This week on Kentucky Afield... We're spending the holiday weekend on the water with conservation officers as they work to make sure everybody has fun and stays safe.

Next, we'll surprise a fan with a fishing trip on Nolin River Lake.

Then we're learning about one of the state's most interesting fish species, the lake sturgeon.

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.

On holiday weekends, When many of us Kentuckians are enjoying the outdoors.

Our game wardens are either in the woods or on the water, helping ensure everyone stay safe.

Hey man.

Howdy.

I'm Officer Abrams with Fish Wildlife.

We're at Taylorsville Lake today in Spencer County.

I'm assigned to Oldham County.

Officer Casper here is assigned to Spencer County.

This lake is one of the busiest in the state, mainly because of the proximity to Louisville.

It just draws a lot of people from, you know, our biggest metro area.

We get a lot of people out here.

Our mission is to enforce the hunting, fishing and boating laws in the state.

This time of the year, it's mainly boating.

We're out here mainly to keep people safe, make sure people go home without being hurt at the end of the day.

While we're out here doing boat patrol, it doesn't mean that we ignore 150 charges, which is hunting and fishing.

Even on boat patrol, if we see someone fishing, whether it's on the dam or from a boat, we'll go ahead and check them.

And if we have any issues there, we will address them.

Howdy, y'all catching any?

Little bitty sunfish.

Little bitty sunfish.

All right, we're going up all right here beside you real quick.

Get you checked out, be out of your hair.

Okay?

We did a safety compliance check after checking their fishing license.

Make sure they had lifejackets for everybody on the boat.

Had a fire extinguisher, sound producing device.

Last thing.

How about an air horn or a whistle?

Some sort of noise making device?

I've got a horn.

Give me a little toot.

All right, guys.

Well be careful the rest of your day.

Have a good day and hopefully you catch some fish.

Okay.

Thank you, guys.

Have a safe one.

Hey, you too.

Happy fourth.

Thank you.

Look at that dog.

Dog?

Where█s the dog?

Right over there on the swim platform.

That's a good dog.

Got to love the dogs.

Got to love them.

We don't deserve them, lord knows.

Hello.

You got a fishing license handy on you?

No that█s a Florida license.

You have a.

You need to have a Kentucky fishing license.

You don't have a Kentucky fishing license?

No.

One bluegill.

A few more and you have a pretty good sandwich.

All righty.

Awesome.

Thank you, sir.

You have a good one.

Good luck.

You guys got a couple of fishing license on you?

Yes, sir.

Awesome.

Thank you, sir.

Yes, sir.

So far, we've checked a few fishing licenses.

We notice everyone on the boat so far as being safe and having fun.

We love to see that.

You know, we're all about fun, but we make sure that you're being safe about it, too.

That's a big thing is safety out here.

So like that girl sitting on the on that pontoon, you'll see that on plane going down the lake.

And that's kind of thing we're looking for.

I mean, in the end, we're out here to make sure everybody's safe.

I don't know if he's got a spotter on the boat.

Yeah.

How are you doing?

Good, sir.

I'm Officer Abrams with Fish and Wildlife.

Alright.

The reason we█re stopping you is because we don't see you█ve got a spotter on this boat for the tubers there.

Okay.

What█s that mean?

Someone to watch the people on the tube while you're towing them.

Do you have any sort of mirrors or anything like that?

No.

Okay.

So next time I have to do that then?

I have somebody that's driving while someone's watching them?

Yeah.

Correct.

If you don't have the mirrors.

Basically one of you guys would have to come in here and watch the other one on the tube.

So that way we can do it that way.

Alright.

We have to have a spotter to be safe.

So a basic boat inspection is us just making sure you have all the required safety equipment on your boat.

A life jacket for everyone on board.

A type fourth throwable if your boat is 16 feet or over.

All boats are also required to have a fire extinguisher on board, and the fire extinguisher has to be serviceable, meaning it cannot be expired.

Okay.

Yeah, that's good.

In addition, all boats have to have a noise making device, whether it's a horn an air horn or a whistle or a bell.

So yeah, one of them is going to have to come in and and, and be your spotter.

So when someone falls off, they see it.

In the future, if you get a rear-view mirror to mount right there, you wouldn't have to do that.

Okay.

All right.

So y█all be safe.

Thanks, guys.

Yep.

Happy Fourth of July.

You too.

Be careful.

Whenever you're towing someone, whether it's tubing, skiing, anything like that, you're going to have to have someone on board with the captain.

Keeping an eye on the tuber, to keep them safe.

Make sure they can alert the captain when he falls off.

Big safety thing again.

If you don't have someone there to watch you, you need to have mirrors like Officer Casper was explaining, so you can keep an eye on the tuber.

Well, there you go.

Let's go get them.

We are.

Yeah, she's holding a kid.

Kid's got a lifejacket on, but she's holding the kid while she's up on the bass seat.

We saw a person riding in a high rise bass seat on a bass boat above idle speed.

It's an illegal, unsafe position.

Good.

I'm Officer Abrams of Fish and Wildlife.

The reason we're pulling y'all over when the boat's underway.

Like it just was.

You can't have anyone sitting up on an elevated bass seat.

Okay?

So hang tight just a second.

I got you.

I don█t want you to get your fingers pinched or fall in or nothing.

Quite often we see people riding on the bow of the boat or the stern of the boat.

The bow of the boat is going to be the front of the boat.

Stern's going to be the back.

That's a violation and is extremely unsafe.

Hypothetically, if your boat's underway and you hit a wake, you have a rider riding in one of those unprotected positions and they fall overboard.

A lot can happen real quick.

So we definitely take that very seriously.

Make sure you do one of the two.

Okay?

All the information you need is on the back.

Okay.

All right.

Be careful.

You all have a safe holiday, okay.

Hope everything goes well today.

Yes, ma'am.

Get ready to go pull this boat over.

Yep.

Stop, Stop!

Stop.

Go ahead and throw it in neutral for me.

How are you today?

Good.

How are you doing?

Good thanks.

Good.

I'm Officer Abrams, Fish and Wildlife.

Look, the reason we're pulling y'all over is because y'all are taking off under way.

And you have a rider hanging outside the protective gunwale of the boat.

Okay.

Okay?

That's a big safety thing.

Okay.

I'm sure you can imagine.

You hit a wake or something like that.

He falls overboard.

You're underway.

Yeah.

It can get real bad real quick.

Okay, Hang tight one second.

Captain, you got somebody Id on you?

When it comes to a pontoon, especially on the front of the pontoon, outside of the protective railing, if you fall off of that, you're just going in between the pontoon straight back to the motor.

And we've seen the aftermath of those types of things.

And that's why we're very serious about them.

And we stop and we write citations for that.

A little two in one action there.

Same exact reason we pulled the first boat over.

It's a really big safety thing.

If, God forbid, something happens when someone's on the outside of that protected gunwale it can get real bad real quick.

So we take those very seriously.

We've flown them out of here to UofL for that.

When they go off the front of a pontoon and get sucked in between the pontoons and takes them straight back to the motor.

We don't have a lot of idle speed areas on this lake, but we have a few.

The main one being by the marina and we get a lot of complaints from the marina about people violating that no wake zone.

So we patrol it often while we're on the lake, mainly because of the damage that it could do to the the marina and the boat's tied up in the marina.

Well, there you go.

Breaking wake pretty big there.

Batter up.

Make sure they don't switch drivers.

All right.

Talking about the no wake right there?

Yeah, that would be the exact reason why we're stopping you.

Okay?

Yeah.

I was actually talking to the baby right here when it happened.

All right.

I'm Officer Caspar Fish and Wildlife.

The reason we pulled you over was because of the wake.

Yes, sir.

Can we see a life jacket for everybody on board, please?

Life jackets are very important.

When something bad happens on the water happens really fast, and you don't have time to put on a lifejacket, basically on a vessel.

Everyone on board has to have a life jacket that they can put on.

If you're under the age of 12, that child has to be wearing the lifejacket while the boat is underway.

So the other issue is the infant doesn't have a life jacket on.

Anyone under the age of 12 has to have a life jacket on at all times.

Okay.

Well, we bought it.

We had it.

We do.

You have one that fits?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Let's see that, On a jetski any time the jetski is underway anybody riding the jetski has to be wearing a life jacket or PFD, which stands for personal flotation device.

If you're skiing and tubing, the person being towed behind the boat on the skis or the tube must be wearing a lifejacket regardless of age.

If we see a violation like that, we definitely stop them because the safety aspect of it to prevent injury or something worse and of course it is against the law.

So whenever we see it, we are going to enforce it.

All right, sir, what I did is I wrote you for the No Wake Zone and Child under 12 not wearing a PFD, okay?

I've had to work a few drownings in my career.

I've only been on a little over three years now and I have already had to work a handful of drownings.

A lot of them, if not all of them, could have been prevented with a life jacket on.

I love being a conservation officer.

It's one of those jobs that I believe I was born for.

I love to hunt, fish, I love boating.

And that's what we do.

We enforce hunting, fishing and boating.

Ever since I was a kid, I realized I wanted to do something with the outdoors.

And when I found out there was essentially a police officer for the outdoors, for people that hunt fish and boat.

I knew that's what I wanted to do.

And ever since I've been hired on, it's exactly what I thought it was going to be.

I just love to get out there and do my part to keep people safe and ensure that hunting and fishing and boating will be around for my children.

We're very lucky that Kentucky Afield has a lot of young fans that enjoy watching our show.

And one of those young fans got a surprise and was picked up and got to go fishing for the day.

Well, this morning, we're going to do something fun.

We're out here on my home lake, Nolin Lake.

And this morning I'm going to go pick up a young kid who has no idea that we're coming to get him.

He's a gentleman I met about two years ago, and he absolutely loves to fish.

He's 12 years old.

His name is Evan.

He's from central Indiana.

Super good kid.

Huge fan of Kentucky Afield.

And I just got word that he is standing on his dock hoping that the white bass come up this morning.

We've already okayed it with his parents, so we're going to pull up.

He has no idea we're coming.

I don't know what is the reaction will be.

We're going to pick him up and take him fishing for a day on Kentucky Afield, and hopefully it's a day he'll never forget.

And we'll catch plenty of fish.

You catch anything?

You seen him in the jumps yet?

Well guess what?

You want to go with me?

Your dad knows you're going today's your day man.

We're going to go out and try to catch some white bass and you're going fishing on Afield if you want to go.

You want to go?

Have you got any fish yet?

Well, let's get in the boat and run up the up the lake a long way.

See if we can locate some more fish.

We already saw the bald eagles already caught him a white bass this morning.

See if we can't go have some luck.

Hop on in.

So, Evan, how old are you now?

12.

And how long, how long you've been fishing?

Maybe eight years now.

Okay.

Yeah.

So you started really young, you know?

I know you watch a lot of the Kentucky Afield segments because you're always asking me about them.

You don't get Kentucky Afield up where you live do you?

No.

So how do you watch it?

We have a lake house down in Kentucky that we just we me and my dad get up early in the morning and we just watch the show.

Okay.

So you record them?

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

So tell me, which ones have been some of your favorite shows?

Well, I like the ones where you go and you go to, like, Green River and stuff and you go catch smallmouth bass.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, well, it's going to be a good time.

I'm seeing a couple of ones and twos jumping, but not like big groups of them.

I'll tell you what, let's cast a rod out and troll for a minute.

And while we do this, we'll just wait and see if we see him start coming up.

But I know there's fish right here.

We're going to move and see if we can't find the fish.

And we're going to be fishing while we're while we're looking.

Oh, yeah.

Here we go.

We've got a couple we're going to troll you right through those.

So get ready.

Our lures should be getting close.

Here you go.

You want real this one in?

What do you got there buddy?

Largemouth bass.

Largemouth huh?

Or a spotted.

Oh yeah, it is a largemouth bass.

Hey, that's a fun catch.

Is not exactly what we're after today, but we'll take that.

If we start catching a bunch of those, we'll move.

All right.

But we'll try it.

We'll see what happens.

I'll tell you what.

Let's turn around, troll right back through there again and see if we catch two largemouth, three largemouth, we'll go find some white bass.

He's super hot right now.

Oh, man.

That water temperature is literally 87 degrees.

It's like bath water.

It is like bath water.

Here you go.

Let's just turn, make a cast and try it again.

Here we go.

Oh it's a largemouth again.

You can reel it.

This might be a spot.

Nope, Largemouth.

Nice fish.

A little bit.

A little bit better.

Nice one.

There you go, largemouth bass out here in the jumps.

Tell you, tells you that's where all the bait is at.

Yeah.

Oh, here we go.

Here you go.

You want this one?

White bass.

White bass.

White bass.

It's another, I think it might be, it's a white bass.

White bass, white bass, white bass.

That's what we've been looking for.

Nice job, buddy.

Hey, we're out here in the middle.

I know that's where they're at.

There you go.

White bass.

Now, you caught a couple of these off your dock of the day, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, that's a good sign.

Sure is.

All right.

There you go.

Nice.

Nice job.

Thanks.

You want to turn it loose?

I know you're a really good caster on that rod and reel.

We're going to try one more spot and they may be black bass, but a spot that we may be able to get in there and let you make some cast and catch some that way.

Oh, I got one.

Uh oh, fish on?

Largemouth.

That's pretty good little fish.

Pulling.

He's pulling hard isn't he?

Yeah.

It's a spotted bass, look at that.

That's a good sized spotted bass.

Nice job, buddy.

That's a good one.

Pretty fish.

There he goes.

Well, Evan, it's only 9:00 and it is getting hot.

What do you think, you want to want to call it quits?

Yeah.

I'll tell you what.

Fish are still jumping, but it is so hot it's hard to be in the boat.

But before we go in, I want to take you back to this creek, show you something really pretty.

This is going to be cool.

So what do you think about this?

So this is a good place to come when it's really, really hot.

I know.

Feels cool doesn't it?

Lot's of shade.

lot of shade.

When we've had more rain.

There's usually a little waterfall coming off right here and I want to come here and cool off, but I don't believe we got enough enough water to do it today.

Well, I'll tell you what, that was a fun day of fishing.

It's hot out there, though.

I brought you back here.

This little spot, because it's kind of a really pretty location that's also cool in temperature and it's a good place to come have a drink and a granola bar, what do you think?

It's been a lot of fun.

You and I get to fish quite a bit together.

Today wasn't the best, but I had a great time and I really appreciate you coming out with me.

Welcome.

Thanks for having me.

It was a good time.

We'll do it again soon.

How about that?

Sounds good.

Fisheries biologists have unique ways to determine the age of a fish.

And on a reintroduced species like the lake sturgeon, when they catch one, it's pretty obvious.

So we're here at the Peter W. Pfeiffer Fish Hatchery in Frankfort, Kentucky.

We're going to be marking sturgeon today.

It's a lake sturgeon.

This is a restoration effort where we used to have lake sturgeon that existed in Kentucky.

So lake sturgeon are one of our really large, charismatic, big bodied ancient fishes.

We haven't had a lake sturgeon that was native caught in Kentucky since 1954, and it was down on the Cumberland River.

We started this restoration program due to the fact that this fish is native to our waters.

It has the range has declined due to overfishing, due to dams, due to pollution.

So just like the elk and the, peregrine falcon and the deer and the turkey, this is kind of the fisheries, restoration project.

And we have a hatchery building that almost kind of built for our, lake sturgeon.

They have recirculation tanks which allow us to chill the water to the, the temperature in which they need.

That has given us many years of 90% plus survivability, which is when we're dealing with rare fish, is that's a really good thing.

So today in the hatchery, we're taking the fish that have been reared from from the egg to this larger than fingerling size.

And we remove scoots from the side of the body.

Now these are the bony plates that line the outside on the body of the lake sturgeon.

So by removing two scoots that are side by side, that creates a gap.

And as the fish grows, that gap is preserved.

So that lets us know like this is a 2007 year fish versus a 2010 year fish versus this year's 2022 fish.

We have folks getting the fish out of the raceways into these tubs.

We use an anesthetic to temporarily knock out the fish.

So that we can do the procedure.

It doesn't harm the fish.

And once that's done, we put them in a second tub of fresh water, which is the recovery tub.

You know, the fish will come around within a minute or two, and then they go back into a separate raceway.

And those are the ones that have been completed.

And so we just cycle through this process until all of the fish have been marked, and then they'll be ready to go on the truck in coming weeks to their stocking site.

So the lake sturgeon are prehistoric fish, they're actually, ancestors to sharks and, paddlefish is another fish species in Kentucky that they're related to.

They're kind of like a cousin.

And so they're a cartilaginous fish.

So lake sturgeon are kind of the, charismatic species for the aquatic world.

We talk about the peregrine falcons, elk, deer restoration.

And this is, one of these big fish species that grow up to 150 to 200 pounds, and it's going to take a long time for them to get there.

So thinking about this fish living up to 150 years.

So you know well past probably our lifespan so well and our retirement, hopefully we'll see these guys spawning and getting some natural reproduction.

The lake sturgeon, they can live to be over 100 years old.

So they're they're a long lived fish.

They can outlive us.

Some of these fish that we stock I may never see the outcome of it in my career, but these fish hopefully will be around for a long time.

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

Ten year Adelyn caught this nice large mouth while fishing with our papa and Lily, Kentucky.

Great fish.

Here we have a good friend of the show, Jonah Hurst with this nice 18 inch bass that was caught at Green River Lake while crappie fishing.

Nice job.

Here we have five year old Waylon Burton with this nice bass that he caught in a farm pond while fishing in Owen County.

Congratulations.

Here we have 11 year old Noah Arms who caught this nice flathead catfish while fishing at Paintsville Lake.

Nice job.

Seven year old Kaden Strunk went to Dale Hollow Lake and caught these nice bass.

Congratulations.

Here we have Landon Walker with a beautiful largemouth bass that he caught while fishing in Bourbon County.

Great fish.

I hope everyone had a great 4th of July and was able to find some time to get outdoors with their families.

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.