Hello and welcome to Kentucky Afield.

I'm your host, Chad Miles.

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

And this week's adventure will be found in the mountains of eastern Kentucky for a spring turkey hunt.

Then we're going to catch up with fisheries biologist and learn a little bit about what they're doing for habitat and shoreline erosion.

But first, we're going to jump in the boat with local fishing pro John Hunter at Laurel River Lake and target Black Bass.

Well, we just launched here on this beautiful March morning.

I'm here with professional bass fishermen right here from Kentucky.

John Hunter, how are you doing today?

Man, I'm doing good.

Thanks for having me.

Excited to get out here.

I've been in to fishing obviously my whole life.

Grew up watching the show.

So it's exciting to get out here and, try and hopefully, catch some fish and make some TV.

Yeah.

You know, you and I communicate about fishing from time to time.

We have mutual friends, and, you know, I follow you on the trail and see how you're doing.

And when we started talking about doing a spring fishing show, I pretty much left it up to you said where do you want to go?

And this is where you chose, Laurel River Lake.

And I couldn't have been more excited.

A lot of people think fishing in Kentucky.

They think Dale Hollow, Lake Cumberland.

You know, Barren will get a lot of attention.

And, sometimes this beautiful mountain lake here in Laurel in eastern Kentucky gets forgotten about.

But the fact is, it has some really great fishing in it, especially this time of the year.

In the spring, the pre spawn, it can really provide some amazing opportunities out here on the water.

So normal springtime opportunities.

I'm guessing we're going to be throwing swim baits, jerk baits, crankbaits all the normal springtime stuff.

I think you nailed all the baits.

We're going to get a lot of wind today.

And I'll tell you what, any time you fish crystal clear water.

Now, we got a little bit of stain in the water today because of the rain we've had.

But anytime you're fishing these crystal clear lakes, wind is your friend, isn't it?

100%.

Yeah this is right here.

Just looking in the water.

This is a lot of color for Laurel.

This lake is typically jin gin clear.

I'm talking like swimming pool clear.

Read a note on the bottom in ten foot.

But this is, this has some color, which can be really a really, really good thing.

When you have these very clear reservoirs and when we get a little bit of color in the water combined with some wind, those fish will get a little silly and they are a little easier to trick when it is like this.

Well, I say let's get at it.

Let's do it.

I'll tell you what.

I looked at the weather.

It said it was going to be cloudy as it can be, that sun is telling me otherwise.

Hopefully, with this wind, it won█t affect us too much.

I think this one is going to bite.

First fish.

That didn't take long.

No.

Largemouth.

With the trolling motor down at the boat ramp.

Second or third cast.

Not a big one.

But you can't beat that.

You know, can't beat it, man.

Looking at the truck, fish one.

That is right.

There you go.

You got the old rod bent.

Little ones.

Spotted bass.

Okay.

You got two different species.

That's right.

Little spot.

How deep was that fish?

It was about 20ft down.

Pretty little fish.

So we're just missing one more for the trifecta.

Yeah, exactly.

So the livescope has changed the game, hasn't it?

It has.

Five years ago you probably threw 90% bait caster.

Oh yeah.

And now it's 80 or 90%.

Well with the changes that Major League Fishing has done this year to the format, where we're two thirds of our day are no scope.

I have thrown a lot more crankbaits and chatter baits and everything else this year than I have the previous 4 or 5 years.

Yeah.

There he comes.

A little better one.

What you got there?

A large mouth isn█t it?

A large mouth.

Yep.

All right.

All right.

Still no big ones yet but hey, consistent bite this morning out here.

Putting fish in the boat.

That's all that matters.

Look at this little black spot on its tail.

See that a lot at Dale Hollow too.

Little black spot here.

I've always heard it's an indication of a healthy fishery.

Yeah.

There you go.

Pretty fish.

The thing about these fish that are out here in 80ft.

No one cast it out of here ever.

Yeah, these fish were completely safe.

I mean, you're looking at casting at fish 20ft deep in 60ft of water.

Without electronics you would never would have fished for one of these fish, unless you just happened to troll.

Yep.

Here he comes.

Another little one.

Spotted bass.

Another Kentucky.

I'll tell you what those spotted bass they are a little more aggressive.

They are aggressive.

Makes them fun to go after.

It does, especially when they are on top water.

Oh, yeah.

If you guys want we can go check for greener pastures.

Whatever you want to do.

This day is young.

Oh, that's a good one.

No, that's not a big one.

He committed pretty quick, though.

That a smallie?

No, it's not, it's not.

No, but they're getting bigger.

That's a good fish.

They're getting bigger.

So you saw him over there just hanging out waiting for that bait wasn't he?

It was a couple of them there together.

Pretty fish.

They are healthy here at Laurel.

Well, John, they told us the wind was coming.

They weren't lying.

It's only going to get stronger from here on out.

It's going to change that scoping game too, isn't it?

It is.

Because it's going to be hard to have much boat control.

You want to get it just above their head, but you don't want to let it go below them because it's like a fleeing thing.

They want to chase.

Now or never.

Yep.

Oh.

Got him?

Yeah.

Heck yeah.

Large mouth.

There we go.

Came up here and smoked it pretty good.

Heck yeah.

Good fish Chad.

There we go.

Nice job man.

Right there where we thought they might be.

Yep.

Right there.

It's always nice when it works out that way.

We knew there was bait here because we kept seeing that loon diving.

Now, this fish here was shallow.

I had actually bumped the bottom with that jerk bait.

Yeah.

It looked like they're swimming around on those rocks down there.

There we go.

Looky there, an A-rig bass.

There you go.

There we go.

Good fish.

That was fun.

They hit an A-rig, like, when they decide to eat it, they eat it.

Like a freight train.

There's more of them out there.

So let's get back out there.

Well John, I tell you what.

You took the route of fishing in college, and now you're living out a lot of young Kentucky people's dream of fishing professionally.

It really is a dream.

It's my 10th year doing it full time and it's still surreal to me that I get to go out and do it.

But it's a grind, isn't it?

It is.

Fishing professionally takes a lot of time.

You got sponsors you got to keep happy.

You got a lot of time on the road, a lot of time on the water, a lot of time free fishing by yourself, a lot of hotel rooms.

It is a lot of time alone.

You know, we say full time truck driver, part time fisherman.

I mean, you put a lot of miles behind the wheel of a truck, and there's a lot of work behind the scenes.

I'm not complaining.

Like I said, living my childhood dream.

Man, it was a lot of fun.

I really appreciate you having us out.

And it is a day I want to do again.

Let's do it.

Let's do it.

Turkey hunting here in Kentucky can be very different depending on which part of the state you're hunting.

But the mountains of eastern Kentucky provide a beautiful backdrop for a spring turkey hunt.

So top of the ridge, just beyond that is where the birds roosted last night.

So we're going to try to stay kind of to this side of the crest of hill so we don't get skylined.

Find us a place to set up.

Hopefully they'll fly down off the roost.

We█ll see.

Already heard a distant gobble right there.

They're there so let's get moving because we want to try to use that hillside to our advantage right?

Absolutely.

You think the birds are within 100 yards of us.

Right?

We█re actually walking kind of a little bit past them, right?

Yeah.

To find some cover.

Yeah.

They█re right there.

All right.

Let's try to find us a good spot to get a decoy set up, maybe too.

Man they█re really hammering we can hear gobbling right over ridge here.

They flew down off the roost and they█re fired up.

Oh we got a hen to our right.

Hen to our right coming up the hill, right to the decoys.

There he is.

There's the gobbler right there.

70 yards.

Looks like we've got another turkey over in the field.

But it's about 600 yards away and it looks like a hen.

But I█ll tell you.

That's the third turkey we've seen in this field not counting the gobbler up on the top.

We've got birds talking to us, they█re close.

They just haven't closed the distance just yet.

So I was for sure that was going to happen.

Me too.

We had two gobblers right there.

We had one we could see that was almost in range and a hen luring it in.

Decoys, everything was perfect.

Then what happened?

Thought we had a slam dunk didn█t we?

Yeah, I'd actually finally I saw that gobbler crest the ridge probably 55 yards, a little bit out of range.

I thought, no need to hurry the shot, let him come on in.

So you told me there's a ridge the other side of this hill.

Yeah.

A cliff.

Yeah.

It drops off the cliff.

Hopefully those birds didn't fly off the cliff if they did, you know it may be tomorrow before they work their way back up here.

Hopefully they're still up here on top.

I think we ease around here in the woods real easy and just kind of take our time.

We█ll try to make a move and just be as easy as we can because those birds might be right here.

Yeah.

These three long beards had a couple of hens in front of them and they followed them around but they stopped and locked up and started strutting to our calling, now I believe they've lost their hens so they're really locked up now.

They don't know which direction to go.

They're coming closer.

I need to turn them to the right.

They were barely in range there for a second.

Didn't get a shot.

They were two or three beside each other right there.

Well, Chris, we have had an awesome first day of turkey hunting.

We just didn't close the deal.

But I am already looking forward to tomorrow morning.

Where was that from?

Was that behind that trailer?

That bird gobbled all the way over across the road, like 400 yards.

Holy cow.

They're coming across the yard.

Are you kidding me?

Them birds are going to come over here.

You heard why the chicken crossed the road?

We're about ready to find out why this turkey crossed the road.

This is comical he just come across the road.

This is epic He squeezed through that wove wire fence, He's already on the other side running at us.

Oh, man I hope they don't get in this brush.

Just barely out of range.

And they're getting around behind us.

He is right on the other side of this bush.

I will tell you what Chris, our first two days of turkey hunting here in Menifee county has not disappointed.

No.

I've never seen a turkey come as far as we had one come today.

And it made its way up the hill and it just happened to circle us and we never can get it to where we both have a bird in sights at the same time.

But their luck has to run out at some point in time and our luck has to get better.

I agree.

Let's get a good night's rest and get out here and get back at it in the morning.

Well we're out here on our third morning, we went ahead and put two hen decoys out and we've got I don't know how many birds sounds like about four birds that are gobbling right over this little ridge in the trees.

If they fly out and see these decoys and start making their way to us this could be really good.

The birds are down off the roost right now, They sound close.

I think they're coming high.

There they are.

They're they are.

Coming up top.

Yeah.

Yeah I see them.

Chris, you got him?

Take him if you get a shot.

I can shoot him right now.

I think I got that one.

Well Chris, buddy, we got it done.

And I'll tell you, this was one of the most incredible turkey hunts I█ve ever been on.

Because I saw turkeys do things I've never seen to do before.

I've never seen them fly a road and travel 600 yards, run up the hill.

Yeah.

We had situations where we were trying to get doubles and just couldn't get it done.

And today these birds circled us as well.

Yep.

Soon as you shot I saw the bird I'm looking at jump up in the air and it comes up over the hill a little ways and stopped and turned around.

I'm like, okay, it's now or never.

Now or never.

You know what, going out with a good friend like yourself that we've had a lot of fun and get to come out and experience these last three days.

Turkey hunting and it all end by getting two mature gobblers.

What a blessing.

What a blessing.

It█s been a great hunt.

Have you ever been out on the lake and seen a giant concrete ball and wondered, “What is that?” Well, we're about to find out.

We're down here at Nolin Lake.

I'm here with Jeremy Shiflett.

Jeremy this is called a reef ball, right?

What is the benefits of a reef ball?

Well, reef balls got their start initially out in the marine environment, and they were using them to protect and enhance coral reefs.

And we kind of saw that the work that they were doing there and we saw it, its application in the freshwater system and thought that they would make some good fish habitat.

They're a very versatile structure.

And actually, the thing that stands out the most of us is that they're going to last forever.

Yeah.

You know, a lot of all of our reservoirs, the habitat is degrading as they age.

And so we're constantly out here refreshing everything.

So trying to be more efficient with our time and our effort and resources, looking for materials that are going to last a long time.

So you guys are actually building those yourself, these things in three different sizes, right?

Yes, sir.

generally it's a, it's a three piece fiberglass mold that then has tethers or bladders or, that are affixed to the inside of the mold so that once you pour concrete in it, it creates these voids once you pour that.

Okay.

And then we spray the inside of the mold with sugar water when we pull that mold off, it allows us rinse it off and get some of this aggregate coarse texture on there.

other wise It's going to stay smooth, just finish concrete.

But we do that to allow that texture for, for the for the para fight, the algae, the insects, all that stuff too, to adhere and stick.

So once we have all our bladders set at the right, pressure, then we bring the concrete truck in and just have them start dumping a pretty flowable mix because we got to get it down in, around all the bladder.

So once it starts flowing down in as the mold starts filling up, we're just tapping with a rubber mallet.

We're tapping around just to make sure the concrete settles fills all the voids, So what we have to do when we're done is we bring a forklift tela skid or something to come in and just ease up, lift that up.

And because the the screw caps out of it, it pushes the air out as it eases it up.

wow, and then we can rinse them off, move them.

And then what we normally do is because we've got all that stuff out, we just set them back up and try to do multiple pores while we have everything out.

Okay.

The Corps of Engineers has been because they've been the main partner in all this.

they're, they've allowed us to use their maintenance facility up there to have all our materials to set up to pour.

because you do need.

So you can't just do it anywhere.

You do need power.

You need some electric, you need water.

You need air for the bladders.

So it's a process.

But by us having this mold system, we can pour them for about a quarter of the cost of buying them.

wow.

And you pour them close to the location where they're going.

You poured them right here at the Army Corps of Engineers site at Nolin.

So they don't have to be transpo very far from that point, some of these are different depths in the water because this is a lake that's managed by the Army Corps of Engineers.

It comes up and down fluctuates.

So the fish also fluctuate on what depth they want to be at.

So you guys take that into account and you look for contour lines that allow you to space these out at different depths, right?

Yeah.

So instead of instead of putting everything at one one constant down, say, six or eight feet all the way across the reservoir, knowing that the water goes up and down and that water quality changes and thermocline changes throughout the year, we've kind of taken that approach to where we kind of stagger them perpendicular to shore at different depths to allow those fish to kind of stay on site and just move up and down in the water column and not have to completely vacate and go to find another structure somewhere else.

So the Army Corps of Engineers, obviously, They want good fish habitat, but they have a bigger concern with what these things can help out with.

Which is what?

Yeah.

Shoreline stabilization.

Shoreline erosion is a big problem.

These lakes, again, with the drawdown and then with the recreational and angling boat traffic, you know, the shoreline takes a beating.

And so we started a research project with them where we're using some of these the big ones and some of the next size down to put them near shore to help as a wave break, to help protect those shorelines, help them naturally heal.

But then also they're in a couple of feet of water.

So they're going to provide fish habitat as well.

So if you see these and you see them in an area and you're like, well, man, they didn't get them deep enough.

They're there for a purpose.

If you look above where you see them in the water, you usually see some spots where you see a lot of erosion and you're trying to limit that.

So the Army Corps of Engineers is trying to protect the shoreline, but also allowing us to put these in areas where it will definitely have a positive impact on fisheries.

Absolutely.

We've we've had people get on Facebook, you know, a day after putting them out, saying, I don't know what these are, but I just caught some fish here.

So they definitely work just about like anything we do, it definitely works, but they work quickly and they're going to be there for the to stand the test of time.

So it's a really, really cool project.

And I, I, I'm glad to see it right here.

Especially, you know, Nolin, is one of my home lakes.

so glad to see them going in here.

We're expanding statewide.

Yeah, there are some in rough, in Nolin, and in Cave Run.

Okay.

And we have plans to expand.

if you see one of these big alien looking things, it's a fish habitat and a shoreline stabilization tool.

And it's a project we're going to monitor for a little while and see what the benefits are.

And very thankful to have the Army Corps of Engineers on board.

Absolutely.

To help us out with this.

Well, thank you so much.

I appreciate that you gave it out.

Appreciate your 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.

Trip Townsley submitted this photo with all four family members getting a bird on the opening morning in Campbell County.

What a beautiful day.

Here's a picture of my 75 year old Uncle Steve with his turkey that he took on the opening weekend of Turkey season.

Nice job.

Check out this picture of Matt Hoag, A.J.

mayor, and Nolan Martin from Pendleton County.

They took these three birds on two set ups on the opening morning.

Wow.

What a day.

Check out this successful fishing trip by Evan Scott and Ryan Brown.

They caught a mixed bag while fishing at Lake Barkley.

Nice job.

There is one week to go in our spring turkey season.

Hopefully you get a chance to get out and punch your tag.

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.