gonna go back to that swim bait and try to pick up a few more.

Another cool thing about coming out here this time of year, late summer, early fall, everything has hatched.

The crayfish spawn has taken place.

There's bait and minnows everywhere.

You could grab a rod and reel and a couple of small hooks and come down here and catch all the bait that you needed to catch these fish.

Crawfish especially, just turn over a couple of rocks.

Let the water clear.

Pin them to the ground.

Makes great smallmouth bait.

What a pretty fish.

I love smallmouth bass.

Here we go.

I'll tell you what.

Today has been a lot of fun.

We're right here in Jefferson County.

Walked down a little trail, accessed the Floyd█s Fork right here in the Parklands.

Probably have walked half a mile three quarter of a mile.

Fished three or four pockets of water really quickly.

And man, have we had a ton of bites, caught a bunch of fish.

It's been an absolute blast.

Knowing what food sources are present for the game that you're hunting is extremely important to being successful.

And that's exactly what a mast crop survey is all about.

Today we're out here at Kleber Wildlife Management area and any day that I can get out and spend a day in the field with biologists, I always know I'm gonna learn something.

What am I gonna learn about today?

Yeah.

So today we're going to go on a mast survey.

So essentially we're surveying the fruits of hardwood tree species here at Cleber WMA.

So mast is essentially those high calorie groceries that the animals that we like to see and chase recreationally are keying in on as well.

What trees are we going to be looking for today?

Well, we're looking for different species of white oak, red oak, hickory and beech.

Hey, I'm excited to see how you do this, how you rank a tree, how you locate these trees.

Let's let's take off.

Let's take a walk to the woods.

Hey, I can't think of a better way to spend the day to walk through the woods and learn a few things and hopefully put that to use to make yourself a better hunter this fall.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Let's do it.

So is this one, Cody?

R-1.

So, Zach, you've got a red canvas spray paint there.

What you're doing is you're identifying this tree as a tree in our survey.

That's right.

Tell me what what you're going to put on there.

Yeah.

So we're just marking it with red paint because it's a red oak.

It's a species of red oak.

And it is the first tree of 25 red oaks that we█ll be surveying today.

So you've got a red line around it and a one.

Yep.

So we, we often put these metal tags on the trees, but as you can see, this one's been plinked a few times with a .22 and they wear off over time.

So obviously this is on a wildlife management area where we're able to do this for research purposes, but this one's already painted, but we touch them up and we use different color paint for the different species.

So, so red for red oak, that was pretty obvious.

So if you're on a WMA and you're spending some time hunting and you see a red light around it and you're looking at a red oak.

That's right.

White for white oak and blue for beech and orange for hickory.

So the cool thing about the app is it's real time.

If we have cell signal, it submits the data to the cloud instantly, if not at stores and on board until we go back in cell reception.

But I'm going to this Red Oak one.

I click here.

Yeah, I'm clicking that, yes, we visited the tree.

I'm going to update the location information then I can hit update and now better accuracy.

My phone is better, more accurate than GPS.

Oh, that's awesome.

So now that is good and the tree is alive.

I want to quickly measure the diameter of it too.

Okay, so this is DBH: diameter at breast height.

Four and a half feet off the ground.

Okay.

Just bring it around there.

The mark should be right in here somewhere.

Right here.

So.

So 24, it's not a regular tape.

So it's calibrated to to measure the diameter of the tree.

And so now that we've got the tree information, updated that into our survey, we're going to do our rapid assessment of the mast.

Essentially, the amount of this tree that could be bearing mast or acorns is actually bearing mast or acorns.

Okay.

And so essentially, you know, I'm going to take my binoculars and look at the very tips of all these branches and think in my mind, you know, of those tips that could be bearing mast, what percentage are being mast.

And so I set a timer on my watch here for 30 seconds.

I'm just going to try to get this whole entire crown here of this nice big red oak.

We might be able to see some acorns just with our naked eye, but really with these binoculars, this is our most important tool of mast survey.

And if you want to, you can follow along and we can compare notes.

Yeah, okay, I'll set my time or now.

And we're looking.

Okay, we're done.

So first impressions.

I saw a lot of acorns.

Oh, about.

Yeah, yeah.

80, 85.

80, 85?

What were you thinking, Chad?

Well, I would say, you know, 60 to 70% of what I saw, but I'm sure there's my eyes are not trained for it yet, so I'm sure you guys are going to see more than me.

I was thinking 75, honestly.

Although we had kind of three different numbers there.

You know, they were pretty close together.

And, you know, we'll take these data, put them in our phone and the way we analyze them, is so this is one tree of 25 red oak group on this survey route.

There's 40 odd other routes in the state with 25 red oak trees apiece, 25 white oak trees apiece, 25 hickory trees apiece and 25 beech nut trees apiece.

And so, you know, even if our numbers are slightly off by 10%, a lot of that washes out by the hundreds and thousands of trees that we have from east to west, north to south in the state of Kentucky.

So this is something that's going to take place every single year.

Can you start predicting what years are going to have more mast crops than others based on some trends?

Yeah, for sure.

So it's really important if you█re thinking about setting something like this up on your own private property or just looking at the same tree through time.

It is very important to keep that same tree fixed over time.

That's why we mark all our trees and stuff like that.

And then yes, you can step back and look, okay, you know, this is going to be we've had a couple of boom years.

You've got to be kind of expecting a bust year or a poor year at some point in time, because, again, these trees fluctuate through time.

They've developed that strategy over time to try to get ahead of the nut predators and things like the squirrels that are constantly getting up there and hitting the nuts or the other animals that, you know, off the ground and stuff like that.

So a tactic that these trees have developed over time, again, will probably given the trees a lot of credit on that.

But they will have a bust year every now and then.

And so that'll be preceded by likely a boom year.

Right.

And so they're going up and down through time.

It really highlights the critical importance of oak trees in our habitats here.

We can't afford to lose this species, so anything we can do to manage our oaks is is important.

So our next tree, how far away is it?

Should be in here.

If I recall, it's right there.

You see the red paint?

Oh, yeah, right there it is.

Paint looks pretty good.

Tag still on it.

So it's 18.6.

Looks like 19.9.

15.8.

Five.

Well, guys, I know you're much quicker doing this when you don't have company, so I appreciate you kind of showing me exactly what you're doing.

I'm going to let you guys finish out your survey today, but tell me, obviously, it's very beneficial for you guys because you're managing forests for a long period of time.

How does a person that wants to come out here and pursue or view wildlife use the information you guys are collecting today to help them increase their chances?

I would say it could be a really good way to get to know your property, what you've got on it.

And you know, if you've not walked around, take some time and identify some oaks and hickory trees, beech trees if you've got them.

And that's part of the fun I would say is, you know, getting familiar with the property and finding where the good trees are and maybe let that inform where you go hunting.

So if you wanted to find this information specific to a WMA that you hunt, it█s located where?

Yeah, that's a great question, Chad.

So Zach and I will go back after all the statewide surveys are done and run a whole bunch of analyzes to try to represent the data in a way that's useful to sports people.

And so some of those ways that we do that, first of all, we put all that stuff on our website: fw.ky.gov, just search “mast survey”, and this report will be there.

And so find a WMA that's close, either the WMA you want to hunt could be on there or a WMA that's close to where you want to go hunt.

A way that I would use that if I was going to maybe scout an area or something like that is I'd find my area or an area close to it on the mast survey report and then look and see what tree species are doing really well and what you species are doing kind of not as good, right?

And so if White Oaks are bumper on Kleber WMA where we're standing right now, I would really consider, you know, identifying the White Oaks and maybe going and looking at those places first when I go to scout for, say, whitetail hunting or fall turkey hunting.

Well, I'll tell you what, I█ve appreciated your time today.

Hopefully next day you get to do this and it's 65 degrees outside instead of 90.

But hey, the works got to be done.

And I appreciate you guys for doing it.

You bet.

Thanks so much.

Thank you so much.

Many of Kentucky's fall hunting seasons are now in full swing.

But one of my favorites, Rabbit Season, is just right around the corner.

Rabbit season is finally here.

It█s a little warm today, but we're hoping to get these dogs out and put them on some bunnies.

You guys ready to get after it?

We are.

Yes sir.

Now, this is a farm that we've actually been on before late in the year.

And you guys have had a lot of success rabbit hunting here in Spencer County.

Gun season is coming up this week.

You guys actually bow hunted this morning.

Been up since 3:45 this morning.

Hey, what gets better than combining a day of bow hunting and rabbit hunting all at the same day?

That's the way I do it, right there.

If we just brought the pole we could have crappie fished later tonight.

That would have been nice.

That would be nice.

Now, you actually have a dog with you today to tell me a little bit about your dog.

My daughter found that dog, I guess he was about three months old.

So when we got him home, I thought, I'll take him out, start training.

And I did.

Well, we'll see how he does.

I brought my two.

I got Josie, this little lemon dog here, and Checkers, the tri color.

We've been doing some training and they've hunted once this year, so hopefully we can get out and jump some bunnies.

Ryan did you see any deer this morning?

Seen three deer, or three bucks one doe.

Okay.

Not as many as we wanted to, but still good time.

Good to get out.

So we're actually rabbit hunt where you deer hunt and a lot of people have concerned that it's going to mess their deer up.

What's your thoughts on that?

I don't think it has any effect, honestly.

You know, another farm we hunt there's dogs that run loose constantly.

You know, they don't have any fence or anything, you know, and they get out and run rabbits.

And, you know, we still see deer day in, day out.

So I think it's hardly any effect, honestly.

Okay.

Well Dan you and I have done some fishing in the past, and this is a piece of property that you've had permission to hunt for a while.

You've killed some limits out here several times.

Yeah.

This farm generally has a lot of rabbits on it.

Okay, so it should be a good hunt.

These dogs have said I've been on this leash long enough.

Let's go.

Go get em.

Oh, first bunny up.

We've got them all barking now.

So this is hot.

Let's get them up.

Ain█t that something.

I haven█t even seen this rabbit, they already got one down.

That's awesome.

Dead.

That's a big old bunny.

That's good boys.

That█s good boys.

That█s good boys.

All right, Good job dogs.

Let█s go, let█s go.

Ryan they're coming back down toward you.

Hey, Chad.

I think I killed that rabbit your dogs on.

Oh, okay.

See how this goes right here.

I get handed the rabbit.

This is the reason I had a son right here.

This is why I had a son.

There you go.

To bad we█re not swamp rabbit hunting.

They█d be about three times that size and you could really weigh him down.

There he goes.

There he goes.

hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.

Hail, hail, hail, hail, hail, hail, hail, hail.

Get him up, get him up, get him up.

Still going.

I'm going to tell you Chad i█m going to pretend like I didn't see that.

That was too close.

Come here Josie.

this is just grown up thick briars.

And what this is, is it█s perfect for rabbits to elude birds of prey.

Think about a bird trying to swoop down and get something out of this, It would be nearly impossible.

It's also a great spot to raise young and keep away any coyotes.

Good shot.

Good boys.

That was a good run there now.

They ran that rabbit four or five different brush piles and then finally got it out.

I could have shot him sitting one time and I didn't.

Nice job, man.

Thank you.

One for the skillet.

All right.

Here he is.

Coming right at you.

Right at you.

These rabbits want to run over me today.

He said right at me, and I'm looking out there.

He meant right at me.

Like, right here.

Here he is.

Here he is.

Here he is.

Look, dead.

dead.

Here you go.

Good boy.

Good boy.

There he goes.

That was awesome.

Dogs ran this one maybe a couple hundred yards, came back by me.

We got him.

There was two shots.

Was that us?

There he is.

That's Barry.

He must have got that rabbit.

Oh, my gosh.

That thing ran forever.

There he goes.

Get him?

Got him!

What a crazy race that was so good that I am so impressed.

Hank did such a great job, Ran that rabbit around there, and the rabbit, you could tell was getting tired.

Wasn't going very hard, but he was out in front of the dogs.

Of course, these dogs got about 20 miles on them now today.

I did not want that rabbit to get away.

These dogs after 20 miles.

The trucks right here.

I wanted to go ahead and take that one.

Well guys I really appreciate the invite.

I couldn't imagine a better day this early in the rabbit season to come out here and run dogs.

I really appreciate you guys.

We got to do it again.

Yeah, it was a good day.

Now let█s check in and see who else is having fun, in this week█s Ones that Didn█t Get Away Here we have Lindsey with her Nice 2023 archery buck, that she harvested while 30 weeks pregnant.

Congratulations.

Here we have Chrisie Watkins with a nice crappie that she caught from Green River.

Nice fish.

Here we have 12 year old Sawyer Shelton with a nice largemouth bass that he caught in a farm pond in Georgetown, Kentucky.

Here we have six year old Luke Mattingly with a nice white and black crappie that he caught at Taylorville Lake.

Check out this beautiful smallmouth bass that was caught by Glenda Hoffman on Laurel River Lake.

Nice fish.

Here we have Carson O'Brien with his very first dove ever that he took in Knottsville, Kentucky.

Nice job.

Check out this beautiful eight point buck that was taken by Greg Hair in McLean County.

Congratulations.

Do you have a question about fall hunting here in Kentucky?

Well, you're in luck.

Next Monday night at 8:00 pm ET you can join us for our live question and answer show.

You can view it on YouTube, Facebook or at FW.KY.GOV.

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.