Hello and welcome to Kentucky Afield.

I'm your host, Chad Miles.

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

If you're a rabbit hunter and you live in the eastern zone, November the 1st is definitely a day you'll have marked on your calendar.

So we head up with some friends to Shelby County and put some dogs on the ground for a fun day of rabbit hunting.

Opening day 2024.

Briar, how long you been waiting on opening day of rabbit season?

Has it been on your calendar for a while?

Yeah?

Did you go trick or treating last night?

You just wear that outfit right there?

Let's get it on in there.

Let's go.

So, how many years you've been rabbit hunting?

Just a couple, I█m pretty new at this, really.

Oh, okay.

So you got in with a good group.

With these guys?

Yeah.

You got in with a good group to learn rabbit hunting.

You got a great habitat, too.

Well, thank you.

I did want to improve it for game when I moved out here.

So I did a lot of field borders and just left a lot of stuff that didn't need to be cut.

Just let it grow.

Yeah, well that's great.

I mean, it looks absolutely beautiful.

We came in and started coming up the driveway and I was like “this looks like a WMA.” I got a feeling we're going to get some rabbits up.

They got something going right now, so.

You see that rabbit, Nick?

He's right here.

Right here.

Ah, there he went.

Here he goes, here he goes.

Here he goes, goes.

Is that Dale?

Sounded like a 12 gauge.

First one of the season, fellas.

Dogs come running up through here.

Gave me a shot.

There we go.

Many more to go this year.

Go get that rabbit, Briar.

Grab his back feet.

He█s big.

Bigger than you.

Hold him up.

Dead, dead, dead!

Here, hold him up.

Hold him up.

There he is.

There he is.

Here he is.

Good dog, good dog.

Dead, dead, dead, dead!

Here he is, Here he is!

they.

Dead, dead.

All right.

There he goes.

Get ready.

Man ran right by that house.

That doggone rabbit ran right out where I couldn't get the shot till it cleared that house.

And then it was kinda over the edge of the berm there.

I think that, Rolando taught them some defense mechanisms.

It keeps on running right by that house.

We go down here, there's nothing.

So there's.

Yeah, we█ll have a- We can kind of get in the line and hunt them normally.

Oh, get him!

Dale, Dale!

I'm going to let him get it.

See how smart they are?

They█ll come out there and they stop right in between you and just stand there.

I couldn't shoot at him.

You couldn't shoot it because of the angle where he was at anyways.

Rolando has taught these things Self-Defense and the self-defense is keep one of the other hunters in direct line where you can't be shot at.

Right.

It's pretty accurate.

It worked pretty well.

It was right in front of both of us, right between us, every time.

Is hunting something that█s been a part of your life for a while?

No, I started late.

It's funny because when I moved to Persimmon Ridge, there was about 300 acres that were not developed.

Oh, yeah, and Lauren would let me hunt on it.

So I just started exploring, ran up a lot of turkeys and just kind of started observing.

And then that's when I started hunting, really was turkeys.

Oh, okay.

So how did you meet up with these guys?

Nick installed the fence, saw the habitat, said, “hey, can we hunt?” We're gonna get our buddy up here in a second.

Oh, wow.

This looks fantastic.

Oh, my gosh, I thought it was just this field like this all the way.

I didn't realize we had these pockets.

Oh, there he goes.

There he goes.

Did you see him?

Ran that way?

He went straight up that way.

There you go.

I told him, I said I thought it was just because I was down there, and I couldn't hear him because it crossed over the hill.

But when I heard them wide open and then they went silent, I told him, I go, those shots was up here.

He's scared that rabbit down there.

The dogs went quiet.

They caught that rabbit.

Yeah.

I knew I hit him, I could tell, but then- just slowed him down.

Yeah.

Dogs got it.

That happened fast.

Dead, dead, dead, dead, dead.

Right here, right here, right here.

Dead dead dead dead dead.

Nice job.

First rabbit of the year.

I was just about to turn that way because the dogs were on the side of me.

Flushed behind me.

Right here, right here, right here, right here, right here, right here, right here.

Right, right here, right here, right here, right here.

An there, somebody else g- Oh.

That was an early season mistake.

You know what?

I just assumed the rabbit was out further in front of the dogs than that because they got right there.

And then the rabbit came out behind me.

So.

Bad shot just out of place.

But you know what?

I think they still got that rabbit.

So.

You█re stacking them up down here.

Nice job.

They like to run across that road.

I missed that rabbit.

You got two now, right?

Nice.

Cool.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

Way to go.

You're two away from the limit.

Coming right here.

Nice shot.

Thanks again for coming.

I know that you stay really busy with work.

It█s been fun, man.

Thank you.

It's great.

It's been great meeting you.

And, And, hey, we've had a great hunt so far.

By the time we get the dogs roundup, it's hard to say.

We may have a couple more.

This year, I was really excited for Kentucky's modern firearm season.

I had a buck tag in my pocket and a spot that I've been scouting all season long.

Well, it's the opening morning of gun season.

I'm in a stand that I finished out the early archery season.

I only hunted here one time, and I had some really close encounters with some does.

I didn't see any bucks, but back in here today, If I get a close encounter with a doe today I am going to take one.

I actually brought a handgun as well as my rifle.

If I can get a deer as close as what I had them in here the other night, I will try to take one with a pistol.

The bucks are moving, the bucks are on the move.

Hopefully I can get a decent mature buck in here, get a shot.

(Grunt) (Double Grunt) (Grunt) Deer Right here.

Small buck, coming down the trail.

Walking right to us.

Little bitty buck, right here.

15 yards.

That's the range we like.

It's going to hit the trail I walked in on.

Keep that head up, there you go.

That deer might be ready in two or three more years.

Well, if you ever wanted to shoot a deer with a pistol, there, there you go.

Twelve or thirteen yards.

All right, there's the other buck.

That's exciting though.

Here we go.

Smelling for does.

Looks like a basket eight pointer.

Probably be a pretty good deer in a couple of years.

Here comes the bigger one right here I think.

There█s two potential deer for a year or two.

I haven█t seen either one of them take a bite of food.

It█s obviously not about feeding.

Which actually, is kind of beneficial because they█re not as likely to smell me if there heads are up as they would be where I walked right through there.

I figure the big bucks have got the does, because we haven█t seen no big bucks.

Yet.

Those bucks showed up about 15 minutes after a grunt call.

Give them some time to move on, maybe make another grunt call, see what happens.

Sometimes it's hard to tell if a grunt call or rattle actually brings a deer in, but, when you grunt or rattle and 15 minutes later deer cruise through, mouths open, not feeding, just smelling for does.

Makes me feel like that's probably what brought that deer in.

(Rattling) Any time you come out here and see four bucks and something else, that█s a pretty good morning.

And you know what?

I feel just as confident right now as I did at daybreak this time of year.

Another buck.

Wow, that's a big bodied deer.

We█ve got a perfect wind for him.

Feels weird having a mature buck walk in to you and you put your rifle down, but it might walk right beside me for a pistol shot.

You got it?

Man, as far as racks go, that was not a giant buck.

But, man, that was an old deer.

Definitely mature buck.

Definitely on the downslope.

So, first day of archery season.

I probably wouldn█t have shot that deer.

Now that gun season's in, you get a mature old buck like that in there, who cares how big his rack is?

It was a fun hunt.

I saw a lot of, a lot of bucks.

Far and away the biggest bodied deer I saw of the Morning.

So, went ahead and took a shot.

Let's hope it was a good shot.

Wait about 20 or 30 minutes and we█ll go take a look.

There definitely was a crashing noise right back here where he went.

You know, I thought the deer was going to walk right back out.

I, I said earlier that I brought my handgun with me.

When the deer got right on this trail, I thought, oh my gosh, this would be a perfect deer for a handgun.

I set my rifle down and then when he didn't turn, I had to then put the handgun back up, get the rifle out.

You know, hunters find unique ways to challenge themselves.

Why some people like archery, hunting.

Some people build their own bows, some people are just rifle hunters.

Whatever you like to do, whatever suits you, however you want to challenge yourself, that's really what it's all about.

You can see some of the buck activity that█s been in here.

There's a scrape and a rub, and a giant rub right here on this tree.

Saw a lot of bucks this morning, unfortunately no does.

But now it's time for me to shed a layer of clothes and go over there and see if I can't pick up a blood trail.

So this is about where I was at.

The deer, you can, you can still see where the deer was in there.

It spun and came through.

I don't know exactly where, but somewhere in this vicinity.

Well, it looks like there's my deer laying right there.

I'll tell you what, walked up through here, I didn't see any blood, but I heard a crash noise and I thought it was in this area.

Go over here and see what we got.

I know one thing, when he decided it was time to go down.

It was time to go down.

Man, that's a big bodied deer.

Now we've got some video, some camera pictures, and I'm pretty sure this is the big seven pointer that we've seen.

So not a real big rock.

But look you kind of look at the size of this deer.

You can tell it's an old bruiser.

Turned out to be a really cool hunt.

How many times you get in a tree stand and you see 5 or 6 bucks?

Now, this was far and away the oldest, biggest body deer.

Rack, it's probably the biggest racked deer I saw today too, but I saw some potential for the next couple of years.

And that's always a good thing.

So this deer, I don't know if it's going on the up upturn or downturn, but it's a seven point deer, old big body deer.

This is a mature deer.

And I can't say for sure this is the best that he█d ever been.

But this is the type of deer that no reason to wait till next year, because you're probably going to be looking at pretty much the same thing.

So I'm happy to have it.

And this thing is going to provide a ton of back straps and ground venison because it is a big, big body deer.

It takes countless hours to train a hunting dog to do what you want it to do.

We headed out to western Kentucky to see nearly a thousand retriever dogs compete for the fall Grand.

So we're in Paducah and we're doing the fall grand.

Without a doubt, this is the best dogs you'll see in the country anywhere.

I mean, this this is the best venue there is.

We had 998 dogs entered.

I think we ended up with like 936 that were running here.

We got ten different sites, five water, five lands.

And we're judging these retrievers on a standard, the grand standard.

What you'll see primarily Labrador Retrievers, up until this last year, they were the top registered breed in the United States with the American Kennel Club.

You will see some golden retrievers, you will see some Chesapeake Bay retrievers, you will see some Boykin spaniels.

Potentially.

There are poodles here, standard poodles as well, which many people do not know was one of the original, if not the original retrieving breed.

So those are primarily what you're going to see.

The whole country's here.

I mean, we're here from coast to coast.

The judges are here from coast to coast.

So, yeah, we're seeing the whole country.

I mean, we even have people from Canada.

I think the first time you run this thing, you're just addicted.

You get into it.

There's a lot of people here.

We're all family here.

Everybody gets along.

It's a great thing.

We do a series of land and a series of water, so each dog that runs through here is required two run to land series, two water series, and if they make it that far, then the Upland Series.

Water series, let's start with that.

It's like an everyday duck hunt.

Let's say we go to down here to the WMA, we put our decoys out.

We conceal ourselves, we conceal our dogs and we kill our ducks when they come in.

We send our dogs on the retrieves.

There are three marked retrieves that the dog will actually see fall.

The dog will proceed to the area of the fall, pick the bird up, retrieve the hand, and then we run a blind retrieve.

So blind retrieve is where a bird is fallen and the dog doesn't know where it's at.

But, you know, as a gunner or possibly your hunting buddy saw it and said over there by that stick, there's one laying there.

So the dog and handler work as a team.

At that point, the dog proceeds to that area.

If he gets off line, we stop them with a whistle.

We cast them with our hands and with whistles until they achieve that area.

Pick up the bird, bring it back.

We also have what's called a diversion.

And the best way to explain a diversion in real terms is let's say we're we're out here, we're hunting and we've killed our birds and we've got a bird come in as the dog is coming back with the retrieve, we kill that bird.

The dog has to hold the bird that it has in its mouth, keep it, bring it to you and not break for the bird that comes in.

And then once we get the duck from the dog on the original retrieve, we send it for the diversion bird.

We also have what's called an honor.

In a real life scenario, I go hunting.

I've got my dog, my buddy comes with me, he has his dog.

So the best case scenario is we let those dogs take turns picking up birds.

That way they get the most amount of work.

A dog on honor means that he has to sit and watch while the other dog makes the retrieves.

The guns are fired, the dog makes a retrieve.

Your dog has to sit quietly, watch and be steady during that part.

So it's skills that the dog uses when they actually duck hunt or goose hunt or dove hunt, in this case.

They're being scored on on marking, memory, control.

We want the dogs to be biddable.

And by that we mean we want the dog to be able to work with the handler.

This is so much teamwork, especially at this level.

And that's what makes these dogs great.

They work as a team with the handler, they█re a dog that you would be proud to take hunting and be steady and quiet in the blind.

Pick your birds up would be obedient, coming in and out, not break, not knock guns over.

Safety is a huge aspect of what we do too, and safety is also plays a part with the dog.

What differs us is we are a hunt test program instead of a field trial program.

And so we don't run against each other.

We run against a standard an established standards that has two judges, and the judges set up the tests and they see what they want and they want to see a grand champion show us.

That's their grand standard by our rules.

They judge the dogs individually against that standard.

The Western Kentucky Wildlife Management Area has a great property for us.

This is our third time being here.

We love these grounds.

The large fields they█re manage to have some cover and some broken areas and that allows us to be able to set up our marks and blinds and add difficulty degrees to the marks and blinds at the grand level.

Kentucky Wildlife, It just does a great job out here managing these grounds, the road structures.

You know, the pond management is just we love this place.

I got into it, as many others do, as I'm a duck hunter and chase ducks all over the country.

I had a duck dog that I had gotten and wanted something else to do with it.

The breeder and trainer that I got my dog from suggested that I find a retriever club and at the time I lived in Saint Cloud, Florida, and I found the Central Florida hunting Retriever Club and got involved with them.

And that's been 25 years ago.

And so we enjoyed it, gave us something to do in the off time.

It gave me like friends to go and train with and improve my dog and I made a better hunting dog.

What brings me back is the people and the dogs is just that's you know, these are the greatest handlers we've got from just ordinary person to doctors are here.

And we're all the same.

We're all dog trainers and dog enthusiasts and enjoy the Hunt test program.

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 Ryan Claytos who took this nice ten point buck in Rowan County.

Congratulations.

Check out this nice smallmouth bass that was caught on green River by James Henderson.

Nice catch.

Here's an impressive Russell County buck that was taken by 14 year old Braden Popplewell.

This deer was taken on the opening weekend.

Nice job.

Martha Holcomb said this was the furthest shot she's ever attempted.

She took this buck in Letcher County.

Looks like it was a good shot.

Congratulations.

Here we have eight year old Theo Koosman.

He took his first squirrel while hunting with a 22 with his dad in Franklin County.

Nice job.

Kenton Nance took this seven point buck on the opening day.

This was his very first time deer hunting.

This deer was taken in McCracken County.

Nice job.

11 year old Bryce Cantrell went muzzleloader hunting in Harrison County and took this giant buck.

What a deer.

Amber Smith took her very first deer at the age of 42 on private property in Henry County.

What a nice buck.

Congratulations.

Check out this beautiful walleye that was caught and released in the Cumberland River in Knox County by Phillip Lee.

Congratulations.

Check out this beautiful crappie that was caught by ten year old Walker Henderson.

This fish was caught in Shelby County.

Look at the spread on this beautiful 11 point Bourbon County buck that was taken by a 13 year old Landon Walker.

If you're a deer hunter and you still have that buck tag in your pocket, don't worry.

You still have Kentucky's late muzzleloader season, as well as archery and crossbow season that runs until January the 20th.

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 see you in the woods or on the water.