This week on Kentucky Afield.

We we're taking a look back at the year that was, and are bringing you a few of our favorite segments from along the way.

Best of 2023.

Part one, is coming up 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.

2023 provided us many great outdoor opportunities.

One of my favorite was a trip to Western Kentucky with a young man who loves the outdoors named Eli Doom.

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 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.

As many of our winter hunting seasons come to a close and before spring, fishing really picks up, there's a really fun opportunity that's often overlooked, and that's crow hunting.

Tell you what, super early in the morning on a cold February morning out here in Laurel County.

What in the world are we doing today?

Well, we're out here crow hunting this morning.

We'll see if we can get us a few crows.

What a lot of people don't realize is that when you got big numbers of crows, crows can be very destructive.

You guys know what they call a group of crows, right?

A mob?

A mob, I've heard that.

You know what the other name for it is right?

Its a murder.

A murder of crows.

There's a reason why they call them a murder of crows and that's because, man, wherever they go, there's a bunch of damage that sometimes follows so.

They're coming in.

I tell you what, I think we're going to get some shots today.

There█s number one.

Got one down.

There you go.

Nice.

Nice.

Got him.

i mean it's the 4th of July up here.

Nice.

Oh, good shot.

Nice shot.

Well, I'll tell you what.

This is an absolute blast.

You get out, get started early, scout your location, put you some decoys out, put your call out.

Bring a mouth call.

Literally went and cut some bamboo.

Yeah.

Some of these decoys are homemade foam that you just wrapped up and painted.

You don't need a big high dollar Fox Pro like we have here.

Mouth calls, turkey locator calls works just as good as anything.

You█ve seen today, like they've been working just fine.

Oh, yeah.

You can't tell on you or myself but hearing protection is obviously a good idea.

Jason's got his hearing protection on out there too, so.

Yeah.

You█re going to be shooting a whole lot.

If you think, Well, you're coming out here and shooting all these birds, there's not a real good reason for it.

There is a good reason.

They need to be managed, and- you're over here wearing them out!

And you go out and you see these groups of birds, thousands and thousands of birds that can be rough on farmers.

Oh, i█d say we got one happy soybean farmer out here today.

Oh, yeah.

They can be rough on other animal species.

And you know what?

This is a great wing shooting opportunity, that's for sure.

It█s something, like I said earlier, deer season stops middle of January.

They don't start shedding until the end of February.

It's just something to keep you busy during trapping season.

It's a blast from daylight to dark.

I mean, it's just if you find the right fly away, you do your homework, you scout.

It's just a guaranteed.

It's all-day action.

Right here, guys.

Good shot.

There he goes.

He's coming in the blind with you.

Well, you fellas told me that this is about the most fun you can have in the off season with a shotgun.

You're not joking.

If you want to shoot a lot, crows is the way to go isn█t it?

It█s the way to go.

It█s the cheapest, funnest thing you can possibly do while taking care of a, you know, a nest predator like these are.

And like we talked before, again, they destroy a lot of crop and it's just aggravating all around, especially when you find a big roost like these.

There's a whole lot of things that we do to help manage and maintain nuisance or predatory species, right?

Honestly, you don't have to have a lot.

Like, we've got homemade everything.

Only expensive thing we have is the call.

Well, I tell you what.

Thank you guys for having me down.

It was definitely a learning experience.

Here on Kentucky Afield, I've been fortunate enough to catch about every species of fish on a rod and reel, with the exception of one, and that is the lake sturgeon.

I almost feel like we're waiting for the moose to say park closed.

Usually there are a lot of people fishing in this area, isn't there?

Well, the flows have been up a little bit today, so it'll pick up once the flows go down later.

Well, I'll tell you what, what we've got our pick.

I think that the closer we can get down there to where the wall starts going up, where we've got some eddies is probably best.

Absolutely.

This is new to me because I will tell you that we are going to put some nightcrawlers out on some bottom rigs.

And today I'm kind of targeting whatever will bite.

If I do catch a sturgeon today, I will say it will be the very first one I've ever caught on a rod and reel.

You know what, it█s pretty cool We've got some biologists with us here that work on the Sturgeon project.

If we do catch one, maybe you guys can kind of show us what we're looking at and how to handle one.

Let's give it a shot.

All right.

Here we go.

What have we got here?

Oh, my gosh.

Look at that trout.

Oh, what, how did you get that that fast?

Now, now I got to make my way down here with him.

That█s why I wore rubber boots right here.

Nice fish.

All right, let me get my hands wet before I, before I grab him.

Oh, we got us a trout.

Probably in the 4lb range.

Something like that you think?

Yeah.

Something like that?

Caught it on the swim bait right there on that wall.

He broke that hook.

Look at that.

I would like to have seen that fish a little more, but he was heavy enough and flopping around that, I didn't drop the bait, he literally snapped the barb of that hook right off.

Swim bait for the win.

I was going to put it right back in anyway.

But he kept a souvenir.

That's right.

Just the very end of my hook come right off there, broke him.

Let's see who's next.

Let's try it, try it again.

Hey, rip that down through there and see if you can hook one up.

I will.

All right.

I'm going to go get another hook.

Fish on.

You changed up lures, put a little green on there, didn█t take you long.

I did.

I did.

Alright, that is not a trout.

That is not a trout.

Too bad we're not catfishing, we█d have the ultimate bait now wouldn█t we?

I know, wouldn█t we.

This is a very oily kind of fish that really puts out great scent for catfish.

Skipjack, right?

Yeah.

But it's got this beautiful color.

That's a pretty good size one, too.

Like I said, if we were coming out here for bait, we would be high fiving, we would be ready.

This guy gets to go free today.

He got lucky.

He's not bait today.

Nice.

Nice and oily.

Well congrats!

Thank you.

So there are a lot of special places to fish here in the state of Kentucky.

But this has to be one of the most iconic.

We're here at the Wolf Creek Dam.

But actually, I'm out here with a couple other fisheries biologists and the ichthyologist They've been on this river for years studying all kinds of fish.

And right now what they're really paying attention to is the sturgeon.

This is one of the first spots that we stocked sturgeon.

So we've got a couple of rod and reels out here, taking a chance on catching a sturgeon.

But you don't come down here and just watch a rod reel in the water.

It's hard to not bring a pole and make some cast while you're here.

We may have a bite.

Got a little bit of a bounce going there on that top rod.

See what we got going on here.

I don't know if we got something on here or not, but there█s only one way to find out.

It's a fish.

We█ve got a fish on.

No idea what this is.

Just a nightcrawler out on the bottom.

Literally could be about anything.

It's a pretty good size fish.

I can see it.

It's a sturgeon.

Are you serious?

We got a sturgeon.

Look at this.

Look at that, baby.

What are the chances we come fishing with a couple of.

Of our biologists who happen to work on the Sturgeon project.

Oh, yeah.

And we hook a sturgeon.

Let's walk him over into this little shallow area.

All right.

We determine age class by a marking technique which involves removing two of these scoots.

On the lateral side, we alternate left to right.

And in this case, it looks like this has had scoots removed.

That means it is one of our hatchery reared fish.

There's one, two.

It looks like scoots left side three and four, which means this is probably at least a four year old fish.

And without going back to our database and checking.

I couldn't be more precise than that.

Now there is no legal harvest or take of these fish at this point in time.

Anything caught on rod and reel must be released.

Released, yeah.

And we asked to try to get them back into the water as quickly as possible after being caught.

You've been working on this project for quite some time.

Now, do you guys want to be notified every single time one of these are caught at this point in time?

Yeah.

And we probably prefer email with an attached photo.

It's easy to take a couple of pics and email us the pictures and your location, the date of capture, and that really helps us with our monitoring efforts.

It helps us track not only, you know, survival but their movements, their growth.

I'll tell you what, this has always been a place that I really enjoy coming, and now that sturgeon are being caught up here.

And we have a good enough population of sturgeon It's become more common to stumble upon catching one of these.

First one for me.

We were up here throwing swim baits catching other species of fish and lo and behold, look up, had a rod tip bouncing a little bit, had six ounces of weight on it.

So I just happened to have the the sturgeon biologist and ichthyologist with me.

They█re down there now taking all their measurements.

Obviously if I was not here with them, this fish would have been immediately pictured and released.

They're going through and doing a video right now about safe capture and release of these Sturgeon, because you literally want to get this fish, keep it in water as much as you can, get a little bit of data, really good pictures of both left and right side and get it out and get it released.

And I hope that's about what they're getting ready to do, is release this fish.

There he goes.

One of the reasons they're in decline and we're trying to restore them is because their habitat has been fragmented by dams.

Yeah, they're adapted to free flowing, long stretches of river.

The dams have basically interrupted their natural migratory behavior.

Right now, the department's official stance on this is we're not trying to discourage catching them.

We just want you to handle them properly and immediately release them, correct?

Right.

Yes.

Yes.

That's what we ask.

It takes lake sturgeon over 20 years to reach reproductive maturity.

And the goal of our restoration project is to have a self-sustaining population, meaning that they're going to reproduce in the wild, they're going to spawn in the river.

We're still not to that point where we're starting to document natural reproduction.

Until then, we just have to be good stewards.

Yes.

Yeah.

I hope you guys had a good time doing it today.

I got to learn a little bit.

We had a good time.

Hopefully people understand that is an opportunity to come back and catch these sturgeon.

Hopefully they learn a little bit about how to handle them and safely get these fish back out there so that we can enjoy them for many years to come.

Many generations to come.

And many generations.

Yes.

Thank you, guys.

If someone asks you to go in the middle of the night in frigid cold waters and gig for rough fish, you may hesitate.

But I can tell you after trying it, it's a blast.

We're here in Madison County today, and I'm here with fish biologist Scott Barrett.

Scott, you've been telling me about an old tradition that old timers used to do a lot.

And I know you to as a kid as well, and that is gigging for fish.

Yeah, you know, a lot of people gig for frogs, right?

But gigging for fish is a little is a little different.

It's at night.

So we're going to be wearing waders, are going to be out in the stream.

We're going to have lights out, maybe some lanterns and a fish gig, which is a little different than a frog gig.

Tell me what a fish gig is.

What makes a good one?

You know, you think of a frog just like a like a beefier frog gig.

You want something that's a that's a little more robust.

I have a couple that were hammy down.

One of mine was my grandpa's things.

80 years old, and I still use it today.

And that you want something robust.

You hear a lot of rocks and unlike frogs.

You know, you're kind of poking them in a mud bank.

These guys are in a rock bottom stream, and you're having to put quite a bit of force.

I brought a lantern and a flashlight.

I don't know what's going to work best.

You tell me what I need.

We get down there and that's all we'll use.

Well, let's go.

Let's do it.

Let's go.

You know, I've always been all those people that don't like to get into cold water real slow.

I like to just go all out on this.

Definitely.

It's definitely cool.

I'm glad we decided to our waders.

Here's one.

Got em█.

A gar.

Yeah I think you got him.

There you go.

Kind of hold him up like gravity help you out and there you go.

So this is a long nosed gar right here, right?

Yep.

We're after a rough fish trying to can some fish.

Yeah.

Have you ever came one of these?

I've not canned one.

But it may be a good candidate to try.

Are you willing to give it a try?

Absolutely.

Well, if that's the case, I'll put it on the string and we'll see what we got.

Absolutely.

Here's you a gar Chad.

See him turning toward you.

Coming right at you.

Here, You hold this lantern, you got here.

Yeah.

You got him.

Well, good eye Scott.

Because I didn't need to see that.

Well, looks like we're going to be having gar croquettes.

That's.

That's what it's looking like.

That's what a lot of these fish that we were kind of looking at, hoping to see the real sweet or milder tasting fish.

They're up here to spawn.

Yeah.

And even though it's cold out in the water, which is pretty cold, the water has already been warm enough.

They've kind of moved up.

So we're just catching the last couple lingering fish.

So hopefully we hit a pocket and see some more.

Otherwise, we're going to have to make do with the gar tonight.

That's what it's looking like.

Yeah.

Got him.

There we go.

Well, we'll have a mess before you know it.

A mess of something.

Now he's got a minnow in his mouth.

Yep.

Got him.

He's now got a gig in him too.

Well, shad.

He had a Shad in his mouth.

boy, they're all about the same size ain█t they?

Watch yourself Chad, this hole is filled with them.

there might be one.

Just swim right up to you.

Oh, there we go.

Gar hole.

I won't be long.

We brought him to the Gar hole.

There's one right there.

Got one here.

One right in front of you.

Yeah, two of them, miss coming back at you.

See him right here.

There you go.

Yeah, Kind of in one.

Right here, right now.

Oh, You got that one.

We got him.

Here we go.

Got it.

Here comes another one.

Now.

You got him good.

Yes, you did.

Heard that crunch.

It█s unreal how hard they are boney They are.

We have found the honey hole for the gar.

If we can just find some suckers or some catfish like this.

boy, we'd be on to something.

Well, you guys want to go up and about a hundred yards, maybe go back and see if We can't pick those up.

We can do that.

We got to go back that way anyway, so.

All right.

From all of us here at Kentucky Afield, we'd love to wish you a merry Christmas and a happy holiday.

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.