Hello and welcome to Kentucky Afield.

I'm your host, Chad Miles.

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

2024 was a great year for us here at Kentucky Afield.

And this week we're going to share a few of our favorite segments, including fly fishing for smallmouth, trapping bear in eastern Kentucky.

But first off, we're headed to Butler County for a rabbit hunt.

Cut them loose.

Let's us a rabbit dogs.

Hey, this way.

This way.

Get here to me.

Get here to me.

Get here to me.

Oh, I say it's a jump.

Josies got one up.

Here he goes!

We█re out here in Butler County this morning on this cool December morning.

Got a pack of about six dogs on the ground.

Got some good old friends and we're hoping to have a great day.

Hopefully as soon as the ground thaws, we're going to have fast rabbit running action all day.

There it goes.

He cross the road.

So he kept like running around right here.

So I went up through here, And saw him walking through there, and I stopped, so I just shot him.

Nice job.

How far behind were the dogs?

Uh, I don█t know.

They█re pretty close with it.

Yeah, They were catching up with it.

That's a good job, buddy.

I heard you shoot once, and I thought, well, there wasn█t a second shot then I forgot, you were hauling a single shot.

So, you know, to make them count, right?

Yeah.

One shot's all you get.

Well, good job.

All right, let's get another one.

Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on.

He█s in here.

He's in here.

He's in here.

He's in here.

He's in here.

Get him.

Get him.

Here he goes, here he goes.

I think Jesse rolled that one first didn█t you?

Did you get him Darren?

Well you uh.

You jumped him.

You should have got the shot.

He quick on that single shot boy.

Yeah, he uh, He hit it too?

I think he did.

Yeah, I think I missed it.

All right.

All right.

Dead.

Good dogs, good dogs, good dogs.

Dead.

good girl.

Do you want me to carry it?

Or, do you wanna carry it?

You can carry it if you want.

Put her back here.

Well, there we go.

Nice job.

I█ll tell you what our, our our percentage isn't good, but we're running a lot of rabbits.

I'll take that every day of the week.

You know, if you're getting to see plenty of rabbits, that means, you know, you got another trip.

Jesse says, What are you talking about?

Oh yeah.

I shot twice and shot twice got two Bunnies.

You know, a lot of times we come out here and like to let the kids take the first shot.

Could you.

Would you please let us shoot one?

Good job, buddy.

Nice job.

I shot that automatic before I got one off.

He done fired two more of em.

Good Lord.

All right, let█s find another one.

Hunt em, hunt em, hunt em in Hunt in here.

Hunt in here Come on.

Find him.

Here he goes, here he goes.

Alright ya█ll, look alert.

It's right here.

Right here again.

Same exact spot he was at 20 minutes ago.

Second time.

That rabbit is giving me an opportunity at this exact same spot.

The dogs pushed him right back around.

And sure enough, second time I was like, Well, I'm not going to miss that opportunity again.

Go and take it.

Nice rabbit.

Now I got a little bit of weight to pack.

Get in there.

There he goes!

Long shot.

He ain█t there yet.

Coming at you.

Hold on, hold on.

Your way Chad, right there.

See him?

That was a good race.

You know, this is why I always say that when you jump a rabbit, you want to stay close, Jump this rabbit right here, This gentlemen right here jumped this rabbit ran all the way out.

And that young gentleman was sitting back there.

I said, he's in the best spot cause he hadn█t moved, ran right behind him and shot.

And they brought that rabbit all the way back around the field and slipped right back down through here again.

He's literally laying right now within within 25 yards of where he was initially jumped.

That's what makes rabbit hunting a lot of fun with dogs, is that, you know, you work hard to get a rabbit up and then you set and you let that thing, bring him right back to you.

Sometimes it worked out great.

Sometimes Rabbit finds a hole.

We've had a lot of both today.

When you hear fly fishing, many people think of trout.

But Kentucky offers many beautiful smallmouth streams that are excellent for fly fishing.

I love Kentucky, i█ve only been here about four years.

From smallmouth, to hybrids, to musky.

There's all kinds of fly fishing opportunities across the state.

It's just a ton of fun.

Where we're at today, we're not going to be catching trout, but we are going to be fly fishing.

Yup.

Flyfishing for smallmouth, yup.

we're going to be fishing some lower profile stuff today.

we've got some tan baitfish patterns here.

In this low, clear water, Chad, tan in the summer tends to work a little bit better than white.

We█ll fish those in low light situations.

Once the middle of the day sets in, we'll throw some deer hair frog patterns on top.

You just create a ton of commotion.

the fish can see them really well in the sun when the sun gets high in the sky, and man when they come up and crush the deer hair frog: better be ready.

Yeah, yeah.

That is amazing, there's actually some art right there.

That's a beautiful, beautiful fly.

These take a long time to tie, but, it's completely worth it.

you know, from streamers to, you know, more complex stuff like this.

it's definitely worth it.

And, you know, the fish will respond well to them.

Fantastic.

We're going to use some kayaks.

We're going to try to get into some spots.

Sometimes we'll be in the kayak.

Some areas where we have public access we█ll be out.

Let's go get a fight on our hands.

Let's go do it.

Yeah.

Awesome.

I really want to fish in this pool.

I don't think we'll catch a fish in here, but I'll at least show you the presentation here.

Are you throwing a very similar?

Yeah.

We're throwing the same fly this morning to start off.

All right.

This is a minnow changer, a really popular pattern, and it's got some incredible action to it.

We█re going to kind of target, Chad, back eddies like this and right in here as well.

Any slow moving breaks in the water.

So I'll kind of aim for the other end of that pool.

Yeah.

Just like that.

Oh, you already got one.

We got one.

We█re hooked up.

This is a decent little fish.

Yeah.

You're talking about a 13, 14 inch fish right off the bat.

That was fantastic.

Let█s see here.

All right.

Yeah.

I can't imagine a better way to start.

Good stuff.

Awesome.

That was great.

Yeah.

All right, let me make a practice cast here.

There we go.

Good stuff, dude.

There we go.

Got one on.

You saw that fish, didn't you?

Yeah.

Lookie there.

Probably about a 10, 12 inch fish somewhere in that range.

To go in and to hand-tie your bait and go out and catch something on it, there's got to be something.

It's very rewarding.

Like, whenever I tie, like, a new pattern or something I make myself and is not already on the market, come out here and catch fish on it.

especially on a deer or turkey I killed.

that's cool.

It's super cool.

That's a great cast Chad.

Yep.

Oh, did you feel that?

I didn't feel it.

No.

Oh I was bring it in and he smoked it.

Oh man that was a nice fish.

I don't think he felt that one either.

I think I pulled it right.

Why don't you put that one back there.

It was like right in there and I went to pull.

Oh he got it!

Yeah.

He got it.

I'll tell you what.

This fish wanted it because he came up and I literally when I ended my cast and jerked the bait up.

Yeah, that's bigger than the last one.

Yeah.

A nice little southeastern smallmouth right there, Chad.

Beautiful fish.

Oh.

Got him.

Chad, you█re tearing them up now.

Oh, man, that was awesome.

You obviously came here knowing how to flyfish.

You've been doing that all your life.

Right.

Tell me a little bit about how you gathered so much knowledge in just four years.

Right.

Like today, knowing where to go in, where to go out.

Anything from from blue water trails, information on public access points, put-ins, take outs.

Oh, it's just so informative.

I mean, if you go to Blue Water Trails on Kentucky Fish and Wildlife, you'll see 3 or 4 different floats on the South Fork like we're on today, you know, a million on the green, great fisheries like the Barren and Elkhorn and it's just it's just a wonderful resource for, for anglers of all kinds.

you know, of course, you can always, you know, stop in your local fly shop.

Resource of the internet and looking at spots on google maps, you know, especially at Kentucky Fish and Wildlife.

Come on Got one looking at it?

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

You got him.

That's a good fish.

Yeah That's the best one of the day right there so far.

Yeah.

Nice fish.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Got it?

There you go.

This is the one we want.

Oh, yeah.

You can see it from here.

Stay budd█n It looks like a really good fish, what you got 16inhes or better?

You know, let me get him in.

It looks like it.

He█s fighting a lot harder than he.

He looks like a good one.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

He's a great fish.

Look at the vertical bars on him.

beautiful fish.

We've been crushing them on streamers today.

Just caught of big one on the streamer.

It's the middle of the day, though.

I think it's time to catch a big one on topwater and we've been seeing some frogs.

So we're going to put our deer hair frog on and, see if we can get a big one on this one too.

Oh, yeah.

Nice fish.

Nice fish.

Yeah.

Nice fish.

Oh, that looks like a great fish.

Yeah, a great frog fish.

Fish on a frog.

I'll tell you what.

I can't tell you how cool it is to sit here and watch you on a fly rod with the frog pattern that you tried, that looks absolutely beautiful.

Fish it the exact same way that I'd fish a frog on a bait caster and catch him out here on the river.

Yeah, look at that thing.

that's a great fish.

Yeah, that's a that's a 17 inch fish.

Yeah.

Wow, what a small mouth.

What a beautiful fish.

Doesn't get much better than that.

Congratulations.

And I tell you what.

That's got to be rewarding.

Yeah.

You said it took you 40 minutes to tie that frog.

Yeah, it's cool to, you know, kill a deer, right?

And then use that hair, tie a frog pattern and catch a fish like this.

It's really rewarding.

I tell you what, Ryder, I've never been on the South Fork, and I can't tell you how stunningly beautiful it is.

I have been just amazed at the beauty and the smallmouth fishing quality.

It's unreal.

Yeah.

I mean, it's a gorgeous fishery.

I mean, when I tell people about this place, you know, I talk about the fishing, but, you know, you always forget about the scenery.

It's it's pretty unbelievable.

Well, hey.

Thank you.

Congratulations on catching that great fish on your hand tied frog.

It's been a blast.

We got to do it again.

One of the most unique experiences we've had this year was the opportunity to go out with a wildlife biologist, put our hands on a live wild bear.

All for research.

We█re down in the big South Fork area of the Daniel Boone National Forest It█s late July and bears are breeding and are in search for food.

And it's a good time for us to try to catch some bears.

So what we do, typical trap line that we have is we try to deploy as many as possible.

It takes some time to put them together.

So, we're limited on how many we can put out.

So we try to do about 10 to 12 to maximize how many bears that we can catch in a day So we'll place these traps usually about a half mile apart, try to encompass different home ranges of the females we've got this designed in a manner.

That is.

Safe for the bears.

So our locking mechanism.

Has, just one clamp on it.

So the way we put it together tries to eliminate any kind of, like, sharp edges for the bear paw.

The sharp end of the locking mechanisms to the outside with our cable locker or cable clamp.

The bolts face out.

So when the paw is in and it stenches, there's a minimum amount of sharp edges that can touch it.

Kind of grind the edges of these make it smooth.

So when it gets around that bear paw, the harder they fight the tighter it█ll get.

Usually doesn't have any kind of consequences.

There's usually maybe just a small abrasion So the bears that we're working on down here in McCreary County, we've been studying these bears is probably about 2010 when we first initiated our research down here.

And it's just a continuation of that.

We've seen that the population continues to grow.

And that's the entire purpose of this is so that we continue monitoring the population and what they're doing.

So as we enter into late summer or early fall, the food sources change as well.

And we've seen some of that sign as we travel long the forrest service roads here.

To set our snares.

So we see a lot of the sassafras trees that have been rolled over from the bears.

So So we're in the Big South.

National Forrest.

And this time of year, we get a lot of trees rolled over by the bears like this right here.

And so what they're after is they can smell these berries that develop at the top of this sassafras tree.

And there's dozens of them along the roadways.

But this is just a natural food that bears feed on this time of year, when these come in the season, we transition past the blackberries and we've moved into other crops, that█s coming in.

And this is one of the favorites at this time of year.

The traps that we're using is called an Aldridge snare.

It's not a selective trap.

We can't determine if we catch a male or female.

So during the process of our research trapping, we have just as equal of an opportunity to catch male bears as we do females, So today is our first day of deploying traps in the area.

So what our main goal now is to get as many out as possible, so that we'll check it, at least twice a day, morning and evening runs.

All bears that we catch are good information.

We collect data equally from whether it's a female or a male bear.

The same.

The only difference it will have is the collar.

Male bears grow fast.

So they'll put on a lot more weight in the winter than what females do, and they're more difficult to collar.

Plus, there's not much information that we're looking for.

We don't have any reason to track male bears specific, but it's very important for us to know the location of the den sights in the winter.

And that's the reason why we use collars on the females.

Sometimes going into these trap sights on these ridge lines.

You come across this, two main land mammals that'll eat ground nesting bees is bears and skunks.

Most times it█s bears that does it.

You see where they dig it out and it doesn't affect them.

They don't pay attention to these stings.

From the bees as they█re eating them.

They'll try to go after the lava.

That's mine.

But I guess where most of nutrition is with the lava.

But they'll eat the bees in the process as well.

So goal is hopefully with some of these traps that we've set out this morning with the bear activity we've seen, we've actually even seen a couple bear as we've been traveling down the roadways.

And hopefully that movement will translate into a captured bear today.

So we've got all our traps deployed this morning.

Now it's time for us to make our evening run.

So we'll go in, make sure that we still got bait, none of the traps were thrown, and see if we caught a bear.

So as we approach, we can tell that there's nothing in here, our cubby is still in place.

So the second thing we'll do is we'll check to see if there's any activity at the site.

See if any of our bites eaten on the ground or on the tree.

And obviously nothing's been here yet.

A lot of times we'll have a lot of other, small mammals that come in, whether it's possums or coons, and maybe rob the bait before bear gets to it.

But, it doesn't look like anything in here right now.

So probably a little over 200 pound bear.

Caught good around her wrist.

We'll go back, we█ll get us a dart worked up and some drug worked up, and we'll get it down so we can work em up.

So after we successfully dart him.

we'll retreat back here.

Kind of get out of sight, out of mind That way it can calm down and have it easy.

they'll go under Anastasia and everything It could be as little as a minute and a half, or it could be 15 minutes before it finally goes down.

There we go.

So it gives us a clean place to work.

Main thing, even though this is even capture.

And sun light is not an issue.

with them laying on the forest floor like this.

We want to protect their eyes, because we'll have to move around a little bit.

And everything.

So we might want to make sure that there's no sticks that█ll jab her eyes.

We have three means identifying bears, bit tags, ear tags, and tattoos.

Ear tags are easy to locate, but the longevity of them can be limited.

Tattoos are something that are long lasting and will last entire life of bear.

The reason we go after this tooth is it's easily accessible.

It's the tooth that the bear can live the same life with or without.

So it doesn't affect the animal by losing that tooth.

And it's generally easier to extract that tooth and not do any harm.

Oh, she's got some tooth wear.

Pretty heavy.

Look them upper molars back there.

They're almost flat, she's old.

Look at them upper incisors.

I mean, she's probably at least 14, 16 year old.

Well, just from what I've seen in the past, she's probably at least that.

So what we're doing is we're putting a leather spacer on this collar.

So with this design, it allows this collar to eventually drop off the bear.

So if the bear puts on the large amount of weight in the fall.

Then the collars simply drop off.

Okay.

She█s good.

Time will vary on how fast they will react.

Sometimes it's as little as 30s.

Sometimes it may take 18 or 20 minutes.

This evening we went out, done our evening check.

Come down to the last two traps that we had that we'd set this morning.

We was able to catch two females, which is, our goal you know, we was after the female bears so that we can put collars out by putting these collars out is to continue to collect the data so we can put it into our population models.

So, ultimately we can do the den surveys in the winter and count cubs and see the sex ratios of those cubs.

We had a great year here at Kentucky Afield in 2024.

And hopefully you're making plans to get outdoors in 2025.

We can't wait to see you in the new year.

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.