This week on Kentucky Afield.

Father/son time is always a good time, especially when there are white bass involved.

Next, rabbit hunting makes for some great family time as well.

So we're doing that too.

Then, archery season is quickly approaching, and we're getting excited for it.

It's all next on Kentucky Afield.

Hello and welcome to Kentucky Afield.

I'm your host, Chad Miles.

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

Kids are so busy these days with sports, school and extracurricular activities, there's not much time for anything else.

So when I get a morning to spend some time on the lake with my son, I take full advantage.

Today I█m out here on beautiful Nolin Lake, and I'm with my son Leo.

And I'll tell you what, I couldn't be more excited.

I get to fish a lot.

Unfortunately, because of Leo's busy, busy schedule with sports, and when schools in, he doesn't get to go with me as much.

I wish I could take you every time.

Yeah.

So we're really excited to be able to get out today.

And we're going to start out with what worked for us last week, and that was trolling.

We don't do a whole lot of trolling, but we did some casting last week and it seemed like these fish really wanted the bait moving fast.

Faster than I could pull it with the trolling motor, faster than I can crank it.

We were getting many more bites using the big motor, so we're going to start out trying that, and see what happen Like fishing, you always got to to make an adjustment.

You ready to go fishing today?

Yeah.

Tell me a little bit about last week and what we did and tell me if you had fun.

We were trolling up a little ways that way, and one person on each side and we would always double up catching two fish at one time.

Well, I'll tell you what.

We probably got about 3 hours before the heat's going to run us off the lake.

Let's go on up, and we're going to use electronics and try to locate that same school of fish we were catching last week and see if they're there.

What do you think?

Yep.

Let's go.

What I like to troll with are little crank baits.

And these here are Jenko TB5s.

They go about five or six feet deep.

I want to be able to get shallow and keep the baits moving at a pretty fast speed.

We're going to be trolling between four and five and a half mile an hour.

So Leo is going to start out with a chartreuse, and we're going to cast out both sides of the boat and see what happens.

Dad I think I got one here.

I█m reeling him in backwards.

Turn the reel upside up.

I don't know how.

Spin it this way.

There you go.

Now.

Now I got him.

Not backwards.

I think I hooked a good one.

You know, it█s a you know what kind of fish?

Largemouth that█s not large.

That's a spotted bass.

We're going to put this one back in.

Got to kiss the first o I don't think you want to kiss it.

All right.

Hey.

First one.

I have more than you.

You do.

I█m the better fisherman This spot right here.

This flat is where these white bass have been hanging out.

Now, looks like our fish have moved.

Let's make a move and see if we can't pick something else up.

Here we go.

Something hit here, Leo.

I don't know what it is.

Hopefully it's a white bass.

It hadn't come up and jumped.

That's a good sign.

What do we got?

White bass.

Look there, buddy.

That looks like last weekend.

Oh, come right off.

That's perfect.

Actually.

Keep or throw?

That's probably 12 or 13 incher.

We'll keep a couple of them and see.

Let's go back up and turn around and come back through here and see if we can't catch another one.

What do you think?

They tend to school together, so wherever we find them, a lot of times we'll find multiples.

That's the plan.

(Leo singing) Oh, right here.

I got another white bass.

You got one?

I need to cast mine out again.

Okay.

hold on one second.

Let me get this one off the hook.

Another 12, 13 inch fish.

These aren't as big as what we catch.

here quite often.

A lot of 15, 16 inch fish at Nolin, but these are perfect for the table.

Dad, I got one.

It's big.

He█s right here.

Oh, that's a good one.

Oh.

No come here come again.

Did you see the size of that fish?

That was like a 16 incher.

But I will definitely get the net next time.

Oh, here he is.

White bass.

Let's grab the net so that doesn't happen to us again.

Let's go Dad.

Let█s go Dad.

Cheering you on.

Oh that one█s big.

Here we go.

Not as big as the one we lost, but still pretty good.

Oh, here we go.

Got one on.

This one█s jumping already.

Keep going, Maybe you'll get a bite too.

I can't tell if that's a white bass or a largemouth.

Whatever it is, it's big enough that it's pulling drag.

Unless it's a big spotted bass.

We may keep it if it█s a spot.

That is a spotted bass.

Oh, my gosh.

That's a good one.

Look at that.

That's a 2 pound spotted bass.

These spotted bass down here on Nolin are extremely plentiful.

There are a bunch of them.

And you know what?

These are pretty good.

And because it's like has such a huge population, We're going to go and keep it.

Got him?

No.

No, it's a fish.

There█s no way you're hung.

It's deep.

Then it█s the biggest thing ever I█ll need the net on this one, I█m pretty sure.

That one woke you up.

It hasn't jumped, so it's probably a white.

It's trying to dive deeper.

All right, get your rod tip up.

Oh he█s foul hooked too.

Makes him feel even bigger.

Hey, white bass.

The crazy thing is, Leo, is that I think I've had more bites on the shad color.

I believe the bigger ones have hit your lure.

Yeah.

Nice job, buddy.

That one there█s probably 13 inches.

All right.

You want to put him in?

Leo, you were actually talking earlier today about parachuting into the lake in a fish costume.

Why you said that, I don't know.

I look up and there's two guys in hang gliders.

They█re cool.

Oh, here he is.

Oh, this one's jumping.

Feels like it's a black bass.

This one is a regular large mouth, so it's definitely going back in.

That one█s skinny.

This is a post spawn fish.

It's been up there probably guarding a bed.

I want to throw it.

Not been eating a ton.

There you go.

You got one.

Yep, big one.

It's definitely a black bass.

Oh, bring it to me a little more.

There you go.

Nice job, buddy.

Chartreuse bait ended up paying off for you.

I'll tell you what.

You and I, we get to spend a lot of time together, but it's usually in the car in the gym.

I love being out in the lake with you, and I sure hope that we get a lot more time this summer to spend some time out on the water.

Me, too.

Nothing like father and son time fishing is there.

Give me a hug.

Love you.

This Fathers Day Weekend I hope you get a chance to spend some time with your father.

Now let's take a look back at one of me and my dad's favorite activities That's Rabbit hunting.

So what's your dog's name?

That's Annie that took off.

That's Homer.

This is Blackjack.

That's Brady.

Brady went head first.

Come on.

He must be ready.

Hunt him in here.

This is a little bit of a special day for us.

As you know, this is something we used to do with our uncles a lot, but a totally different end of the state.

We█re use to hunting reclaimed coal mines in western Kentucky.

Today we're in deep Eastern Kentucky.

Yeah, it's just the sounds of the dogs running and know getting out with the family and sure does bring back a lot of memories.

Find him here.

I thought I saw one scoot out right here.

They're plenty excited.

So, Dee Dell have you had any dogs out a few times this year already?

No, they haven't been out.

Oh, okay.

We've been deer hunting.

We're in Pike County today, and we've let the dogs out and it sounds like they're running rabbits right now.

We're not 50 yards from the truck, so.

If I was a rabbit, I think I'd be in here.

It looks pretty safe and away from some predators, and hopefully we can get some moving.

Mike, get that rabbit?

No.

We got three sets of brothers out here, and some of us have hunted forever together.

It's just a lot of fun.

We got our dad and his brother, Uncle Steve, and their Uncle Mike.

You know, they rabbit hunted and taught us how to rabbit hunt brought us up.

If we get as many rabbits today as we have replacement knees and hips, we█ll have a heck of a day.

That would be a good day.

We'll be able to get them all stitched together.

I brought some duct tape, though we may need it to hold them together for the day is over.

But you know what?

I bet you they hunt all day and they'll stick it out.

They'll hunt all day, and they'll be a lot of good laughs and a lot of stories and probably even a few lies too.

But it'll be a good day.

There█s a bunch of rocks right down there where they're at Mike.

I█m not so sure it didn't go under those rock.

I'll tell you what.

It's been less than a year and Mike's had a couple of knees replace.

You had a couple of knees replaced.

Yeah, mine█s nine months here and, in a week it█ll be nine months.

So I'm tickled to death.

I got.

I got.

You know, Leo, I'm going to have to get him out here and start hunting a little bit.

Get that next generation going.

Get him like Dee Dale.

Yeah.

Have him climbing the mountains.

Half goat.

So that rabbit is not coming out of there.

He ran in at rock pile and folded his legs up, said, Come get me.

Hunt in here.

Come on, come on, come on.

There's no better way to socialize with your family, in my opinion, than rabbit hunting.

We didn't get our single barrels until we was probably 11 or 12, probably.

But we went for years and carried bb guns and sticks.

There's always been.

There's always been a rule when rabbit hunting with this group.

And if you fall and your gun hits the ground, you carry it empty the rest of the day.

You carry it empty.

That's the way it was.

If that barrel wasn█t sticking up in the air.

I don't care how you fell.

You carried an empty weapon the rest of the hunt.

We've been on about five good chases, and they've been getting in these rock piles on us.

You can see we're staking out on top of the rock piles now, letting these rabbits work this thicket and hopefully run it in a spot were we can get a shot.

The dogs have done a pretty good job.

They've run.

They ran bunnies by us numerous times For the first time they've done good.

Here!

Dead.

He hopped one time and he was headed toward that rock pile I was in.

Nice job.

Well, that was a long chase.

You guys ran this rabbit forever.

Well, good dogs!

That█s your first Eastern Kentucky bunnie.

You are use to those Peabody rabbits.

Nice, look how excited he is.

I think that everybody here has had a rabbit run within 15 feet of their feet and not even see it.

And couple of times I was I'll be honest with you, I was doubting the dogs until I see the rabbit squirting out again up in the direction they're headed.

They're doing good.

It's just really thick.

You come here to hunt you better be ready to make some really fast shots and spend a day on one good long chase, because you may.

You may have a two hour chase.

Well, there█s the truck.

Yeah.

We've hunted for what, 2 hours?

Over 2 hours.

Longer than that, yeah.

These dogs are bred do this.

Dee Dale you're a little bit bred to do this.

Your dad has ran dogs.

I mean, do you ever remember your dad not having dogs?

No.

I mean, ever since I was three or four years old.

I mean, I was probably four years old and we was running dogs next to railroad tracks and old Blue got run over by train.

Cut two of his toes off.

I can still smell whatever medicine that was.

When I think about that, I could just smell that medicine.

I mean, it had a real funny odor to it, but I mean, I can still remember that.

And I was there for years old.

So it gets in your blood doesn█t it?

Yeah.

You probably have logged hundreds of miles at Peabody WMA over the years, used to hunt down there all the time.

Oh, yeah?

How's it different out here, hunting in the eastern part of the state?

Rabbits run a lot bigger circles here than they will.

You know, if you're hunting a small farm or something.

I mean, it's totally different.

You're wear a dog out in this country more than you will hunting someones farm, for sure.

Yeah.

He█s surrounded ain█t he?

There was a shot.

I don█t know if he got him or not.

I hope somebody got him.

Well, I'll tell you what I know we haven't killed a whole lot of rabbits, but I█ve had enough fun that I say we stay and do it again tomorrow, what do you think?

Oh, yeah, I enjoyed listening to the dogs run.

It's been a lot of fun, though.

I tell you, you got to bring your brother out.

How many years has it been since you guys rabbit hunted together?

Oh, my gosh.

Years since we did it with dogs.

I'm not so sure you would have went through with the whole knee replacement, but I think this is the one thing you didn't want this to be done.

You want to get out and get on the rabbits again.

I am tickled to death just to get out and walk around.

Yeah, well.

Because I didn't think I'd do it anymore.

And it, it, it means a lot just get out.

Yeah.

Walk through the fields.

Yeah.

It's worth it to come down here to look at that.

Yeah, how pretty the mountainside is, yeah.

That is a neat sight right there.

Kentucky's deer archery season is just two and a half months away, so now's a good time to get out that bow and arrow, and start practicing.

Well, it's early September, very, very first week of Kentucky's archery season.

I'm here in a familiar spot in Shelby County in the same stand I hunted several times last year had quite a few encounters with some nice deer.

Just nothing.

I wanted to take just yet.

I really didn't see myself hunting this stand this early because as farmers do crop rotations this year this is in corn there could be a herd a deer stand right there and I would never know it.

So it really puts me in a situation where I have to set up here on the field edge and hunt the woods.

Well, this woods is thick.

It's 30 minutes after daylight right now.

And I can still barely see spots back in here.

It's going to be very, very hard to pick up a deer slip into the woods.

I'm going to have to stay on my feet, bow in hand release attached to my string and watching because of the deer comes through.

I'm going to have literally seconds to field judge it and decide to take a shot and then find a opportunity to get a really good shot.

Like all Septembers my freezers empty so I'm willing to take a doe stay tuned because it's going to be fast and furious.

Literally, if a deer comes in, it's going to be.

There it is.

Draw.

and shoot.

I had no idea where that deer came from.

I█m sitting up here.

Like I told y█all I abandon The field I'm watching down here on this trail where I know the deer have been traveling.

It's like that doe crawled out of my tree.

It's very, very wet today and you can't hear anything.

That deer was literally first time I saw it a foot and a half to two feet from the tree and she started to get a little nervous.

You saw her smell saw her smell.

Thank goodness she was upwind.

She couldn█t wind us and she would turn to figure out which direction she was going to go.

Gave me a real tight window.

I mean, a real tight window to draw and get a shot.

I think I put a really good shot on that deer.

It was really close.

Sometimes those are hard to hit because you shoot over them.

But I think I put a really good shot on that deer and it sounded like I heard her go down.

Hopefully.

It's exactly where I think it is.

That's the next objective.

Locate the deer as quickly as possible.

Get it out of here.

Start processing.

Well, here's my arrow.

A couple of things that you always want to do when you walk up on the impact site is.

First off, I'm going to take this arrow and I'm going to inspect First off, it looks like looks like all my blades on my broadhead.

It's a grim reaper.

Broadhead looks like they are opened and worked exactly like they're supposed to.

The blood I see on here, it's got some little bubbles in it.

It looks like a high shoulder shot, possibly through the lung and it's blood soaked all the way to tip.

Got a little bit of some bubbles on it.

Probably a single lung shot, if I had to guess.

Such a high angle, because this deer was right under me that it looked like it hit a little high.

But that means it'll come out the bottom, which is which.

A really good pass through shot.

Now, I'm not going to take this arrow with me.

I'm going to leave it right here.

This is the impact spot.

If I if I were to lose my blood trail I know I can come back right here and start again.

So right off the bat I'm seeing blood and I know the deer went in this direction and I believe it hooked and came back around here.

It looks like it ran a little circle.

I'm already seeing blood through this way, so I'm going to start tracking this thing, hopefully where it crosses this creek.

There should be a ton of blood All this is completely blood soaked.

I heard the deer get to this creek, so I know it made it to the creek.

I don't think it made it much past the creek.

Just there's just too much blood.

Here's the deer.

Here she lays right here.

Barely made it past the creek.

I thought I heard it fall down.

And here it lays.

All right, well, here she is.

Oh man, What a what a nice looking doe.

You can tell this deer is kind of transitioning from its summer coat to its winter coat.

It's getting real thick, and it's right in that process of shedding.

I'll tell you what, this was absolutely perfect.

The shot was in high and came out low, which is at that angle.

You want to try to aim where you want the arrow to exit.

And that's exactly what happened.

It turned out to be a perfect shot.

I couldn't be more excited to have this deer because my freezer is almost empty and I'm looking for some venison and some ground burger so that I can make chili and tacos and nachos and all that type stuff.

Hey, it's football season, you know?

So I'm looking forward to that.

And I tell you, this could not have turned out to be a better situation.

I want to get this thing drug out of this area.

This is the woods right here that I keep seeing a buck on camera over and over and over.

So now my goal is to get this deer out of here with leaving this little sent I possibly can.

I'm not even going to field dress it in here.

I'm going to hook it up and I'm going to drag it to the truck as fast as I can.

Get this thing processed, get it home.

And I'll tell you what, this here is going to be the beginning of me filling the freezer this fall.

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 Italy Ann Guernsley from Henryville, Indiana, who caught this 48 inch grass carp while fishing with a clump of grass.

Nice job.

Check out five year old Avery Haire who took her first turkey on the opening day in McLean County.

Nice job.

Here we have Dylan Emberton who caught this nice walleye while night fishing at Dale Hollow Lake.

This fish was over 6lb.

Nice job.

Check out this 38lb flathead catfish that was caught by Sherry Short and released on Watts Barr Lake.

Congratulations.

Here we have Nicholas Morgan.

He went fishing at Taylorsville Lake with his grandpa and caught this nice 12 inch crappie.

Nice job.

James Hart caught this 42lb blue catfish while using his hands.

Congratulations.

Sisters Kim and Jennifer went bass fishing this weekend and both caught bass nearly 4lb.

Congratulations.

Check out this flathead catfish that was caught by Chauncey Griffin at the Falls of the Ohio.

Nice job.

Here we have Jenna Harris who took advantage of free fishing weekend while going to La Grange and fishing in Reformatory Lake.

Nice job.

Here we have Bailey Cobb with a nice large mouth bass that she caught at Cave Run Lake.

Nice job.

Some of my favorite memories is time spent outdoors with my family.

Hopefully you're taking advantage and spending some time outdoors with your family as well.

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.

If you hold a Kentucky hunting or fishing license, then you have helped make possible Kentucky's wildlife management Areas.

Places to hunt, fish, bird watch or just let your mind wander.

With nearly 100 dotting the Commonwealth, put Wildlife Management Areas in your sights, and see more of what makes Kentucky's outdoors outstanding.

Get all the info online at FW.KY.GOV