This week on Kentucky Afield.

We've got back to back bass fishing champions in the state.

So we're hitting the water with Muhlenberg County.

Then we'll join bear biologists in the hills of eastern Kentucky and see what a day in their shoes can look like.

It's all next on Kentucky Aield.

Hello and welcome to Kentucky Afield.

I'm your host, Chad Miles.

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

People often ask, how is the bass fishing at Kentucky like looking?

Well, recently I jumped in the boat with a couple of state champions from Muhlenberg County, and they showed me that the bass fishing at Kentucky Lake is looking strong.

You guys have got a dynasty in your winnings and we're here again.

2024 Muhlenberg County High School state champions.

It doesn't come easy.

The whole team, the whole community comes together again.

It was just an amazing year, it really was.

And I just want to thank God we couldn't be here if it wasn't for him.

You know, it takes a lot.

And we've talked about it with you guys for years, but it also takes dedication from the student body as well.

And you got two young gentleman here that put a lot of time, effort and energy kept their focus.

There he is.

Got one.

Yeah.

Right here behind we got a fish on.

Good one too.

Oh big█n.

It aint that big.

It█s a good one Though.

that's a keeper.

That's right.

That's what you want right there.

There you go.

We got one over here too.

That's a small mouth.

Lookie there.

I don't know if I can flip it on the spinning rod or not.

Here.

Bring it over here I got it.

I don█t want him to get any weight on that line.

Open your mouth there.

We'll just grab him.

You guys are throwing them in the boat two at a time.

Both large mouth and a small mouth.

Who can catch a spot?

Fishing is so much about confidence and patience.

It all has to kind of come together with a game plan.

They made it happen.

How many pounds it take them to win this year?

So they actually broke the state record this year.

They had 40 pounds and one ounce.

So that 40 pounds is is literally ten fish right?

Yes.

So they had a 4 pound average.

Yes they did.

That's a that's pretty good.

Yeah.

Yes yes yes.

Yeah yeah that's a pig.

yes.

Yes I knew he was big.

These boys right here, they, they put in the hard work all the years that they've been fishing.

Isaiah's been doing it for four years.

and Spencer doing it for two years.

And I mean, they've put in the time and effort.

It shows.

These boys showed that the first day they caught over 30 keepers both days and never lost one fish.

Wow.

Everybody's got the story about the couple Fish that got away or we lost one of the boat that would have won it.

And that's true.

That happens a lot.

But fishing clean is what people call it in the fishing world.

And fishing clean means, you know, when you hook a fish, you get that fish in the boat, you don't lose it.

Fishing clean a lot of times it's the difference between winning and losing.

That's exactly right.

The first day we we got on a school there in the last little bit and, there was a small mouth about a 4.5 pound small mouth jumped up in the boat, and it come off in the boat.

I threw the net on top of it.

And it was a pretty amazing just a sequence of events that just happened so quick.

And, again, to be able to show that they didn't lose a fish is just a really incredible tournament and incredible experience.

one of the funnest state championship I've been.

Uh oh, we got one on here.

These fish are aggressive when they hit and miss.

And did you see that?

well, we just talked about fishing clean.

Today we're not tournament fishing so that doesn't matter.

They don't have to worry about it.

Today is just for fun.

You got another fish on?

Oh it's a good one.

Spencer.

He's on them.

It's a good one.

That's a good fish right there.

Look how thick that fish is across the back.

It's nice and nice and healthy.

You guys are going to end up with 20 pounds before we even stand up here.

Just throw right out this way right here.

So, Spencer, so you've been fishing now for two years for Muhlenberg County, right?

Yes, sir.

What brought you into bass fishing?

My dad had fished all of his life and I really just wanted to fish again.

It's been a long time.

Now he's got a fish.

Oh he's got a fish on.

Oh, that's a big one.

That is a good one.

There you go.

Nice job.

Thought you said the fishing has been slow.

You█re a senior or just graduated, right?

Yes, sir.

And you planning on fishing in college?

Yes, sir, I am.

All right.

So I understand you only were on the, Muhlenberg County fishing team for two years.

what made you decide to come over and start fishing for your high school?

Well, I kind of had an idea that I wanted to fish.

Yeah.

Whenever I was a freshman.

Yeah, but at the time, I was playing other sports.

And then my dad finally encouraged me.

He's been fishing all of his life.

He encouraged me to join the team, and I really enjoyed it my first year.

So I came back again and it was just a great experience.

Yeah.

Now you're a state champion.

Yeah.

And you're going to college and you're going to fish.

Yeah.

What are you going to major in in college?

Engineering physics.

Engineering physics.

Well, you must be a pretty smart guy, too.

What's your favorite technique?

What's the best way you like to catch them?

I like to fish slow.

Slow.

Okay.

I█m a slow fisherman Uh oh.

Good one?

He actually saw he got hit.

There you go.

Threw your worm again.

You guys haven't caught a fish that wasn't a keeper yet I don't think.

Here we go.

Sounds like you got a good one.

He just finally said: You know what?

I think I█ll have it- Oh, right there he comes off too.

That's what you call not fishing clean.

Saw they█ll eat this little swim bait, though.

Here we go.

Another one.

That sounds like a good one.

This one's a little better than the last one.

I'm gonna try to keep him down, actually.

Get him to the boat.

You gotta love those old smallies.

Man, the population here on Kentucky Lake is just getting better and better and better isn█t it?

It's a pretty good one.

There we go.

Lookie there.

What a pretty fish all stacked out here together.

We got both large mouth and small mouth.

Probably about what two and a half pounder somewhere in that range.

Two and a quarter.

Ate that swim bait.

Got it?

He might not be that big, but he's pulling hard.

There you go.

Uh Oh.

I thought I had one.

My line was getting tight.

Let me get out your way.

Oh.

Smallmouth.

You can tell when they come out of the out of the water about two feet.

You█re like, well.

There you go.

Isaiah Smith, recent high school graduate huh?

Yes, sir.

And recent state champion, High school bass fishing.

What a cool year you've had already.

It's been amazing, that's for sure.

What do you plan on doing with fishing from here on out?

I'm not going to go fish for college or anything.

I'm going to do just some, money tournaments and stuff.

Yeah.

I'm in a series right now and stuff, so.

Okay.

Just on the weekends.

All right.

What is it about tournament fishing and especially high school tournament fishing that you really like?

I mean, it's not like most sports.

I mean, to me, it's a little bit more than fishing and stuff.

I mean, there's not many sports where you can come out and see every bit of weather, you know, see every sunrise and stuff like that.

And be, you know, in God's creation in my eyes, I mean, it's just- it's amazing.

I get to come out here and, you know, spend eight hours doing this.

Well, I'll tell you what.

You're very lucky to have a community that supports you guys like you do.

And a coach like Cody.

Yes, sir.

What do you think he's taught you the most about fishing?

I mean, the biggest thing with Cody is it was a big step up coming on his boat because he fishes fast.

And like Spencer said, you know, me and him are both slow and, Cody really gets you to get your speed down, and, you know, and it really teaches you how to make accurate casts and, you know, stay accurate with the fish, the way you line up where you cast, you know, working the bait.

I mean, he works a lot with just I mean.

You got a fish on over there?

He does, but, he helps a lot with, you know, keeping us focused and stuff too.

You sure that aint the same fish you█ve already caught six times?

It might be.

Say, It's warming up now.

Yes, it is.

Oh there█s a big█n right here, dude.

Here we go.

Here we go.

He's good.

Oh smallmouth.

Small mouth.

What the heck?

That's about a four and a half pound smallmouth isn█t it?

Look at that sucker.

Wow.

That one stopped it now.

I've never seen one jump that high.

What do you think you got, Cody?

He aint as big.

About three and a half.

About three, three and a half.

Yeah, he did come torpedoing one out of the water.

He did.

Now.

What is that?

Is that a smallie?

Oh that's a good fish right there.

Let me get the net.

Mine come off.

Here you go.

Here you go.

Oh, did you boat flip him?

Did you boat flip him?

No.

He█s right here.

Ain't as big as I thought.

Is that the same fish that jumped like that?

Yep.

It was.

It was a good fish though.

He was right there.

Throw up there, throw up there.

You guys just literally, back to back, both what You just put 7 pounds of fish in the boat?

You got another one?

Yeah.

Oh that█s a big█n.

you gotta get that net.

Oh he's barely hooked too.

He is barely hooked.

There we go.

That's another good one.

I got a fish in one hand and I netted this one.

It's pandemonium.

Here you guys got three fish that are all over 3 pounds.

There's one right here.

Big█n.

I mean, it's a big█n.

He ain't that big.

Get up there Chad.

They█re fired up.

You guys have got him.

He ain't that big.

All kinds of shook up.

You ever seen anything like it?

Get up there Chad.

Throw straight ahead.

Where are you at now?

Stright ahead, straight ahead.

Just throw straight ahead.

To the right a little bit.

I don't think it's a bass, dude.

I hope it fools you.

It feels like a catfish.

No.

Largemouth.

Good one, too.

Oh, good fish, look at that.

Oh, wow.

Wow.

That's a big█n.

dude.

That is a six pluser there.

Close to it.

What do you think?

Five and a half?

It's a five and a a half, six pounder there.

I don't know how many years i█ve been down here now, but every time I come down, I can honestly say I'm really impressed.

Congratulations on another state championship guys, and good luck with all your future endeavors.

Be it fishing or whatever else life bring you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

You guys caught some good fish today.

I tell you what, today would have been a good day for a tournament wouldn█t it?.

Absolutely.

Good luck to you.

I hope you continue to see what Coach Cody has, brought forth there at Muhlenberg County High School and come give back to the program one of these days, once you get through college, keep the legacy running.

Black bear populations in Kentucky continues to rise.

Which means that our wildlife biologists are working hard to minimize human interaction and to keep black bears wild.

I█m Tristan Curry With the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources And today, we'll be going through Harlan Letcher County answering nuisance calls, exploring the neighborhoods, finding bears engaged in nuisance activities, and whatever else we may find on a typical day.

So most of the communities in East Kentucky, a lot of them are founded on coal camps and their tight knit communities.

Most of the houses here are built close together, but, more specifically, they're built close to the woodlands, too.

So the transition from a bear into the human interface can happen very quickly.

And that's why we have a lot of interactions, especially in east Kentucky and areas like this.

So this section roadway was built, about 5 or 6 years ago.

And when they come through and expanded this road, there was a lot of disturbance to the habitat here.

And it opened up some of the grassy fields whenever they reclaimed it.

this time of year, bears are very active, and proactively seeking some food and a lot of the food in the spring in going to consist of forbes and fresh grass shoots.

There's usually a daily sighting that you can see, multiple bears along this couple mile stretch of road.

There's a bear right over there by that log.

So it looks like this bear has a full belly.

just relaxing on a log right here kind of secluded from people.

So same behaviors that we see along roadsides.

Just like, the last bear that we'd seen.

This bear is coming out onto this reclaimed property.

What grasses are left that the Autumn Olive haven█t grown into to.

they're coming out and feeding on that.

So whether it is roadside or up here, some reclaim, is just common practice of the bears This time of year, in this area.

But that looks like a family group.

Which is good, because typically bears have one year to learn everything that they need to know from their mother.

So seeing bears in their natural environment eating natural foods is good, to see that the cubs are learning those behaviors.

Another bear to the left, in the opening right there.

you can see how it's not hard to spend a couple of hours and see, 15, 20 bears, We█ve see this one flip a rock looking for insects under the rock.

There's plenty of fresh grass shoots coming up.

So, there's plenty of food available.

It just may not be as filling.

It takes a little bit more work for them to get.

So we received a call from one of our technicians here, he received a call from dispatch, that a bear had been hit by a vehicle on the highway.

And the bear was dead at the time of the incident.

So we have collected the carcass, So we're going to work up on this bear before we dispose of the carcass and get some of these measurements and data collections.

So any time that we handle a bear, whether it's a roadkill, it's something that's been harvested durning season or if it's an illegal take of an animal.

We try to get as much data as we can, and we've got a database that we collect, all this and organize all this data in.

But the main thing that we're after is, the age at time of death and the sex of the animal.

And we use these two pieces of information for a database, but we also do collect a host of other, information to go along with that.

And we'll keep records of this, for every bear that we come in contact with.

So we try to get as accurate as possible as if the bear.

So this is a deceased bear, but whether it's alive or one that's been hit it on the road like this.

We're taking measurements the same way.

As if they were still alive.

So these measurements are just morphometric features.

can compare these.

So if it's, a live capture animal, we can compare, you know, these measurements when we previously had handled that animal to see if there's any change in its body features.

The tooth we pull is usually the first upper premolar that's located behind the canine.

We'll collect these teeth through calendar year.

At the end of the year, we'll organize these teeth associated to each bear, and we'll send it to the lab.

The lab will then take these teeth, do a cross-section analysis of them, and can be able to accurately determine the age of the bear at the time of death.

to try to collect viable DNA samples from every animal that we handle.

We don't necessarily run any kind of analysis on that initially, but we do have that stored in a location.

If there's something of interest, later on that we come across, there has been some university that's done some cortisol studies on animals.

You can determine that by these DNA samples through the hair.

We always collect, the hair from the same region.

Cortisol levels can vary throughout different regions of the body with the different hair types as well.

So to keep this, data consistent, we always take it from the same region of every animal that we handle.

So, last measurement we'll take is, a weight measurement.

So we have to have a scale for that.

So we'll go ahead and place him on there.

215.

So we're out in Harlan County.

We're going through some of the neighborhoods just looking for, some bears that's engaging in this activities.

We just ran one off at a housing authority lot of times, bears like to wait until nightfall or right before nightfall, before they come to the neighborhoods like this.

We were able to haze him away from their area before he gained access to the garbage.

what we typically see in the neighborhood when a bear gets in the trash.

Most of the time, they'll drag it towards woodland.

most time it's not going to be directly on site of where it█s placed.

That way, They feel secluded.

And if people do, approach them, they have a quick escape.

when we pulled up, he immediately went back into the woods.

We can hear him over there, moving a little bit.

We'll give him a few minutes.

He's actually coming out right now.

You know, hazing bears consist of A lot of different methods.

So you've got a force continuum of things that you can start with.

And ideally as far as Residents go and.

People in these neighborhoods, they should be able to vocalize to a bear, which is the least amount of force possible.

So we can employ that method.

A lot of times that does work.

Typically nowadays we use paintball guns.

And sometimes we use some pyrotechnics.

Depends on the situation of where you're at and what's safe to use.

Considerations of what█s around the area.

And where the bear is going to go to depends on what technique we use.

Sometimes it's not possible.

If you're in a.

Populated area.

There's a lot of houses in close proximity.

A lot of times.

We█ll advance in those areas and may just get out on foot, shine light and holler at the bear.

We█ll go ahead and try to run him off and see how he reacts.

Go on, get!

On many nights through the week, We'll have some neighborhoods that don't have as many bears that's as persistent as what we have here in Harlan County.

So if we get in the areas to where we're getting, a large number of calls to where they're having some issues with bears, we'll go out and work those areas, trying to haze those bears a little bit, provide a little bit of negative reinforcement to try to get them to leave.

Go on!

Get!

Get!

That might be the same bear.

Just got to play it out because you want a bear to have an escape route, you don█t want to push them into an area that they don't want to go.

So you don't always have immediately haze them.

So we'll try.

There's a drainage up here, and it's good to be familiar with the area.

So as you see it approaching the drainage right there is tending towards wanting to go to it.

So we'll give it a route of escape before we try to run to the woodland.

So bears have been in Kentucky for over 20 years now, and over that time, we've had a lot of encounters.

We've had a lot of management decisions to make with bears.

bears have one year to learn everything that they need to know.

So that's why it's important for us to be good stewards and to be mindful of things that we have out around our dwellings.

That way, bears don't become accustomed to gaining access to human related foods.

So bears can stay wild.

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 nice crappie that was caught by Ethan Davis.

This fish was caught while fishing at Green River Lake.

Nice job.

Here we have woods Wilson, who is hooked up with his very first fish while fishing at Fins Lake.

Congratulate.

Check out this trophy.

Small mouth that was over 22in long.

Caught by Lucas Brothers.

This fish was caught on Tiger Creek with his Papa who is his net man.

Congratulations.

This is 12 year old Noah Staggs, who caught this three and a half pound largemouth while fishing at Dewey Lake.

This fish was caught on a Senko.

Here we have scarlet glass.

Who caught this bass while fishing in her grandparents farm pond in Carter County.

Nice job.

Here we have Cassidy Ogle with their very first turkey.

And this turkey was taken in Anderson County this past spring.

Nice job.

Well, here we have a familiar face for all you Kentucky field fans.

Pictured here we have Tim Farmer and Jeff Barteroff holding a couple of really nice crappie.

Nice job.

Make sure you mark your calendars for this Monday, August the 12th at 7:00 and you can join us live on Facebook, YouTube and fw.ky.gov for our 2024 question and answer show all about Kentucky Wild.

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 on the water.