This week on Kentucky Afield.

We're after wood ducks, but not with the shotgun we█ll be using a rocket net.

Then we'll show you how to debone a white tail deer in the field.

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.

If you were a biologist working for the Department of Fish and Wildlife, you'd have to come up with some innovative ways to get your hands on as many species as possible to study their population and health.

One of the more innovative ways that wood duck biologists do this is by using a rocket.

Well, today we're in Ballard County right here on the bank of a swamp.

Get ready to do something that's super cool.

We've done this one other time years ago in a different county.

What are we getting ready to do today?

So we're getting ready to try to use a rocket net to trap some wood ducks, trapping wood ducks.

And a couple of reasons why we do this, but it takes some prep work, so we kind of show up for all the fun.

You guys have actually been working for a couple of weeks to prep this site and get it just right.

You know, it starts actually in mid-summer.

We come in here and all the vegetation gets sprayed and we try to clean this out as well as possible cause any sticks or herbaceous vegetation binds are nets.

So whenever it goes off, it causes issues.

You know, some of the original prep work is putting up cameras, getting ducks on bait getting them used to the site, and then slowly but surely adding them and they that and then blinds getting them more acclimated for today when we're going to actually shoot the net and try to band some ducks.

So you've been baiting these ducks and you're talking about like hundreds of pounds of what?

wheat as well.

We've been using yeah.

so the ducks kind of come in and they find it and then they start gaining in numbers and hopefully we get a chance to fire these rockets.

Yep.

So wildlife biologist also need to be bomb technicians as well.

And these are going to get a charge in them of what is it, gunpowder?

It is.

It's the type of munitions that were able to get through us fish.

We have a stockpile of those for being able to band well into the future right now.

So and the idea is to get the data that you want, get these banded and get them turned loose pretty quickly, right?

Absolutely.

Looking at whether the last few days I've been looking at temperatures we have in the past been able to band in the afternoons, but it takes a little bit more prep work to make sure the ducks are cool, to make sure they're not overheating and that we're getting them out of the net and separating them so that they're not getting physically exhausted.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Ah, we're all set.

Let's get in the ground blind and wait on the ducks.

All right.

Sounds good.

Just now, coming up on the bank.

So we're just waiting on the ducks to get on bait.

Hopefully we█ll be able to shoot the net here pretty soon.

There are tons of ducks right by us right here, right now.

Oh, yeah.

They're flying in and literally landing 15 feet from the shoreline.

They tend to get their stage up.

And then they'll cross the bay.

You'll see.

Once one of them gets on bait then they'll all go to bite.

These ducks have more discipline than me.

If I was sitting that close to a meal I'd have a rough time.

Holding off as they lose confidence, kind got fly back out in the water.

They're a little wary.

They're kind of testing the waters if you will.

They're all congregating on the bank again, just like before.

I can't tell how many are out there probably 50 or 60.

They're crossing the net once they cross the net you█ll start seeing them run to bait and then the others will pick up and run to bait behind It's really neat to watch.

I've seen them do that 4 to 5 times before we was actually able to shoot the net so they're already coming back over the net again.

There's still birds all by itself.

They're not going to go on up to bait.

I wanna go and shoot it.

3...2...1...every single time that thing goes off, you know it's going to happen.

It still shocks the fire out of you.

So it's a mad dash to try to get these birds out of the net.

We want to try to do as little damage to the bird as you possibly can.

That's a female.

Female looks like a female We're going to go in the male cage.

So now they've got all the birds sorted into male versus female.

We're going to take these cages back to the truck where they got all the bands.

From that point, they'll start sorting them out banding them, recording the data and then turn them loose.

We will run male birds through one side and female birds through the other.

We'll have whoever's getting the birds out.

They'll check to make sure that it is a male that was put inside of the cage, that it was in.

You got the bar shaped wide on the end of the speculum.

That indicates a male most of the time in a female, that white part will be teardrop shaped.

These guys have been doing it for years and they're able to spot some of the adult birds.

That's really what we're looking for mostly is adult females.

Yeah, yeah.

I won't call that an adult.

What is the wood duck population in Kentucky like right now?

It's very stable.

That's the whole reason that we're doing this banding is to be able to see the numbers year after year if that recapture data and be able to match these birds and where they're going and how they spend their winters.

This is a conservation aspect.

If you want to duck hunt , the department has to have this project going forward for early wood duck season.

And I think the department is pretty well committed to it.

I know that our sportsmen and women here in the state of Kentucky that do duck hunt, enjoy that early duck season.

Tell me some areas that would be good forwood duck hunting of obviously right here.

A boat, right.

Is a good location.

Yeah.

So I mean, there's a lot of WMA█s across the state that have options to be able to wood duck on even in the eastern part of the state, some of the rivers and lakes, there's a good number of wood ducks that are there.

Last bird, look at that.

Brand new hardware on there turn it loose.

Ready?

Well, I tell you what, coming down here and doing this is always a lot of fun.

And I don't know how else you get this up and close and personal with wood ducks or other forms of wildlife literally in your hands.

Thank you so much for that, it█s been a blast.

Kentucky's deer archery season is now open statewide.

And if you're hunting in a county that's in the CWD surveillance zone or you're hunting in an area where you can't pack a deer out easily, knowing how to debone a deer in the field may be necessary.

today.

What we're going to do is we're going to show you how to debone a deer in the field.

Now, this is a little bit different than quartering an animal which you may have seen done before.

Essentially what we're going to do is we're going to go through the process of not breaking any bones and taking this deer and putting it into a game bag so that we can transport it out, leaving everything else here.

Now, this deer has been field dressed already.

We're going to use a couple of tools here.

This is the knife that we use to field dress it.

I'm going to use another blade.

This here is an outdoor edge.

It's a razor blade.

We're going to wear protective gloves and we've got a game bag.

These are like cheesecloth game bags that are very common.

So let's get these gloves on and we'll get started.

Now, the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to start here on the back, right where the neck hits in the shoulder.

And I'm going to make an incision all the way down this this deer, pull this, hide back and remove the back straps.

And at that point in time, once I pull this hide back, I'll be able to expose not only the front shoulder, but the back hams, and I'll come back and start taking off those chunks of meat on both the front and the back.

So start that off using a little zipper blade here and go right in here at the neck to make this pull right here.

Now, once I've got my first incision there, I'm going to start pulling this hide.

Now, if you'll pull this hide, it'll start coming off almost on its own.

Take your blade, start making your cuts here and separating the hide from the actual body of the deer here.

Now I'm pulling all of this cape and hide back this way, and the reason I'm doing that is it takes all the hair with it.

And it also gives me a spot that if I need to lay something down, one, it's easy to find too, it's a better way to keep it clean.

Also, keeping my meat clean.

Now I'm exposing that front shoulder.

You can see I'm going to go ahead and show you how to take the back straps out.

Now, the back straps lay right along the spinal cord from the front shoulder, all the way down to the beginning of the back hams.

So we're literally going from here to about here, and that's where they're at.

The easiest way to get them out is to go right in by the spinal cord, right beside the back hams close.

You can get it.

Start making your cut close.

You can get to the spinal cord right up through here like this.

So what I've done here is I have literally went right down the edge of that spine on this one side and exposed this back strap right here.

Now, once I get there, I'm going to come down here right to right at the back ham, right where the this piece of meat runs into the back.

ham right here.

I'm going to make a cut.

There's a couple of ways you can do this.

You can start here and start working it around till you get to the top of the rib cage.

Or you can find the top of the rib cage, which is right here and work it this way.

But once you start getting it out, it's very circular shape.

You'll be able to get your hand on it and start pulling it out and just kind of make some feathering cuts, take it right out.

You know, some people will tell you that the inner loins are the best piece, in my opinion.

Inner loins are really good.

There's a whole lot more of this.

That's a beautiful piece of meat right there.

We're going to go ahead and bag it up.

Now, you see that piece of meat was removed from right there.

Now there's another one on the other side.

But while we've got the deer light up this way, we're going to go ahead and start working on the back ham the way I like to do this is to separate these out in muscle groups.

It's the same way I do it when I process my own meat at home.

There's two ways to do it.

You can take a boning knife in and just run along the bone and pull it off into a big chunk.

I don't package it that way, so I'm going to go ahead and do it the way that I would be doing it at home.

And that is you find this seam right here.

What you've got is you've got three or four distinct pieces of meat in here.

You got this right here, then you've got these two, which I'm going to take off together.

Then you got the back, the back round.

So what I do is you find this spot, it's very easy to see and you come through and you make a cut.

And when you make that cut there, now that I've got that cut open this up kind of feeling around where the the meat there is.

All right, all this taper, this seam the silver seam.

I'll leave some of that on in this process because it will protect the meat from getting any additional dirt bacteria you see there.

You can't help.

Flies are going to lay on it.

I'll leave a little bit of this on there and then clean it up at the very last minute.

Now, I take this.

You see another seam right here.

I take this one and the next one out together.

Now, once you get to this area, there's a bone that comes off right by the tail and it moves like a Y.

So you have to be able to trace around that bone.

And right here, I'll show you.

I'll make this cut.

It lays right here.

See that bone tracing around that bone?

Once I've got that where I can get my fingers in there, I'll put a light pull, make some cuts with the knife in this piece.

I'll come out pretty easily.

This is much easier if you've got another set of hands.

Let's get this cleaned up a little bit.

Now, that is that big muscle group right there.

It's actually two different muscles.

You can see one and two.

This is great for a whole lot of applications.

You can grind it.

You can use this for burger sausage.

You can cut steaks out of this.

There's a whole lot of different things you can do now.

It doesn't look very great now, but I'm going to get this cleaned up when I get home.

I wouldn't wash it a whole lot because there could be some bacteria on that and you could introduce the bacteria on the more areas of the meat just like this.

Get home and get a real sharp knife and you can take this stuff right off and it'll just leave an absolutely beautiful cut of meat.

Let's get this bag.

Now, once you get that big piece off, you can see this hipbone right here, plain as day.

See that?

That's what that is.

That's the hipbone.

So what we want to do now, I'm going to come in and make a cut and trace right along that leg bone right there.

You can feel it.

It's very easy to feel and fine.

See that bone that femur bone that goes down here?

I'm just made a cut, and I'm just taking this meat right off of that bone.

Watch your fingers when you're doing this right.

There's that big chunk of meat came right there.

You take that ready to bag now, right here is the hip bone again.

I'm going to come in around that hip bone, make a cut.

Got a big chunk of meat there.

It's almost like the continuation of the of the back straps.

You go very good piece of meat there.

So now you can see this leg is getting pretty, pretty thin here.

So what we're going to do is we're going to take this black ham and this lower shank.

And because the shank is way I've got it laid out here is actually covering a little bit of the back ham.

I'm going to take the lower shank first.

So to do that, I'm going to come right here where it connects, make a cut.

Remember, I'm trying not to break any bone.

And there's actually two pieces of meat down here.

We've got a tendon here.

We're going to try to leave that there with the deer.

There we go.

We got a portion of the shank there.

That's the outer portion.

Cut.

One more little piece on the inside there.

We'll get that back ham out again.

I grabbed these pieces of meat and I find where it attaches to the bone, trace the leg bone right down.

All right, we've got those out.

The bottom is pretty much done.

Now we're going to come up here and we're going to start getting this back ham off.

I'm going to separate it from the femur right here and work this back.

Ham off and then we█ll go on the other side.

There's a lot of different ways people do this.

We're trying to showcase a way here that we're not breaking any bone.

A lot of times you'll see people come in, make a cut and separate this all out.

Like I say, we're trying to do this today, breaking no bones.

All right.

So now I'm just working this knife in and around the pelvis, making the cuts, separating the meat from the hide and the pelvis, bone.

You can see that is a big, beautiful piece of meat right there.

So right here by this hip, these are the inner loin.

So we went in here, made a cut right here.

And you can see right here are the inner loins.

While we're here, we're going to go ahead and go ahead and take these out.

That's this side in a loin and we flip the deer over, we'll get the other sides.

So we've kind of finished up the back straps, all the back hams, the inner loin.

And now we're going to start working on the front shoulder.

Once we get the front shoulder meat out, we'll take some meat from the neck.

And essentially the process is half done.

It's exactly the same on the other side.

So let's go over here now and locate this shoulder now.

A lot of different ways I've seen people do this.

What I like to do is locate that shoulder Interesting thing about a deer's front shoulder.

Is that really there's no bones attached.

You can come in and find that front shoulder blade and literally kind of carve around it and it will come completely off, separated.

What we're going to do now is we've got the shoulder almost separated.

We will make a cut along from the where the brown meets the white.

We're going to make a cut right here and cut up through here to the to the elbow.

And now once we get there, we're going to take it on on up.

once we get that done, we█ll pull the hide back may need a knife to do some of this.

Here we go.

Now, at this point in time, I've got to hide away.

I'm going to leave it right here on the carcass and use this as a workstation.

Now, I'm going to try to separate this out in muscle groups.

Again, you can see see that bone comes right through here as part of the shoulder blade.

We'll make a cut right here.

Once I get that in, we'll start peeling that meat right off.

What I'm doing here is I'm just working along that shoulder blade right there.

I'm just kind of almost flaying it off there.

It's very similar to the back.

I'm just trying to separate these out.

And the biggest muscle groups that I can get, well, this part's going to take some cleanup.

When you get into the kitchen, you got all this connective tissue.

I will get this in and clean it up exactly as I want it.

When I get back in to the kitchen on a table, that is the majority of the meat right there on this front shoulder.

Now, you see, I still have some here and I've got a little bit down here, but that is the big portion of it.

So let's get this bagged now.

We've got our shoulder, that█s separated.

We've got the big part on the outside of the shoulder blade.

We're going to come in on this side of the shoulder blade, make another cut up through there.

These are really good for grinding for burger jerky or sausage?

This is perfect cuts of meat for that.

So we had the piece of shoulder meat that was on the backside a little bit bigger piece of meat come off of the front side.

We're going to lay that right there.

We've got a little bit down here.

We're going to get that off by locating the bone and making a cut right down there to it.

now this particular piece of meat right here is a lot of individual little muscle groups in there.

It's kind of stringy.

Again, it's good to be ground or you can cut this up for jerky.

So I'm not going to sit here and try to separate this out in individual muscle segments in the field.

All I'm trying to do is to get this piece of meat off so that it can be used, leaving all the bone behind.

I essentially our front shoulder is now picked pretty clean.

We're done there.

So now the last piece of meat that we're going to get out is going to be the neck meat.

You kind of see where the neck meat lays.

It kind of ends right in this area here.

So what we want to do is to go in right inside where we took that piece of meat off of the shoulder.

We're going to go in, go right down to the spine here, make that cut.

And you can see it's just a big sheet of meat that kind of starts right under the shoulder blade.

It works its way up here in and around the neck.

There you go, that is the neck meat.

Now, that looks like there's some meat here.

We're right on top of the spinal column.

Very, very, very, very little bit of meat there.

I'm not going to take a chance on any of that, because, remember, we're doing this.

We're de- boning a deer to try to avoid any contaminate with any any of the bones or the spinal column.

So we're going to leave that right there and we█ll bag this up.

So essentially, that's exactly half of the process.

To recap, we came in, we made a cut along the back, we removed the back straps, we took those out.

We came in, we found the seam made a slice on the back ham, took that out, separated that out in muscle groups came down and removed the lower shank, went in, took out the inner loins.

We moved to the front, made a cut there where the shoulder blade is removed.

The back part out came into the exact same thing on the front, went down and got the lower shank removed the front leg bone went in and removed the neck meat.

Now the other side is exactly the same.

So that's exactly what you want to do.

When you get done here, you're going to have all of your meat completely de-boned in a bag and ready to go.

If you're someone who's used to taking your deer, complete deer out at home and doing this, you know, then you've got to deal with how you're going to discard the waste.

This is a great way to do that.

If you're someone who█s used to quirting the meat, might want to give this a try as well.

Once you get this done, you got very little bones or nothing, nothing to handle after that.

And if you're in an area that's a CWD surveillance zone to move that deer out of that CWD surveillance zone, this is now required.

So give it a try.

Make sure you take the right tools and be prepared.

It's not that bad.

Check out seven year old Gunner Wittus with his three squirrels that he harvested by using a 22 long rifle on the opening weekend in Mercer County.

Here we have Will Jenkins from Whitesville, Kentucky, with his largest largemouth bass ever.

This was caught at a farm pond using a flat sided crank bait.

Nice fish.

Check out David Jaggers with this 31 inch striper that was caught out of Laurel River tail waters.

This fish was caught by using a swim bait.

Here we have six year old Madison Halstead with her first ever turkey harvested during the youth season in Hart County, Kentucky.

Nice job.

Squirrel, dove, and deer archery seasons are now open here in Kentucky with more seasons opening weekly.

I hope you're ready.

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.