This week on Kentucky Afield, there are small municipal water bodies all over the state that hold big fish.

And we're trying our luck on one of them.

Sympson Lake.

Next, May the 19th is the opener of many Kentuckians favorite season.

So we're frog gigging.

Then, It's that time of the year.

Young animals are on the landscape.

We'll see how biologists are using the opportunity to gather data.

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.

Kentucky is very lucky to have many big bodies of water to go fishing.

lakes like Kentucky lake, Lake Barkley and Lake Cumberland.

But there are also many hidden gems that may be right around the corner from you.

Good to see you, man.

Good to see you, man.

Today we're out here in Bardstown, Kentucky, on beautiful Sympson Lake.

I'm here with good friend Billy Parrish.

And, Billy, you live here in Bardstown, born and raised.

Right outside Bardstown and Bloomfield is where I grew up at.

Okay.

So this lake█s about probably 20 minutes from my house.

Yeah, I know you fished this lake some.

There are a lot of lakes, like Sympson lake, across the state of Kentucky, you know, municipal lakes or watershed lakes.

And most of them allow fishing.

And quite a few of them actually have boat ramps.

They're great opportunities to get out and spend a day on the water, aren't they?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

This lake's over 130 acres big and it offers some good fishing.

Mm hmm.

A lot of good fish in here.

I've caught two hybrid stripes over 10 pounds.

Oh, wow.

You know what I love about these type of lakes is that, you know, gas prices are high.

Everybody's schedules are busy.

Yes.

You'd always like to hop in the boat and run to Cumberland or whatever.

But if you live in a part of the state that you have one of these lakes 15, 20 miles down the road and you just completely overlook it, that pass is probably- You'll save yourself extra days on the water and gas money by just running down there and spending the day.

Well, let's go get started and see if we can't catch something.

Okay, sounds good.

Let's catch a fish.

We got something here?

Oh, a little one.

Yeah.

Well, we'll take him.

I'll tell you what, that thing thumped it, and then my lines started moving, which a lot of times indicates it could be a big fish.

This time I got fooled.

We'll take it.

There he is.

There he is.

Got him?

Yeah.

Good fish here, Chad.

Let me get the net.

Oh, yeah.

Good fish.

Where's your net?

Oh, I got it.

Right there.

We don't want to lose this one.

Oh, my gosh.

There goes my poles.

Did you get my poles?

One went, one went down.

I got them all.

You got them all?

I got them all.

I got the fish and all my poles.

Man, that's a heck of a bass.

You caught that on spinner bait?

Yeah.

You and I just said that we didn't think we had enough wind and It was too bright to be throwing spinner bait.

Well, that's a good one there.

That is a really good fish, Billy.

How many times have you driven long ways to go to a big lake and not caught a fish of this caliber?

A lot of times.

A lot of times.

A lot of times.

So, you know, like I said, sometimes you don't overlook these little spots.

You know, this just happens to be one in Bardstown.

There's a lot of little towns that have watershed lakes like this.

Mm hmm.

That's good fish, man.

You got a fish.

You got a fish.

Oh, man.

He was running with it like he was going to be somebody.

You know what?

That's the third, like the third or fourth bite I've had on this little- this little senko.

And two of them have been this little.

Here you go.

Oh, my gosh.

Yeah, I got a giant here.

Swim bait?

Oh, yeah.

Chatter bait.

I've got a- That's a good one.

Oh, don't come off.

Oh, that is a good fish.

Oh, yeah.

That's a really good fish.

Yes, sir.

Oh, well, he.

I think they're out here suspended a little bit.

Might have already spawned out.

You know that- He's healthy, isn█t he?

That█s a good fish right there.

That's a that's another solid four pounder.

Yeah, I'm going to guess three twelve.

What do you think?

Three pounds, six ounces.

Yeah.

Still good solid fish, isn█t it?

That is a good fish.

Got him?

Yeah, he's not very big, but I got him.

Decent fish.

Another fish right off the wood right there on the old senko.

I've got those little fish dialed in.

You got those big ones dialed in.

Hey, I'll sit out here and do this all day, though.

This is a lot of fun.

My fish need some food to eat, you know?

There's one.

There█s a good fish.

Yeah.

Oh my- it's a good fish.

That's a real good fish.

Yeah.

Get the net on this one.

This is a six pounder here.

Oh, my Gosh.

Look at that one.

That's a great fish.

And he hit it like it was a blue gill peck.

You said you just got pecked.

I barely got pecked.

What do you think that one weighs.

I say four pounds again.

Yeah.

Yeah, a little more.

I mean, that ones a little more than the last one.

Probably right at four pounds, last one was three pounds and what?

You want to weigh this?

Yeah.

We'll see what he weighs.

I do have my scale trained so it knows if it's my fish or your fish, it weighs in two totally different.

I wouldn't doubt that.

4.0.

Pretty good.

Yeah, pretty good.

Pretty good guess wasn█t it?

Pretty good fish right there.

That█s a nice one, man.

On a lizard.

On a lizard.

You got a fish?

I got a fish on a crank bait.

What do you know about that?

Ah, you got a good one.

Yeah, you got a good one.

Probably a three pounder or so.

That's a good, healthy fish.

You know what?

Sun is up.

Day is about to come to an end.

I understand why you come here so much.

Right.

It's an opportunity to go out and have a chance to catch a big fish and take advantage of what█s close by.

Right.

This has been great, man.

I appreciate it.

I've had a great time, like always.

Let's get this one back.

May is a great month to hit the water here in Kentucky.

That's the month that the Bluegill start to bite.

And it's also the month that frog gigging season comes in.

We're here in Woodford County tonight and it is July.

It's hot.

And tonight we are after what?

Bullfrogs.

Bullfrogs.

You know, Travis, you called up a couple of weeks ago and you were actually college roommate with one of our videographers, Jamison Standard and said hey Jameson, do you guys ever like the frog?

Jamison█s like man, this is one of Chad█s favorite things in the world.

And you said, I got a honey hole.

Yeah, this is one of our best spots.

We scouted it for a couple of days.

I think it's going to be a productive evening.

So how long have you guys been chasing frogs?

I've been chasing frogs since I was 16, 17 years old.

Oh, yeah.

It's something I really enjoy.

You can do it.

There's a there's a lull between turkey season and dove season.

And this is a perfect way to fill that lull.

So the goal is going to be let it get dark and try to fill a skillet full of frog legs.

Yeah, I'll tell you, it's one of my favorite things to eat and one of my favorite things to do is get out this time of year.

You know, there's tons of fishing opportunities, but if you want to get out and do something like this, listen, you will get out and do something like this.

You know, it gives you an opportunity.

It's kind of like hunting in a time of year where there's not a whole lot of that going on.

You can get a frog gig, you can get your pellet rifle, whatever you want to do.

Grab them by your hand if you want to.

Grab them by your hand, I mean, there's so many different ways to get them.

And frog gigging season is a long period of time.

You've got from the third Friday in May all the way till October.

What's your favorite conditions for frog gigging?

Well, you like it to be hot, You know, unfortunately, you know, a lot of us don't like to get out when it's this hot, but you get a nice warm still night, good humidity and get the bugs flying.

And that's when you really get into the frogs.

Oh, yeah.

Well I tell you what, let's get our gear together and kind of put a game plan and I mean, they're right here, right now.

We'll get it.

Get in there and get after them what do you think?

Yes, sir.

Let's do it.

All right, let's go.

Look at that one right there.

Let's try to make a move on that joker.

Ooh, big dude.

And there's a couple around it.

But let's move down here a little bit and we'll get him lit up when we get down on the water edge and try to get around top of him.

He jumped.

All right.

Well, that should be the first of many chances.

There's a couple right there.

We'll have to just check them for size.

That one right there is for sure.

big enough.

There█s one right there that might be big enough.

You got to start somewhere, right?

Right.

There yo go.

He█s big enough.

Chad let█s light this one up right here man.

Can you get that for out?

All right.

I believe we got a frog on the end of the stick there.

I don't know if I got him or not.

I believe you do.

Nice.

Nice little lean out there to grab that joker.

All right, I'll tell you what.

There is absolutely nothing better.

All right, Let's go up in these trees.

We're going find a bunch.

Okay.

You got to come up on the top side on these.

That's a big frog right there, guys.

Hold on don█t move.

Don█t move.

Drive it to the ground, Got him.

Wow.

That was awesome.

Where did you get him?

Barely got him back there.

You barely got him.

That's a big frog.

That's a now, that is that's 12 inch frog right there, I think.

Yeah.

He tried to jump in my pocket.

It's a good frog right there.

Now, I saw it go in and I could tell it was behind him a little bit and I saw that splash and I thought, what in the world just happened?

I guess with the trajectory, I was up on the bank a little bit.

I mean, when I launched, I was just right behind him.

Bice recovery.

This frog almost got away twice right here in front of me.

Oh, that's a good one there.

There we go.

Good deal man.

Nice.

I feel like a 16 year old kid right now.

I will tell you that.

Fun isn█t it?

It's just so it's so much fun.

There's something about it being out here.

I remember being a kid.

You're like, Oh, I'm out later than I'm supposed to be, and you're tired.

You wake up the next morning and second you wake up, head█s off the pillow, there█s a big smile on your face.

Like, That was cool.

That was fun.

Got one?

Yeah just a little small one.

We█re going to let him go.

But I tell you what, that was just showcasing another way to go out there and catch him.

Yeah, you can catch them.

There you go.

Alright.

Nice job.

Nice job Bruce.

That's a good one.

Eight foot gig is almost not enough.

When they start getting that big.

Watch out.

When they start getting that hump in their back right there.

And those disk get about the size of a dime.

You know you got a good one.

Big old frog.

I hear them back on that levy.

You know what they're doing?

They're making fun of us.

That's right.

Because we've been through there twice.

I say what we do this time, we█ll grab my pellet rifle, we█ll come up on that bank and see if we can't get down to some of these that are more difficult to get a gig in there.

Good shot.

Nice.

All right.

I got him right there.

You see him?

I see him.

Got him.

All right, Chad, He's right there.

Good shot.

Nice one.

I'll tell you what, the old pellet gun is three for three.

Guys I stepped over it, right beside the spillway here, and there's a big bullfrog sitting right up underneath the stream.

I█m going to see if I can't come over the top of him and get him this way.

I'll go down here and shine him.

If you try to get on top and see if you can get the shot down.

Nice.

Yes sir.

Look at that shot.

Look at big old white belly on that frog.

Wow.

Nice shot.

Got him.

Nice job, Got him?

Got it?

Nope.

Gone.

I thought it looked like it hit him pretty square.

Yeah.

I don't know, man.

I've missed a few myself.

So we gave it a good hour, let them settled back down.

I say we make one more trip around it.

There's a good chance we're going to be one sitting up here with a headache or a backache.

Backache.

Hold on, guys.

He's right here.

See him?

You want me shoot him again?

If you got a good shot on it go ahead.

Got him.

I'll tell you what.

This is just a lot of fun.

I really appreciate you having us out.

This has been an absolute blast.

Hey, thanks for coming out and hanging out with us.

We had a great time.

Have you ever wonder what it takes to manage an elk herd?

Well when it comes to data collection on elk calves, it starts the day they█re born.

Elk have been in Kentucky now for 23 years.

So we're transition from the restoration phase to the management phase.

Kentucky Fish and Wildlife and the University of Kentucky are involved in a collaborative effort.

What we're working on today is a calf survival project to kind of help us update some survival estimates that we need to perform every few years to make sure we're on the right track with the elk herd.

As University of Kentucky graduate student, it's been an amazing opportunity to be down here in southeastern Kentucky studying the state's elk herd.

We started this project back in January.

We identified 25 pregnant females out on various landscapes in the eastern area of the Elk Zone.

Each of those females was given a vaginal implant transmitter that tells us when a calf is born.

So today our crews going in to locate these calves.

So what we're trying to do is hone towards the cow signal.

So our caller emits a VHF signal and we can hear it through these receivers.

You can hear kind of the beeps.

Where they sound louder that's closer to where she is.

So we're trying to get a good idea of how close she is to where the birth site is, because we have a transmitter there, too.

So it sounds like they're a little bit in two different directions.

But this thing was born yesterday, so that's what I would expect.

We're just going to kind of track to her first to see if we can get eyes on her and maybe she has a calf behind her.

It sounds like she's that way.

This study is a nice follow up to previous calf studies.

The last one was done about a decade ago.

We have new technology now with these transmitters that allows us to get to the calf as soon as it's born.

A lot of things have changed over the last decade.

We have changes to the habitat.

Mining is decreased.

We have a lot of woody growth coming back in.

We have changes in the way people use the landscape and we have changes in predator compositions.

So it's really important to try to update these estimates as we go through time.

So we're keeping up with the changes that we're seeing here.

So the cow took off because we were following her signal and got louder and then all of a sudden it got really, really quiet.

So she probably took off over this hill.

So we'll track to the birth site and look around there and search for the calf.

I think she's getting close to it now.

This is a typical birth site.

Here's the transmitter that we put into the pregnant cow.

So from the birth site here, it's on a nice bench and it's pretty steep on either side.

So more than likely she's moved the calf along here somewhere.

So we're going to kind of spread out in two directions and follow the trails and see if it's off of that.

Hey, right there.

Nice job Dan.

See it right here?

See how well it█s hidden?

We█re only 15 yards from the birth site.

We'll put a blindfold on so that it calms down.

They can't see what's going on.

So they're less likely to try to run away from us or struggle during the capture process.

We'll pick it up and move it a little bit away from where it was actually hiding to do our workup procedure.

We don't really want to influence or disturb exactly where it was hiding.

So that hiding behavior is so ingrained in them that even with all these people here, and when I picked it up, it doesn't move, doesn't make a sound, it's just trying to stay still and stay alive.

So we're going to see if it's male or female.

It's a female.

So we're hoping to draw blood, kind of like when you take your dog to the vet, they draw blood and get just a standard white blood cell, red blood cell, nutritional aspect to it.

We're going to collect the hair and hopefully do some analysis on that.

So we're going to try to pull about 15 milliliters or more.

If we can get it, we'll put them in blood tubes.

This one has an anticoagulant in it.

So next thing goes on is the collar.

It's the most important thing.

This is like its own radio station.

So it has a different frequency that's specific just to this animal for as long as it█s wearing the collar.

So it's an expandable VHF caller that as their neck grows, it will grow, the loops will pop and the fabric will stretch.

It's like an elastic band and then eventually the fabric will wear through and fall off.

So ideally it will stay on for about a year.

We will take a series of body measurements and that will complement the weight.

So we'll weigh them at the end of the capture.

So this one is total body length.

So from the tip of the nose we█ll follow all the way flat to the body along the curve of the spine.

We'll go to the base of the tail.

So where the tail meets the body.

So being 105 centimeters.

So we'll do chest girth.

Next, we'll slide the tape up right under the armpits as close as we can and will cinch it tight, but not too tight.

And so that'll be 60.2 body measurements kind of help to give us better indication of are they leggier, what's their body proportions?

Measuring hoof growth.

So it's kind of the new hoof deposits since they've started to develop.

So that's one, it's going to be the incisor measurement.

So these ones have barely erupted.

So that's going to be a really small measurement.

Some of them are out a lot.

We'll take a picture of the umbilical scar that will tell us how old really this calf is and can kind of confirm the notifications that we got today.

We'll also take pictures of their hoof wear.

So if it's soft and spongy, it means they really haven't moved far, they're pretty young, and if it's harder, then they may have traveled a distance.

We're putting her in a scent-free mesh bag to get a measurement of her weight.

17.04 Once we've taken the weight, we'll put in ear tags.

And that's kind of their identification tag.

The whole capture process only takes about 15 or 20 minutes to collect all the data, and as soon as we're done, we'll take the calf right back to where its original hiding location was, pull the blindfold off and leave the area.

The cow is usually around the area.

We may see her several times during the actual workup.

She's checking on us to make sure that her calf's okay, So she'll come back in and she may nurse immediately afterwards.

So we want to get out of there as quickly as possible.

It's been a really productive spring so far and we hope it continues.

And I can't wait to see what we learn from this study.

Most folks don't understand the amount of time and work that goes into managing a particular species like this.

But we feel very fortunate to get to conduct these research projects and get out and do some enjoyable field work and take satisfaction knowing that we're managing the resource the best way that we can.

Bluegill populations are beginning to spawn, making May the perfect month to introduce someone new to fishing 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, I hope to see you in the woods or on the water.

Who else gets excited at the sound of croaking bullfrogs and seeing glowing eyes shining at the end of your spotlight?

Well grab your gig and mark your calendar for Kentucky's Bullfrog season, which is coming up soon.

Be sure you have your license and are up to speed on the rules and regulations.

For more information, visit F.W.KY.GOV, or call 1-800-858-1549.