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 grab a spotlight and meet up with Jim and Eli Doom for a little frog gigging.

Then we're going to wade fish the Floyds Fork at the parklands in search of smallmouth bass.

But first, we're going to hit the field for the 2025 Spring Turkey opener.

What a way to start the 2025 turkey season.

I just got dive bombed by an owl.

That thing got within a foot of my head.

I was listening to him call thinking, man, this may be a great locator.

Then he got closer and then he dove right at my head.

Well I'm awake.

That's better than coffee.

Well it█s the opening morning of spring turkey season.

Got set in plenty early.

Got my decoy out.

Beautiful morning.

I still have not heard the first gobble, but I feel very confident about my set up.

It's a spot I have hunting in the past.

Last year I hunted this spot.

We had some birds roosted directly across this field, probably 200 yards.

They flew down, but they made theirselves way on the other side of the pond.

And were sitting down here about 80 yards 90 yards strutting and never could close the distance.

So this area I'm sitting got a river.

I have a feeling this year, due to the high water, it's going to press those birds just a little bit closer to me, putting them right in range.

Sounds like I've got two birds.

Both about 300 yards away.

That way.

I was hoping to have them up on the ridge.

That doesn't mean they're not there.

I just haven't heard them yet.

Man, we need those birds to come this way off the roost.

Hopefully, they'll come off that hillside and fly into this field.

If not, it could be one of those situations where it's 10, 11, 12, 1:00 before they get here.

But that's okay.

It's going to be a beautiful morning.

Little crisp, start off around 32 degrees, but it's going to reach the 50s and full sun.

These birds have had a lot of rain.

They're going to want to get out, shake the dew off, do a little strutting in the sunshine.

That's when I should have my best chance.

Well, have a bird gobble that doesn't sound like it's more than about 120 yards away.

This is definitely the closest gobbler I've had all morning.

I think he's getting closer.

There he is.

Right there.

Oh, here he comes.

Here he comes.

He's about 80 yards.

Exactly where I saw a turkey last year and never got a shot.

He's looking right at the decoy right now.

60 yards, almost in range.

Oh, man.

He's locked up.

Now he is turning away.

He's walking away.

Hit that mouth call one more time.

You stopped him.

Here we go.

He's turning.

He's turning.

Come on, come on.

Here he comes.

Here he comes.

Lets see if he commits all the way this time.

Get ready.

Now.

Wow!

I tell you what, I about gave up on that bird.

Came all the way up, turned to walk away.

A couple of yelps later, he turned and committed.

Let's go up there and make sure he doesn█t fly away.

What a beautiful bird.

This morning's hunt was super exciting.

But I'll tell you this.

It was a roller coaster.

After getting set up in the thick, thick, heavy fog and listening and doing some calling.

Finally started hearing some gobbles.

But they were way off.

It sounded like they were on the other side of the river, which I thought was going to pretty much end my hunt for today.

But as the sun came up and started burning the fog off, I could tell that the water has receded quite a bit.

And now I thought, I have got a chance a bird may cross that river.

It may just fly over.

Well, after calling and calling and calling, all of a sudden I was like, oh my gosh, that gobble sounded a lot closer.

I finally laid eyes on the bird and it was 90 to 100 yards away down below me.

Here comes the bird.

He starts to commit.

It sees the decoy.

It's gobbling to the decoy.

It's strutting around and then starts walking up.

Right before the bird gets into range, he turns and is moving away.

I look over at my camera guy who I know had a mouth call in and I said give me some light yelps.

Yelp, yelp, yelp, yelp.

And that bird full strut gobbles, turns, and you can tell he's committing.

It went from thinking this hunt was over to that bird turning, walking, coming right into range.

And wow, I could not be more happy and more grateful to be able to take this beautiful eastern wild turkey.

What a fantastic opening morning to the spring turkey season.

Spring is here.

And that means that frog gigging season is right around the corner.

And that is a great way to introduce kids to the outdoors.

We're down here in western Kentucky tonight in Trigg County.

And I'm with my old buddy, Eli Doom.

How are you doing, buddy?

Good how are you?

I'm doing good.

I tell you what, I know you're excited because what are we going to be doing tonight?

Frog gigging.

Frog gigging.

Man, I started frog gigging when I was about your age.

Mm hmm.

And it's still something that brings a huge smile to my face.

I absolutely love to go frog gigging.

Who else we bring here today?

Granddad.

Your granddad.

We got two pond behind the house, and he's chasing frogs, catching fish or something all the time.

You know, and the funny thing is, is I called you about a week ago and said, you know what would be fun?

I said, has Eli ever been frog gigging?

And you just kind of giggled, and you said Eli█s birthday's coming up.

And I was like, Okay.

Like we were taking frog gigging for his birthday.

I didn't understand how it fit.

But you're eight years old now, right as of last week?

Mm hmm.

All right.

What did you ask for for your birthday?

A frog gig.

A frog gig.

I don█t know too many people.

Eight year old boys would say, You know what I need for my birthday is a frog gig.

Now, I haven't heard any frogs yet, but we're getting close.

It's getting dark.

Do you bring the spotlight?

Yep.

Yeah.

Have you eaten frog legs before?

Yeah.

What do you think?

Delicious.

Ellie spends a lot of time with you guys in the boat.

She's such a good dog.

So we're gonna let her tag along with us tonight.

You got your boots on?

Yep.

You got a light somewhere, don't you?

Yeah.

You got your frog gig?

Yeah.

I'll tell you what.

Let's go get loaded up and let's go sneak up to the first and start taking a look.

What you think?

Yeah.

All right, let's do it.

Got a frog right here.

It looks like maybe even two.

It went under theres another one to your right.

That thing was huge.

All right.

Eli's got a frog right here.

We're going to practice, but we're not going to gig him.

He's right here.

Try to get that gig down close.

Right there.

Right there.

Okay, now let's find a bigger one.

What you think?

Yeah.

Let's go get a big one.

We saw a big one, didn't we?

Yeah.

Got spooked.

Got spooked, thats ok. That's a leopard frog.

I'm going to try to catch it with my hands.

You got him.

Leopard frog.

What do you think about that, buddy?

First catch, kinda.

Ellie didn't know what to think about that.

Does she?

There he goes.

Nice job, buddy.

While sitting here searching for frogs, we come across something like, What is that?

We happen to notice it looks like a turtle.

And if it is, it's a snapper.

So Jim said he's going to get it.

Crazy man.

Hey you never know, you get yourself outdoors.

You never know what you're going to see.

Sometimes you go out looking for frogs and you end up finding turtles.

You ever handled a snapping turtle before?

Yeah.

Oh, you have.

Okay.

Don█t let him turn around and get you.

I tell you what, Jim, you raise them different down here.

Like a Cottonmouth, that mouth wide open.

There it goes.

He's like, Im not going to that part of the pond any more.

Get him, Eli.

Oh, man, you missed that one.

That's all right.

Aim better next time.

Oh, I believe you got that one, buddy.

There you go.

Hey, what do you think about that?

You got him good.

Got him pegged.

Way to go.

I think we█ll get more.

What you think?

Yeah.

Look at that one right there Eli.

That's a big one.

You want to go after that one or look around... lets make our way over there and kind of hunt while we go.

What do you think?

Yeah.

Oh, here's a big one.

Okay, we got a big one.

Oh, got him.

I think you got it.

You did get him.

That█s a great job.

That was a good shot, Eli.

It'll be some good eating.

Here's one, good one.

You missed him that time.

But I bet he'll circle back around, come back up on the bank.

Maybe you get another shot at him.

We got a bullfrog here, and immediately on the right, we got another bullfrog.

They're just a little bit small.

Looks like a big one there Eli, be easy.

I believe you got him.

Yes, sir.

Frog on the end of the stick.

You got him.

Thats a big old bullfrog there.

You█re getting pretty good at this.

Hold this light for me.

Take a look at what you got.

There you go.

You know what people ask me?

City slickers that don't know any difference.

They'll say, You eat frogs?

Is it green?

What color is their meat?

White.

Very white and very tasty, isn't it?

Yeah.

Here's one right here.

It█s under this limb.

You want to shoot at him?

Yeah, I'll shoot at him.

Awesome.

He'll be on the end of the arrow here in a second.

I think I got him.

I believe you smoked him.

That's a good one.

Look at those meaty frog legs.

And you actually I still get excited shooting a frog.

It doesn't matter what the game is.

You know, if you have a passion for shooting archery it doesn't matter whats your target.

It's just a lot of fun.

It is.

Well Eli frog gigging is fun isn█t it buddy?

Yep.

We'll have to do it again.

What do you think?

Yeah.

Jim, I always have a blast coming down in West Kentucky hanging out with you.

Either we're fishing or hunting or doing a combination of both.

Kind of like tonight, a little bit of fishing and hunting.

Sure.

A lot of fun.

Thank you so much for bringing Eli out with us tonight.

And we'll have to start planning our next adventure.

What do you think?

Yeah.

All right, let's do it.

Wade fishing can be an extremely effective way to catch smallmouth bass.

And if you're around Jefferson County, I can't think of a better place than the Floyds Fork.

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.

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 Clay Wilson of Morgan County with his first smallmouth bass ever at Dale Hollow Lake.

Congratulations.

Check out this big bird taken by our buddy Darren Bowen.

This bird was harvested in Butler County.

Congratulations.

Here we have Breanna Harmon, who tagged out and took this bird, and Greene County in the middle of the day.

Congratulations, Adalyn and Emma Walker went striper fishing at Lake Cumberland and caught these two beauties.

Nice fish.

Check out this beautiful muskie that was taken in Buckhorn Lake by Marcus Dedham.

This fish was 50in long.

Nice job.

Kelly Butler knows where to go to get a giant, large mouth.

That's a good farm pond.

Here she is with a nice largemouth bass she caught in LaRue County.

Check out five year old Bentley Roberts from Clay County.

This is his second turkey.

Nice job.

Blake Estis went fishing in Lincoln County with his family and caught this nice 18.5in largemouth bass.

Nice job.

Here.

We have seven year old Cabella Stumbo from Knot County with their turkey that they took on the opening weekend of youth season.

Congratulations.

Archie Kraft and of Todd County took his first bird this year on the opening day of the youth turkey season.

Congrats relations.

Elise Woods went turkey hunting on the second morning of the youth turkey season and took this nice gobbler in Mason County.

Congratulations.

Hey, before you jump in a stream and wade fish, make sure you check the water conditions closely.

With spring rains they can change rapidly.

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 hope to see you in the woods or on the water.