This week on Kentucky Afield... Limb lining catfish.

Something that Chad and his good buddy Jarrod have been enjoying for 35 years.

Now it's time to pass it on to the next generation.

Next.

We're in the field with game wardens checking a public field during last year's season.

Then we'll join biologist in a stream and learn a little bit about the state's largest amphibian.

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.

As a child, I was raised on the banks of the Salt River, and going out and limb lining was one of my favorite activities.

Well, me and a good buddy of mine decided it was time to pass on that tradition to our sons.

The dog days of summer are here.

And you know what that means.

It's time to go cat fishing.

It is time to hit the Salt River.

Put out some limb lines.

Put some bank poles out and see if we can't fill the boat full of catfish.

We've got 70 years of experience doing this between the two of us.

Right.

I don't know about you.

I'm getting old.

It's time to pass this on.

This is old dragging this sane and carrying that cooler.

We've decided it's time to bring the boys.

Let them experience what was a huge part of our youth.

Sure.

And our young adulthood.

I█m with you we have to teach them a little something.

How it's done.

There's nothing better than spending the night out on the Salt River and loading the boat with catfish.

So, Leo, you've done a lot of fishing, and you've never been out setting limb lines, have you?

No.

Never.

You ever been just straight catfishing before?

No.

We've always crappie fish.

Bluegill, bass fish.

So tonight's going to be a little different for you.

Mason, I know you have some ponds close to your house to do some fishing?

Have you ever done any river style fishing?

Limb lining?

I don't think so.

Have you ever heard your dad tell stories about it?

I have, yeah.

Hey, it's meant a lot to us.

It was our getaway.

It was the way that, you know, you have a bad game.

You get sick of school, your girlfriend getting on your nerves.

We just went to the Salt River and forgot about all of it.

And that's exactly what I planned to do today.

It's going to be fun.

But first, we got to get bait.

The perfect bait is about a three inch bluegill.

If we can get that or some chubs.

Or what else do you like?

Chubs, bluegill, yeah either.

That will make for a good bait.

We'll have to check it.

We're going to get this bait right here.

And this stream runs right into the salt River.

It's really important that we get bait from the same water source so we don't move any bait unintentionally.

We also got to check bait, make sure there's no baby bass in there.

We got to make sure that they're bluegill and chubs.

But I see them underneath that bridge right there.

Let's get the sane out.

Me and your dad is going to show you guys how to do this.

And after we feel like we got a pretty good amount of bait, we're going to turn these sane sticks over and let you boys have a pass, right?

All right.

Fine.

Let's go.

Let me tell you what you want to do.

You want to get the stick out and kind of get your feet where you're blocking the fish in, and keep it at an angle about like this.

All right.

And then you got to communicate.

We'll pick up at the same time.

And then once you get it picked up you will put it together and they'll be trying to flop out and then we'll come back to the bucket.

Keep it down.

And you're bouncing it.

You don't want to pick it up because the bluegill and chubs will shoot under it.

Come my way.

Up, up, up.

One.

See that right there?

Three inch bluegill.

Perfect.

Bluegill.

Oh, yeah.

Catfish right there.

Few chubs.

Chubs.

Oh, yeah.

Ready?

Yep.

Oh, yeah.

There we go.

There we go.

Oh my gosh.

Oh, we got some catfish bait.

Look at those.

Those are suckers.

Suckers.

Nice.

You got to be real careful when you're saning.

Look at that, boys.

That's a largemouth bass.

Now, that is obviously not allowed to use that as bait.

So we got to make sure we put that one back.

That one of the biggest you've ever caught, Leo?

Look at that giant.

All right, put that bass back in.

Right here.

Oh, yeah.

There we go.

Oh, yeah.

There we go.

There we go.

More Chubs.

Chubs.

We got a bunch of craw dads I mean.

Oh, got me.

They're not bad bait if you got nothing else.

But it's not my preferred bait.

You guys have got an idea what you're doing here.

Listen, keep it at an angle and poke and poke and poke.

And if you see a rock, you got to communicate and go pick it up.

Go faster, a little faster, a little faster.

Now go toward the bank, the shore, and then pick up.

There you go.

Pick her up together.

Here you go.

Nice job, guys.

All right, I think we got enough.

We'll make our way back to the cooler.

Let's go get some limb lines tied up and get some bank poles dug in the bank.

And see if the kitty cats want to play.

All right, well, we've got our clothes changed, and now we're dry.

And we're out here putting our poles out.

We actually are going to be doing a combination of bank poles and limb lines.

So I think we've got 75.

We got four people in the boat.

So technically we can have 25 per person, but they each one have to have our fish and wildlife number on there.

So we're attaching that on the string.

And we're going to start running as fast as we can.

We're chasing darkness now.

So how fast can we get 75 poles out.

That's the question.

This here is the perfect cane pole spot.

All right.

We got a live minnow.

Leo bait.

All right.

To the next.

Oh, see that right there?

That thing don't have a chance.

I'll tell you what.

Later on tonight, we come down this river and about half of the trees are shaking.

That's when it gets really exciting.

Limb line coming up.

I need a sugary live bluegill.

Here we go.

That's an old limb shaker there.

That'll pay off tonight.

About 1:00.

Let me show you boys how it█s done.

I know if y'all been watching.

Look here, Leo, on these big ole live chubs, you could go through the tail.

Some people go through the back.

But if you'll find the sweet spot right through the eye, it don't kill them.

It keeps them lively.

And that big ole catfish, that right there█s got chomp written on it.

This is a great looking spot.

Anytime you can find fresh water running in like this, even though it's not much, it's a trickle.

We always want to make sure we have a bank pole hanging out right where that fresh water rolls.

Getting all your poles out is a lot of work.

But imagine fishing with 75 fishing poles out.

And literally that's about what this is going to be like.

Our baits not in good shape, but just the sheer number of chances we're going to have should give us a chance.

And I'll tell you what I'll never forget my very first time coming down here and taking a spotlight.

Shine on this bank and seeing 3 or 4 limbs shaking down to the water, knowing those were catfish.

I can't wait for the boys to experience that.

Well, took us a bit.

I don't know if we got it done right before dark or at dark, but we got all 75 bank poles and limb lines out, so still got some bait.

So we can run these, rebate them, and we'll probably run them three times.

Now we're going to make our trip back downstream probably a mile and a half where we started.

I got the ole spotlight.

We'll start checking them on the way back.

Just see what we have and hopefully start catching fish.

Oh, limb shaker.

There we go.

We got a limb shaker, fellas.

Come on up here, Mason.

I█ll let you dip.

Leo, you get bait ready.

All right, get that net.

Make it long.

What we got fellas.

Get him Mase.

All right, I'm going to pull this up, and you get that net underneath him.

Okay.

Ready?

Oh, he's a little one, but that's okay.

Fiddler.

Fiddler.

But it's okay.

We got a fish.

Oh, look at that.

He an eater?

He probably is.

All right.

Leo, bait.

Looky there.

First, catfish.

He ain't a big one but he a channel cat.

Where's that bucket?

Bait.

And then this goes in the cooler.

All right, give him some food.

It's looking promising.

Well, we got another limb shaker, guys.

There he is.

It's a fiddler there.

He█ll eat good.

It's about like the other one, a little fish.

Yeah, I think it's a little smaller.

Get that net under him.

All right, now we're bringing him.

Easy breezy.

That's good eating size.

That's about like if you go to a catfish dinner.

That's about what they eat.

That's about the size that they feed you.

All right.

To bait.

Thank you.

Oh, fish on, fish on.

Get the net.

Get the net.

Hold that Leo.

Ready, Mason.

A little bigger fish.

All right.

He's not moving at all.

Now that's a fish sammich.

That's a good one there.

That's about a 3 or 4 pound fish.

Ideal.

Just keep getting us a couple more of those will be good.

Oh, it's going wild.

Leo, don't let it curl your toes son.

There you go.

All right, all right, all right.

Fish on.

Looks like it.

Let's get up there.

It's fun.

First time ever.

Glad to be getting a lot of fish.

Gar pie.

Oh, long nose gar.

Later, tater.

This is fun.

This is a lot more fun than I expected.

This just shows you sometimes a little hard work is worth it.

Fish on right here.

Hop up here, Mase.

See that pole bouncing.

Go ahead and get that net underneath him.

Catfish.

He's a little one, but we got one.

It's hard to catch him when the baits up out of the water.

Yes, sir.

When you see that bait up there, that's where a fish came up and hit it, took off with it and pulled this pole down.

And then it flicked the hook and all the way up out of the water.

Got the bait, left our hook high and dry.

Fish on.

Here we go.

What do you guys think?

Gar.

Catfish.

Maybe a catfish.

Catfish.

Good sized catfish.

Flipping and flopping.

Get him Leo.

It█s too far away.

Don't pull him.

Don't pull him!

He█ll come back.

Here he comes.

Here he comes.

The thing was stuck.

Oh my gosh, dude, it's.

It's too big for the net.

Hold on.

Hold this light.

No, I'm getting him.

Hang on a second.

Let me have the net.

Oh, no.

Welcome to the show.

I'm not much of a net man, either, Leo.

They invented poles for a reason.

You're not supposed to use the net.

Oh, the big one of the night.

Oh, alright.

Let me get us back here.

That is a good size fish right there.

There it is.

This is about an 8 to 10 pound fish that's about as big as we want.

Fish on.

Come on Mase.

Catfish, little one.

Nice job.

Mason.

All right.

Oh!

Fish on, fish on.

Get a net.

All right.

There you go.

There you go.

What's up now, Mason?

That's a fish sandwich and a half.

Glad to be catching some.

I believe we got a fish on.

My favorite spot on this whole river is right there.

Yeah, this spot here has been producing catfish for 35 years.

A little bigger fish, bud get ready.

Coming up.

Nice.

There you go.

That fish have been on there for a long.

Oh.

Oh, grab it, grab it.

Nice job.

Mason you caught it twice.

In the cooler.

Nice job.

This spot right here is where we started putting poles out.

It's near water that comes in right there.

That's a guaranteed catfish.

What do you think, boys?

You had fun?

Definitely.

It was fun.

Did it bring back some memories for you?

It█s good times as always.

Always.

It's always fun.

We have said the last 3 or 4 times we've been out.

You know, this was such a part of our childhood.

It was kind of embarrassing on us that we hadn't exposed the kids to it yet.

Sure.

Great to share it with the kids.

It's great.

We've been saying we're going to do it for a long time.

Hopefully these boys are down here 35 years from now.

Setting limb lines and bank poles on Salt River.

Rules and regulations sometimes change.

So before you go out and capture your own bait, or before you hit the dove field, make sure you're up to date.

So today we're in Grant County.

We're going to be going to Curtis Gates Lloyd WMA the public dove field to check some hunters, make sure everybody is in compliance.

Shouldn't be any real big issues up here today.

Opening day of dove season.

So hopefully there's plenty of birds for people to shoot at.

We'll see what happens.

It█s important to patrol dove fields because of the sheer amount of people that can be on a public field.

They can be very crowded.

It█s always good to have eyes on a public field.

How are we doing, gentlemen?

When checking a dove field we want to make sure that everybody has a hunting license first and foremost, along with their migratory bird permit The migratory bird survey, the HIP survey is also required so we make sure everyone has that number.

which shows that they filled out the survey.

which all those numbers go into data for the department along with any federal programs for migratory birds.

So you've got the migratory bird permit, but you also have to have a hunting license.

There was one gentleman who had his migratory bird permit but had not purchased a hunting license.

He recieved a citation for hunting without a license.

Not only are we looking for compliance with regulations making sure everyone has license and permits but also we want to address saftey issues that might be out there.

Making sure people aren█t shooting low birds.

Make sure people aren█t set up in areas they aren█t suppose to be set up where they can shoot across the road or have shots rain down on a passing car or anything like that.

If you would happen to damage someone else's vehicle other than yours, you could be held liable to pay for those damages.

Just something to keep in mind, though.

Care if I check your gun real quick?

You loaded?

Yes, sir.

All right.

Whenever I█m checking someones shotgun I always ask them first if it█s loaded.

Sometimes they█ll unload it when they see you walk up to them.

I█ll unload that gun.

Making sure it█s pointed in a safe direction and then going through the process of checking the magazine to see if it█s plugged or not.

All right, you█re good to go.

One in the chamber?

Yup.

You got your license handy real quick?

Yeah, I have a screenshot.

That works.

You got the migratory bird permit.

So you need two things.

You need a hunting license and then you need the migratory bird permit as well.

Let me check your gun real quick if you don't mind.

Okay.

So you're tube right here that holds your shells.

It has to be plugged.

To hunt with a shotgun, the gun cannot be capable of holding more than three shells.

So that's going to be two shells in the tube So if I can fit three shells in here, that means it's not plugged.

So it doesn't have a plug in it.

Another situation where he didn't have a license.

He had his migratory bird permit and his HIP survey.

Then he also did not have a plugged shotgun.

His shotgun was capable of holding more than three shells.

Anytime we come across a violation we try to do little bit of education on it as well, make sure that everybody knows what the rules and the regulations are and get them squared away as best as we can before we send them back out in the field.

Good afternoon.

Officer Sorrell, Fish and Wildlife.

We had any luck yet?

The vast majority of people that we come in contact are compliant.

They have everything that's required.

Hunting license, permits.

Every once in a while you'll find somebody that may have forgotten something, but majority of the people are happy to see us when we're out on the field.

It keeps everybody honest.

It shows them that we're out there doing our job and enforcing those rules and regulations that everybody's supposed to follow.

Have we had any luck?

One?

All in all, today went pretty well.

It was a little slow as far as opening day goes, but the weather's been really good.

Most people out there have had some shots at birds.

There were a few issues that we had to address with citations, but no major egregious violations.

Perfect.

Hopefully that trend will continue and hopefully just a successful dove season.

Alright you have everything.

I appreciate it.

No problem.

You guys have a good one.

You too.

Good luck.

There's a chance that you may have never seen a hellbender in the wild.

But with the work of our Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist and our Kentucky Wild team, hopefully that will change in the future.

Today we're here in Rowan County and I'm here with Zach Couch.

And today is a super special day.

Tell us what we're doing today.

Today we're going to go out and do a release.

It's actually the first time in Kentucky's history that we are releasing Hellbenders back into the wild.

Most outdoors people have never seen a hellbender.

What are we looking for today?

Hellbender is actually our largest species of salamander we have in the state they can be over two feet long.

They live in fairly decent sized streams and rivers.

They have to have these really big boulders that they live under.

So that's why most people haven't seen them.

They're actually hidden in plain sight underneath of some of these large boulders in a creek.

So we've spent the last four years going out surveying different streams in Kentucky, trying to see which streams actually still have populations of hellbenders.

And what we've determined is our population in Kentucky is really declining for a lot of different reasons.

So as a result of that, we've started going into the streams where we know that we can find these egg masses.

In the wild the eggs maybe have 1% chance of survival, but in a lab we can get 60, 65% survival.

So we worked with Purdue University.

We pull the egg masses out of the stream.

They raised the hellbenders for three or four years, and then we get to go back and actually restock some of these streams now that are declining.

So we had a clutch of about 500 eggs from four years ago.

We're keeping 25 of those as sort of our year one reintroduction program and years moving forward we'll have more and more that we'll release.

The rest of those animals will actually go to Indiana and they're doing the same project up there.

But the problem is they haven't found any egg masses in Indiana.

So they're using some of our Kentucky animals to repopulate some streams in Indiana at the same time as we're doing the work here.

So that's one reason why a university in Indiana is very interested in this project and working with us, because they're literally rearing these things and then bringing them back and then also seeding some of them in their state as well.

So both states are actually going to be benefiting.

That's right.

You know, the thing when you're looking at wildlife conservation is, you know, we're focused obviously on Kentucky, but these species are often in multiple states.

And if the species is declining throughout its entire range, we should do what we can, not just to better the population in Kentucky, but throughout the range of the species so that we have multiple sites to diversify where we can find this animal to hopefully keep it off of the endangered species list, which is our ultimate goal here.

They're not here yet.

They're on their way from Purdue.

We're going to be getting 25, right?

That's right.

What are we gonna be looking at, size wise?

Maybe ten inches long, something like that.

So once we get the animals here on site, we've got some coolers, we'll put them in with some water to make sure that we don't stress them out any more than we have to.

They've brought red and blue buckets.

I thought they'd be black and gold buckets.

Impressive.

Right now we're headed down to the creek and then we'll slowly get the hellbenders moved down and we'll bring them out into the stream.

We've already got our soft enclosures set up in a good spot, good looking habitat.

We'll have you and whoever else we have here today as volunteers helping us take the hellbenders out of the coolers and slide them into the soft enclosure.

And just from there, it's a hands off process of letting them settle into their new environment.

We will come back here every year and monitor the site.

All the animals that we'll be receiving today have a pit tag in them.

It's the same thing as people have in their pet sometimes for the lost pet.

We have those already embedded into the Hellbender so we can go out and actually see which hellbender we catch in the wild, pull it out and be able to use a wand on it to see, okay, this is an animal that released in 2022 that was actually brood stocked from 2017.

These could be producing offspring for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years.

Yeah, that's the plan is to be able to recover this population to where and let's say ten years from now, we have the population back throughout its historic distribution in the state.

They're reproducing on their own and we can move on to conserve another species that is declining.

You know, we don't want to do this work forever.

We just want to be able to kind of head start this population.

This is considered triage.

This is just enough to keep the population going until we address some of the upstream issues with sedimentation into the stream.

We might just have to grab it and shove it in there.

Hey, this is really cool work.

I've done some cool projects with you.

You really get to do some fun things.

But a hellbender is such a unique animal.

I have spent countless hours flipping rocks and in streams and I have never seen one in the wild.

I've seen them in aquariums and I've seen them locations like that.

But so today to get out here and physically get your hands on one and turn one loose into the wild, what a treat.

This is a big day.

Anytime we can take animals from the lab and release them back into the stream to recover a population, that's a big win for us.

This is something that we couldn't have done without the membership with our Kentucky Wild program, who have actually provided financial support to go out and put our artificial nest boxes out and to do some of the work that we're doing here today.

This is a special day here in Kentucky, not only for conservationists and members of Kentucky Wild, but also our biologists.

So great work.

Thank you.

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

Here we have 11 year old Haven Parrish, who caught his first ever blue catfish while jug fishing on Lake Barkley.

Nice job.

Here we have Jordan Miller with her first whitetail ever.

She took this after passing several other deer and settled on this nice buck.

Nice job.

Check this out.

Four year old Jaxon Glass caught his very first fish.

What happened to be a 32 inch muskie at Cave Run Lake.

What a first fish.

If you like learning about non-game species like the hellbender, you need to make sure you mark your calendar for Monday, August 12th at 7:00 and join us on YouTube, Facebook, or FW.KY.GOV for our annual non-ga question and answer show.

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.