This week on Kentucky Afield.

We█ll join biologists in the field and check out something that you certainly don't see every day.

Next, we're catfishing down on Kentucky Lake and using a pretty unique lure: Chad█s hand.

Then, we'll dive into the archives and take a look back at one of our most unique segments from the early 2000s.

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.

The habitat work and population monitoring that the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife does is not only limited to the animals that we hunt and fish for, it's sometimes useful for animals that we hardly ever even see.

Today we're here in Rowan County and I'm here with Zach Couch.

And today is a super special day.

Tell us what we're doing today.

Today we're going to go out and do a release.

It's actually the first time in Kentucky's history that we are releasing Hellbenders back into the wild.

Most outdoors people have never seen a hellbender.

What are we looking for today?

Hellbender is actually our largest species of salamander we have in the state they can be over two feet long.

They live in fairly decent sized streams and rivers.

They have to have these really big boulders that they live under.

So that's why most people haven't seen them.

They're actually hidden in plain sight underneath of some of these large boulders in a creek.

So we've spent the last four years going out surveying different streams in Kentucky, trying to see which streams actually still have populations of hellbenders.

And what we've determined is our population in Kentucky is really declining for a lot of different reasons.

So as a result of that, we've started going into the streams where we know that we can find these egg masses.

In the wild the eggs maybe have 1% chance of survival, but in a lab we can get 60, 65% survival.

So we worked with Purdue University.

We pull the egg masses out of the stream.

They raised the hellbenders for three or four years, and then we get to go back and actually restock some of these streams now that are declining.

So we had a clutch of about 500 eggs from four years ago.

We're keeping 25 of those as sort of our year one reintroduction program and years moving forward we'll have more and more that we'll release.

The rest of those animals will actually go to Indiana and they're doing the same project up there.

But the problem is they haven't found any egg masses in Indiana.

So they're using some of our Kentucky animals to repopulate some streams in Indiana at the same time as we're doing the work here.

So that's one reason why a university in Indiana is very interested in this project and working with us, because they're literally rearing these things and then bringing them back and then also seeding some of them in their state as well.

So both states are actually going to be benefiting.

That's right.

You know, the thing when you're looking at wildlife conservation is, you know, we're focused obviously on Kentucky, but these species are often in multiple states.

And if the species is declining throughout its entire range, we should do what we can, not just to better the population in Kentucky, but throughout the range of the species so that we have multiple sites to diversify where we can find this animal to hopefully keep it off of the endangered species list, which is our ultimate goal here.

They're not here yet.

They're on their way from Purdue.

We're going to be getting 25, right?

That's right.

What are we gonna be looking at, size wise?

They're probably going to be somewhere in the range of six, maybe ten inches long, something like that.

So by the time they're that size, most fish species, unless it's a muskie, probably don't have a whole lot of worries there, do they?

Right.

It's not going to be so much fish.

River otters are going to take a few of them.

The main reason that they're declining is actually we have to find good habitat not only for adults, but also for those larvae.

And the larvae really need those clean gravel streams to be able to get up in the little areas in the gravel.

And that's where they hide out until they grow to adulthood.

So, Zack, we're saying this is a release and it is a release, but it's kind of a controlled release.

It is.

What we've done is we built these soft enclosures that we█ll actually be able to put the animals in and it'll hopefully contain them on site for a few days.

And the whole idea there is, you know, these animals have been in a lab all their life.

We're putting them out here in the wild.

We don't want them to start moving around too much on day one and not being able to really figure out what they're doing and then be easy prey for any predators that move through.

So what Purdue has found in some of the work they've done in Indiana is you put them in these soft sided enclosures in the stream for a couple of days.

The hellbender starts to kind of figure out their environment, figure out their surroundings, and then we'll come back in three or four days, remove that soft enclosure, and then they can slowly distribute throughout the stream where they need to go.

So once we get the animals here on site, we've got some coolers, we'll put them in with some water to make sure that we don't stress them out any more than we have to.

They've brought red and blue buckets.

I thought they'd be black and gold buckets.

Impressive.

Right now we're headed down to the creek and then we'll slowly get the hellbenders moved down and we'll bring them out into the stream.

We've already got our soft enclosures set up in a good spot, good looking habitat.

We'll have you and whoever else we have here today as volunteers helping us take the hellbenders out of the coolers and slide them into the soft enclosure.

And just from there, it's a hands off process of letting them settle into their new environment.

We will come back here every year and monitor the site.

All the animals that we'll be receiving today have a pit tag in them.

It's the same thing as people have in their pet sometimes for the lost pet.

We have those already embedded into the Hellbender so we can go out and actually see which hellbender we catch in the wild, pull it out and be able to use a wand on it to see, okay, this is an animal that released in 2022 that was actually brood stocked from 2017.

These could be producing offspring for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years.

Yeah, that's the plan is to be able to recover this population to where and let's say ten years from now, we have the population back throughout its historic distribution in the state.

They're reproducing on their own and we can move on to conserve another species that is declining.

You know, we don't want to do this work forever.

We just want to be able to kind of head start this population.

This is considered triage.

This is just enough to keep the population going until we address some of the upstream issues with sedimentation into the stream.

We might just have to grab it and shove it in there.

Hey, this is really cool work.

I've done some cool projects with you.

You really get to do some fun things.

But a hellbender is such a unique animal.

I have spent countless hours flipping rocks and in streams and I have never seen one in the wild.

I've seen them in aquariums and I've seen them locations like that.

But so today to get out here and physically get your hands on one and turn one loose into the wild, what a treat.

This is a big day.

Anytime we can take animals from the lab and release them back into the stream to recover a population, that's a big win for us.

This is something that we couldn't have done without the membership with our Kentucky Wild program, who have actually provided financial support to go out and put our artificial nest boxes out and to do some of the work that we're doing here today.

This is a special day here in Kentucky, not only for conservationists and members of Kentucky Wild, but also our biologists.

So great work.

Thank you.

There are many different ways to catch a catfish, but one of the most unique ways, and probably the most exciting, is by just reaching in with your hands and grabbing them.

Alright, for me, I don█t like the water.

You don█t see me in too often.

So, not that i█m afraid of it I just think it█s cold.

Alright, so swim right?

Oh yeah.

We're down here on the banks of Kentucky Lake.

this is the place that I've done a lot of fishing, but the type of fishing we're doing today is brand new to me.

We're going to be jumping in the water and hopefully grabbing some big flathead catfish by hand.

Some people call it a hogging, and then some people call it tickling, and then some call it hand fishing.

But it it's all the same thing.

So I believe I believe he's sticking his foot in there and locating that hole, and he's kind of positioned himself and getting ready, getting a good good lungful of air and diving down and literally going all the way to his feet and then running his hand up in that hole.

I'm sure that people that you've told you'd like to go out noodle or hand grab catfish, they're probably like, Oh, my God, aren't you scared?

Oh, it's it's a defining characteristic.

I mean, you tell people you catfish noodle and it's one of the things they always remember about you and they always ask and yeah, I mean, that's that's one of the appeals of it.

He's been down there awhile.

Oh, there he is.

There he is.

He's got it.

Little guy.

What do you got there?

Just a little channel cat.

And you can see where they get skinned up under those rocks and things.

Oh, yeah.

That's way to get started.

You just gonna turn him loose?

Yeah turn him loose and find his way right on back down.

Maybe we can find something bigger.

I've been noodling catfish, I guess, sixteen years.

As a matter of fact, my very first assignment as an outdoor writer was to go down to Mississippi and and try to noodle a catfish and write a story about it.

Those guys were pretty intense, pretty serious about it, but I learned how to do it.

I caught a nice flat head, and I was like, Man, this is cool.

I like big catfish.

I always have.

I've always been intrigued by them.

And, you know, I grew up catching snakes and frogs and lizards and like a lot of country kids do.

And I just like being outside doing that sort of thing.

So we've been doing it about 15 years now and kind of a crew of family and buddies.

And we just we have a great time we go every summer.

Oh, yeah.

I feel him.

I feel the pad get ready.

There he is!

Kentucky actually has a season.

It opens June 1st.

It really gets going when the water temperature hits about 80 degrees.

That's when the flat heads kind of start moving up into the holes and and stays good for a few weeks there.

And honestly, by about the middle of July, we're, we're skinned up and worn out and ready to hang it up for the year.

Anyway, check his gills and make sure nothing is bleeding and it's not.

The fish is in good shape.

He's in good shape.

He got a little skin up there on the rock.

That's kinda part of it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, you can see on their back a lot of healed stuff.

Yeah.

And even his dorsal fin, he's he's wallowed that down, you know, where he's gotten up under there and dug, you know.

I tell you what flathead catfish are so cool.

Look at that mouth.

look at that big old mouth and these little bitty eyes.

They are prehistoric looking fish.

He'll find his way right back up.

Find his way right back in here.

But I guarantee you can catch him in there tomorrow.

So I want you to catch one about three times that size.

Your wife actually enjoys doing this.

She does.

My wife and my son, Anse.

We're an outdoors family.

We hunt and fish for anything that's in season.

Year round, So we we've been going out and doing this for a long time.

I wouldn't have it any other way.

So Anse is getting up here.

This is a really shallow spot, which is absolutely perfect for a first timer or a young fella like this.

Oh, yeah, he's in there.

All right, you got to get down in the water.

Belly down there you go.

Remember, get your face in the water to see my arms there in the hole.

He's been going out here with us since two years old.

You know, we've been putting him in the boat and then taking him along.

And if it's a catfish.

It might bite his hand but it's not going to hurt him.

He'll be OK.

He just came up, bit Anse's hand Did he bite your hand?

Yeah, you OK?

Michelle and I have always hunted and fished together, and we just decided when he was born, we're just going to take him with us.

And, you know, when he gets big enough to decide he doesn't want to go that's fine.

But he sure likes it.

He loves it.

Good job.

So what that feel like, buddy?

What's it feel like doing that?

I think it's pretty fun.

Did you feel the fish bite your hand?

yeah.

He bit you one time.

I know.

Did it scare you a little bit?

No?

you're not scared of anything, are you?

we release 99% of the catfish we catch doing this, and we almost always have.

And, hey, we we like to catch big catfish, too, so we have an interest in not killing them, you know, it's a misconception that noodlers are going out there and cleaning everything they catch.

They're sport Fishermen, just like everybody else.

A lot of people sink boxes for, for catfish noodling or drums just like sinking structure for crappie.

But it's, you know, it's for a single catfish.

First time I've ever tried this.

So we're here at this box and I got my feet right in the opening where I'm going to go down and stick my arm in there and try to feel around, see if there's anything in there.

what's the biggest thing you have to really watch out for.

Everybody asks about the beaver snakes and turtles.

Every time I take somebody new, that's the first thing they ask when you see turtles everywhere, you see some snakes on the bank and stuff.

But so far as a turtle backing up in the holes.

I mean, these holes that we're checking, they're they're well underwater.

They're under rocks and things.

You feel anything?

No didn't feel anything.

sweep that stick around in there, a turtle has to breathe.

And it's not a place that a turtle is going to back up into.

Do I use the hook end?

Yeah the hook end.

and so the thing that we stress, like, we always go in groups.

We never have somebody dive alone.

And I mean, the the biggest real danger is obviously drowning.

There's always a chance that you're going to get stuck underwater.

I don't feel anything.

Nobody home.

So we always have somebody right there next to us when we dive, most of the holes that we check you can you can stand up.

But there are a few that are over your head.

And those you need to you need to be particularly careful so a lot of what we check, honestly, are holes that we found in the banks under rocks.

It's taken us 15 years of looking and we look continuously every summer.

We've kind of built a circuit of areas that we check.

Some days this one will have a fish in it and that one won't, and vice versa.

But it's, it's, it's still fishing.

Getting ready to check another hole this is completely different than the last one.

It's not actually a manmade box.

It's up under the bank.

It's got some concrete in and around it.

So we'll go see what they've got.

They said this hole has been known to hold some pretty good size fish.

She already got one?

She gets real quiet.

I'll tell you what this is.

This is something that you probably wouldn't want to do by yourself for safety concerns, but it also takes some teamwork sometimes to manipulate these fish in the best way to get them out.

That's what we're seeing right here.

But if you come to the left, I got to push him back in.

Yeah.

Is he a mean little sucker momma?

He is baby, he's biting the front of my hand.

Oh, I lost one on camera.

That's a pretty good channel cat.

He was biting biting biting, His little mouth wasn't big enough for my whole hand.

Nobody home?

Nothing I feel, but I. I heard something.

Did one of you guys?

I had a stick right here it may have been raking or something.

You wanna try this one or?

Yeah, I'll double check it.

The other day, there was a fish that kind of layed over to the right, which was kind of hard to find.

This is hard to get a feel for what you're feeling for with the.

Fish?

When you go in, take that stick and turn it to the right.

OK, you hit the stick?

It's a flat head, so we'll try to locate where he's at with the stick.

Then I got to manipulate.

Yeah.

Yeah, you kind of have to manipulate him a little bit.

And you might he probably bite that stick and you might be able to just kind of pull him, and as you do, swing him out and I would have your left hand in there ready to get him.

But you'll you'll know it if he gets on that stick.

But yeah, go in there and go straight.

Right.

Straight right.

Yeah.

Oh, I heard it thump.

Yeah.

OK, we heard all that.

He's got the stick.

Oh.

Did he take it away from you?

No, I got it right there at the mouth and we didn't even have patent on that stick.

He's on that stick.

He should have him.

oh, yeah.

What do we got?

Hahaha.

I had him there for a few minutes.

I had just got him in and got my hand under there.

Oh, man.

Well, I turned him loose obviously.

Yeah we got to see him so.

Got him up out of there.

I said wait a minute what do we got here.

If we slow that video down, you'll be able to tell that I actually did have a catfish in my hand for a second.

I got it out, and you guys told me to keep it close to my body.

Well, when I went to stand up, I was trying to show it to the camera.

Yeah, and I had it out about this far away, and it just got loose.

Oh, yeah.

We all saw it, and it's on tape.

we were going to turn it loose anyway.

But that was pretty awesome.

Yeah, that's pretty cool.

Pretty cool.

You know, a 50 pound flathead is a handful.

They can torque fingers and twist wrists.

You can't just grab them by the jaw and let their tail go in open water because they're going to beat you up pretty quick.

It's so far down that the pressure builds.

Try and hold your breath when you get down there.

It takes me a little while to I just can't stay down there long enough.

You've got to respect a fish like that.

But if you hold them the right way, if you can kind of get their head up close to your body and get their tail under control, that's another reason why we dive in pairs a lot.

If we've got a big fish, there's no shame in having a buddy grab his tail.

So he doesn't beat you to death.

Got one!

Oh, my gosh.

Oh, my Gosh.

Got one.

Look at the tag on him.

Kind of for me own benefit of knowledge.

You know, we've started tagging some of the fish, you know, with a zip tie in the dorsal fin or something just to see.

And we've had fish that we've caught three weekends in a row.

Catch them, take a picture and let them go and they go right back in there.

What do you what do you think approximately poundage of this fish?

My guess would, Anse what's this fish weigh?

Um about let me look at it.

About 11 pounds.

Hey he's bigger than that.

Between that and catching a big flathead on a live bluegill that might swallow that hook so far as that individual fish this is not hurting him as much it's one of those things that you do with knowledge and respect to the resource you've got just a couple of little bitty spots on it but all in all it's in great shape.

Big ole fat belly on it.

You really can't understand the feeling of getting in there and feeling that fish strike until you actually use your hand probe.

Exactly.

We've taken a lot of new people.

That's that's part of the fun.

Like, we like to take people just almost universally.

It's not what they expect.

Yes.

It's not as scary, I guess, as people think it's going to be.

But also people are pretty surprised at how powerful those fish are.

Oh yeah.

There you go Finally, finally got him to hit.

It's amazing to me how you kind of work in groups as a family and as teams.

It's a team sport and it's more fun with a lot of people.

Out here.

It is.

What do you think about that?

Pretty fish, huh?

I like his belly.

I know.

Aren't they pretty it looks like a little male.

I think you're probably right.

Say, I'm going to keep an eye out for some of your articles and keep up with what you're doing.

And I'm sure you and I will find some more.

For sure.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think it'd be a good time.

Well, I enjoyed it, buddy.

Lot of fun.

Yeah, a lot of fun.

In celebrating Kentucky Afields 70th year on air, we're going to take a look back to see how a gentleman found a unique way to fish in the middle of the pond while sitting on the bank.

Yeah, I've got a lot of stuff.

I'm a tackle junkie.

Almost ready.

You know, there is one more thing I want to get out of here.

Off we go.

Thought I'd bring a little bit too much rather than not enough.

And I've just got to get my stuff set up here.

It shouldn't take long and this is called a seat box.

These legs here are adjustable.

You know, if you█re going to hold the pole for a while, you do need to be comfortable.

So in the seat is very good.

Got my little bait tray set up here.

This is a pole roller.

If you're going to fish the pole at any length, you got to have one of these or something like it.

And now we get the pole out here.

They all have pretty cool names like Fight Back or there's one called the Beastmaster.

It was pretty long pole.

Its total length is about 48 feet.

I was wondering when it was going to end, but... try a little bit farther out.

They should be nervous.

You know, once I got up here, I found out it was actually a gentleman using a European style fishing pole.

This is the first one I've ever seen in real life.

I've seen him on TV in years past.

We're going to try to catch a good bunch of bluegill.

This started in Europe yeah.

Well, he's maybe he's a little bit bigger than I thought he was.

He's not big, but he's not bad.

Methods like this came about because the pressure is so intense on the fish.

You have to use light line and small hooks and sensitive floats so you just wouldn't catch anything.

Main thing is, you want the bait to look natural.

It's got a huge hook in it, and it's got really thick line.

It can't act natural in the water.

That's its full length, 48 feet.

And even at this length, I can anchor it with my elbow.

Not even have to use my hands.

What I'm going to be using mostly is a float like this.

They're just very, very sensitive.

They will show bites you just wouldn█t see on a regular float.

The less float that's out of the water, the less the fish feels.

That was a bite right away.

That was a little catfish.

That's what it is.

That is bait.

Those are maggots.

Those are actual fly larva.

But you think dirty, nasty and slimy.

But they're not.

They're very clean, very dry.

I had no idea how good they were.

It's hard to lose with maggots.

I mean, they're just an awesome bait.

And fish are there.

They're going to hit it.

I had 100 bluegill and crappie in about 2 hours, and I stopped counting after 2 hours.

There's basically two things you can do when you go fishing: you can go looking for the fish or you can bring the fish in to you.

So we're going to try that.

I'll drop my bait and put some maggots out there.

And if you give them a little snack, that will stimulate them a little bit.

I think a lot of people think I'm crazy, but not necessarily because of the pole.

There's lots of reasons to think I'm crazy, but yeah.

One guy thought I was a marine biologist doing some kind of weird water testing.

When I hook the fish, obviously, he's a long way for me and I don't have a reel here.

I can't reel the fish in to me.

So what I've got to do is I've just got to push the pole behind me like this, and I just need something to rest the pole on while I'm bringing the rest of it in.

And I use the pole roll.

That's what it's made for.

And when I get to the fish at this point, I can take the pole apart.

Lift up in this.

Bring the fish in the hand.

Not bad.

It's a little small.

One question I get a lot is why I use something like this at all is control and presentation.

I mean, I can put a bait exactly where I want and I can keep it there.

If I want to fish six inches off the bottom.

I can do that.

I mean, you're fishing a long ways from the fish.

You don't disturb them.

So when I hook a fish, I'll set the hook, and the fish will pull out this elastic.

And that's how I play the fish.

And so with that, you can see here, I'll pull it apart.

There's the plastic running through there.

I just put this in the other night.

So this is brand new elastic, and it runs.

It's anchored down here in the.

In the end of the pole.

And this is what's called a number six elastic.

It's about the lightest you'd want to use.

Here in America, they go a lot lighter.

In Europe, but six is just about perfect for bluegill.

There's not a lot of these polls around, as far as I know there's three of them in Georgia and I've got two.

If you use good bait, light line, small hooks in a place like this, you can really catch a lot of fish and still have bait on.

Now let's check in and see who else has been out having fun in this week's Ones that Didn't Get away.

Check out this beautiful 25 inch walleye that was caught by Shane Taylor while fishing at Laurel River Lake.

That's a keeper.

This smile on Addison York, who█s four years old, is priceless.

This is her first ever catch while fishing on Laurel Lake.

It won't be her last.

Check out this smile on Judson Brolin.

He is seven years old, and he went frog gigging at a pond in Hardin County.

Well, it's that time of year again.

It's time for our annual Kentucky Wild question and answer show.

Please join us on Monday, July 31st at 8:00 Eastern Time to get all of your questions answered.

To watch us live, join us on Facebook, YouTube or fw.ky.gov.

And remember, hunting and fishing on private property is a privilege.

Always ask permission and thank the landowner.

Until next time I'm your host, Chad Miles, I hope to see you in the woods or on the water.