Hello and welcome to Kentucky Afield.

I'm your host, Chad Miles.

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

This week we're going to head out to rough River Lake in search of crappie.

Then we're going to meet up with wildlife biologist to find out a little more about the benefits of prescribed fire.

But first, we're taking my son Leo, out on his very first turkey hunt during the Kentucky Youth Turkey season.

This morning is a morning I've been waiting for for a long time.

It's the opening day of the youth turkey season, and I'm out here with my son, Leo.

This is his very first turkey hunt.

We have had conflicts with the schedule, with the two day weekend for youth season for the last 3 or 4 years.

And this year he was like, dad, let's make this happen.

So we're out here today and the weather, it looks like it's going to cooperate at least this morning for a beautiful turkey hunt.

While deer hunting, we've seen turkeys, but seeing turkeys in the fall and seeing turkeys in the spring when they're gobbling and strutting and in their mating season, totally different.

I can't wait to see his face.

If we can work a bird and get a bird to respond and gobble in, because I'll never forget my first experience like that, it'll be something that he'll never, ever forget.

You're safety█s on.

Now, we got to make sure those cows are not in the way.

Right now█s about time the turkeys start thinking about flying down.

They'll spend the night up on a limb, up in the trees.

And right now, it's about the time they start thinking about flying down out of the tree.

We█re just kind of letting them know we█re here.

That gobble was not that far away, but it was across the field.

I keep trying to see if I can see that bird.

That gobble was over there, close to that red barn across from us.

You hear that Leo?

A little bit.

We're hunting here in the woods, but we're on the field edge.

A lot of bugs start coming out this time of year in the spring.

And these turkeys like to eat these bugs.

I fully expect the turkeys will show up at some point time in these fields.

Trying to pick around in this, in this grass.

Hear that gobble?

Yeah.

I've never seen cows interested in a turkey decoy like this have you?

How many is there?

Five.

Five cows.

They want to eat the grass right here.

They got a 15 acre field, and they want to be eating the grass underneath the decoys.

Oh good.

They got a seventh cow.

That's what we wanted.

I like when the decoys move and bounce a little bit, but I didn't really want to get it because the cow was bumping it.

Hey, there could be a turkey right over there.

So don't be making too many motions.

They obviously don't care about those acorns.

It looks like they might be moving.

Hey, if you put your shotgun up on your shoulders, everything is still good?

Don't aim at the cows.

Yeah.

Alright.

I think that turkey was over there, almost straight across the field, close to that red barn.

Did you hear that?

Two or three gobbles in a row.

That was pretty close.

They're not that far away.

All right.

That's encouraging.

We've heard 2 or 3 gobbles and they've been responding to us.

Let's hope they're getting closer.

Oh, Leo, Leo, easy.

There's a turkey right here.

Way to your right.

Hold on.

It's a jake.

Can we shoot those or no?

Yeah.

You█re not going to be able to get the gun up yet.

You█re going to have to wait.

Hear that gobbler?

Yeah.

Can I move?

When you can't see the turkey, if you can get your shotgun up.

Nope, not now.

Go real slow and just move your hands to the shotgun here in a second.

yeah.

He seen me.

He turned the other way.

Keep getting your get your barrel up and see what happens.

Not to the turkeys, just to the decoys.

Get your gun up a little bit if you can.

Now, that's why you want to keep your gun almost ready to go.

Those were jakes.

We█re not that concerned about that.

But you saw how quick they could be on top of you.

I always pull that thing back closer and keep the shotgun right on my shoulder.

I usually set about like that.

Well that was your first close turkey encounter.

Now, that's not typical.

Normally, if they're male birds, you hear them gobbling and know they're coming.

Those were Jake's.

Never strutted up, you know, like a big fat turkey.

Never gobbled.

And you can see their beards were about that long.

Could you see the beards on there?

Hopefully the next one, we hear them, and know they're coming.

Because, man, when they get close, try to get a shotgun up on them is almost impossible.

What did you think about that when I told you, hey there█s turkeys, 20 yards right here?

I was excited, but I was a little nervous.

Yeah, I don't blame you.

It█s a bad feeling when they're close and you know you can't get a shot because you're gun█s down, but that's okay.

I'm hoping for the full experience, which is gobbling, strutting, the whole nine yards.

You hear that?

Get your gun up.

That's a hen.

But there's probably a gobbler with her.

All right, keep it like that.

That bird█s not very far at all.

There's a hen coming through the fence.

Just stay right where you█re at.

We don't want that one.

Yeah.

Do you see that hen turkey?

Yeah I see it.

Okay.

This gobbler█s making its way.

He's coming behind us.

He's coming down this road.

They're getting closer.

This is what it's all about right here.

That one sounded further away.

No, they just turn.

A bird can gobble to you or gobble with its face away.

I█d get this on your shoulder.

And get your hand Right like that.

Don't move much.

That gobbler█s right behind us.

I see it.

It█s big.

It's right on us.

Oh, yeah.

Get ready, get ready.

Get ready.

Get ready.

It's a big old Tom.

Get ready.

Take your safety off, yep.

Where do I have to shoot him at, right here?

Let him come.

Keep your face down.

Nice.

Nice job Leo.

Nice job.

All right, open this up.

Let's go.

Sweet.

Hey.

I, we had gone over it in the car.

I was going to.

I was going to.

I was going to make a couple of yelps and make him stretches neck up so you get a shot.

I didn't say shoot, but you knew that when that head was up, you knew it was time.

That was a good shot.

You folded him pretty daggon good.

I'm so pumped for you.

What about those cows coming up there and knocking our decoys over?

Oh my.

That was crazy.

Oh, man.

You got you a big tom.

Yes.

If Jake's tail was up, these middle feathers would be taller than the ones on the outside, right?

Yeah.

So see how they're all the same size?

Yeah.

So this is a mature bird.

You see these spurs on it right here?

Feel how sharp those are.

Oh, shoot.

So when turkeys fight, they jump up in the air and they take these spurs and they start smacking each other with them, and they can really hurt one another.

I mean, those are hard bone like, almost like teeth on your on your legs.

Then, then of course you got, you got the beard.

And then look at these things right here.

Blood flows up in these and changes the color of this head.

And then look at that snood.

That's called a snood.

Look at that.

Is that just odd?

Yeah.

Look at that.

Look how pretty that head is.

Red, white and blue.

So when they was gobbling, tell me about the feeling.

Because I know for me, I'm so anxious.

I've been deer hunting multiple times, and it's always super exciting, but there was nothing like this one heart was pumping way faster than normal.

When you pulled the trigger and that bird folded up and hit the ground.

I was so pumped for you.

Oh, same.

High-five man.

That is so cool.

Very excited.

Turkey having is, a little different from deer.

Yeah.

If deer screamed and carried on like that all the way to you, then, then you'd be elk hunting.

Maybe that's on your list next.

Yeah.

This year, you got you a buck.

Now you got you a gobbler.

Maybe elk hunting.

April is a great month to go fishing on the lakes and reservoirs here in the state of Kentucky, and one species you don't want to overlook is the crappie.

Well, this morning we're out here on beautiful Rough River Lake chasing crappie with Tom Perkins.

How are you doing?

Doing good.

I'll tell you one thing I have been looking forward to getting out here and catching crappie with you.

This will be a whole different experience today.

We're going to cast for them.

Ok, instead of straight line and they█re easier to catch when their in shallow water they█re, just not in shallow water all the time.

So we're not going to use any live bait, no live scope today.

We're doing it the old way, the old fashioned, the hard way.

But you catch fish doing it that way all the time.

So I'm super excited.

And honestly, it's a way I like fish.

So, yeah, I'm super excited to get out here and see what we can't drum up.

You're just kind of shaping the contours of the bank as it falls.

You're just letting it fall a little deeper.

So this ought to be a good year for the spawn.

Oh, that's a good crappie.

You want a net?

Yeah, Tom, that's a good that's a dandy right there now.

Pound and a quarter or so.

That is a really, really nice crappie.

I'll tell you what, you come out there and you get a few 20 of those.

Oh you got that right.

There's a sandwich, you ain't a kidding.

I've done caught enough for me to eat for supper.

Y'all are lagging behind.

Yeah.

Another keeper, black crappie.

And so you keep saying that and I'm will check you look at them, can tell you I can't tell.

Black Crappie.

Roughly two, three, four, five, six, seven.

This is a black crappie.

So at one count, these.

I just look at it, see if it's in bars straight up and down, or if they're sporadic like that and not in the bars.

It█s a black Crappie.

If he's got the barring on them, then they're then they're a white crappie.

Okay.

Well yours is definitely.

Yeah.

Plenty big good fish.

You got him now.

That's a good one.

Nice fish.

At what point in time do you change weights or is this just pretty much this is the way you throw most of the year.

If the wind's really blowing, I'll throw a 32nd.

If it gets where I can't feel a 32nd or a 16th, if it gets where I can't feel 16th.

I go home.

The wind is blowing too hard, so 32nd or 16th or stay home.

You bass fish all the time from small mouth, the lighter jigs you got a more fish you're going to catch.

Good one.

Sounds like Jose.

Leave him alone.

That's a spotted bass there.

Yup.

Kentucky.

Okay.

Pretty little fish.

Not what we're after today.

No, it's not.

But they are good eating.

They are good eating.

And I tell you what, if I'm out here and I get five or six crappie and now I need to make a mess, I'll keep me a couple of those.

Yeah.

Oh, I'm not above it.

That's for sure.

There you go.

Oh, good fish in right here.

I know you're a bass fisherman.

You hold them by the lip.

Yeah.

If you'll get a crappie right there, he'll quit flopping.

Everything done.

And I'm not.

I'm not squeezing.

Yeah, I'm just holding him tight enough to hold him, but a bass.

You grab him by lip and he quit crop.

You get him right where his gills comes together and he quit.

He settled down pretty good there are you going to beg for him?

Sit up, sit up yeah, you still cant have him.

There█s one, there you go.

That's a that's a crappie.

It might be the second biggest fish of the day so far.

You want him?

I can leave this live well open.

She'll get everyone one of these fish out of the live well, we found this, aren't we?

Found something here.

All right.

You need to back up Jose There you go.

Not quite the size of what you got, but by golly, That█s a keeper, Three pounder, anyway.

Yeah, that's a good fish.

Nice fish.

You see it?

Yeah.

I think the squirrel she'll tree him if he runs up a tree.

You got yourself a squirrel dog Oh, that's a good one.

Now, that's a good fish.

Watch out Jose.

There we go.

That's a good fat fish right there.

nice, we'll take that.

Oh, this little spot here is not put out a small fish.

Yeah, it has.

I hope it keep that way.

I believe I'm indicating a strike.

Yeah, Yeah, that's a good one too.

So dark.

I thought it was a bass.

That's a good one there.

Yes, it is.

Look at that pup.

That's crappie.

Yeah.

It's a keeper to keep it to.

You know what, you told me, Chad?

You're done turkey hunting.

You ought to come out here and try to catch some crappie.

And I was like, Tom, this weather is going to be terrible.

And you're like, We█re only allowed to keep 20.

Exactly right.

How long you need.

Well what it 930.

Yeah.

It's about 930.

Almost 10:00.

I say we put this boat on the trailer so that we're not, we're not soaking wet and bailing water.

What are you thinking?

Oh, yeah.

My bilge pump don█t work.

Well, let's.

Let's load it up and get moving.

Okay.

You ask most Kentuckians, and they'll tell you when they think about fire, they think about destruction.

But you ask a wildlife biologist and they'll tell you that with fire comes life.

We're on the original release site.

This is the old Star Fire mine.

This is also the spot where we did the helicopter capture this winter, where we captured adult cows and put implants in them to come back later in a couple months and try to catch calves and and be part of that monitoring study for, adult cow survival and calf survival.

We're going to be doing prescribed burns today up here.

Try to improve some habitat, try to get rid of some autumn olive and get rid of some of the unwanted plants that we have and promote growth of native vegetation and some cool season grasses that will provide better forage for elk.

Up here.

So we're using a drip torch today to ignite the fuels on the ground.

And that consist of a canister which holds the mixed fuel, which is combination between diesel fuel and gasoline.

There's a venting mechanism that's on the canister.

This controls the flow rate of the fuel that's inside, so that we control how much fuel is being put on the ground in order to ignite the drip torch, you saturate the wick for a little fuel on the ground, and you can ignite that fuel.

Which in turn will ignite the wick, and you're ready to put fire on the ground.

So this is one unit of four that we want to get to today.

This is our largest unit of 200 acres.

And what we're actually doing here right now was we're getting a lot of black, and we're kind of on a downwind side of things.

So we want to get a lot of black before we send our head fire up to this side of the unit.

And basically what that's going to do is set back plant succession.

And we're trying to we got a lot of non-native species in here, like les benisa, autumn olive and we want to make sure that we keep our open areas open.

In east Kentucky a lot of areas that are predominantly wooded timber and a lot of wildlife benefit from these open areas.

Fire is a necessity to do that.

Each of our rigs have a drip torch, fuel for the drip torch.

We've got two hand tools.

Usually we've got a water and a fire rate.

Each of the rigs we have 25 to 50 gallons of water.

What we got going on here, as you can imagine, on our reclaim areas, there can be gas wells or gas lines that, pop up out of the ground.

So what we're doing right now, as you can see, we're blacking out to protect a gas line that pops up just in front of me here.

What we're doing is we're blacking out all the way to a hard brake on this side and the other side.

We're also going to a road that is a hard brake just down below us.

So we want this gas line protected at all costs.

Well, as you can see behind me, see, what we're trying to do is knock the autumn olive back.

You know, we've had a lot of autumn olive starting to come in.

It is an invasive species and the seed source is hard to get rid of.

So two of the things we're trying to do this spring is have a prescribe fire in order to kill what's above ground on the autumn olive, and then they may end up having to come back later as it starts to resprout and do something chemically or mechanically.

This is our last unit for today.

What you saw John doing bringing along the line.

We're just laying a wet line just to kind of help us make sure we keep the fire where it supposed to be.

We've been really happy with what we've accomplished so far today, and we're, excited to see, how the elk respond to habitat management.

We've done here and promote better forage for our animals.

All right.

So what we're doing right now, doing a mop up and what that consists of is crew members going around running the whole unit to make sure that all fire is out.

Fire is good for all wildlife.

And I hope that this is able to continue throughout the southeast.

Now let's check in and see who else has been out having fun in this week's ones that didn't get away.

Check out eight year old Grayson Stewart with this nice, mature gobbler that he took in Logan County.

Nice job.

Check out four year old Brinley Lawson as she shows us a nice largemouth bass that she caught while fishing at Lake Cumberland.

Nice job.

Here we have 12 year old Knox Weber, who got out on the opening morning of Youth weekend and took this nice bird in Breckenridge County.

Check out this beautiful walleye that was caught and released in the Nolin River by Ben Riggs.

This fish was over 24in long.

Nice job.

Here we have 11 year old Milam Staggs with her first turkey.

She took this bird in Martin County.

Nice job.

Here we have Ryder Simms with his first turkey that he took in Breckenridge County.

Nice job.

Is this your lucky year to elk hunt in the state of Kentucky?

Well, if you want to sign up, you only have a little bit of time.

The deadline is on April the 30th.

Go to FW.KY.GOV for more information.

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.

Hunters, anglers, boaters, paddlers, trappers and wildlife watchers.

This one's for you.

We're launching regional pages across Kentucky, tailored to where you live, fish, and hunt.

Want to know when and where fish are being stocked near you?

When new public lands or water access sites come online?

How about the season dates and bag limits specific to where you're hunting?

Now you'll get real time updates, local opportunities, and expert tips straight from the biologist, educators and game wardens in your region.

Follow your local page and stay in the know right where it matters most with the Purchase, Green River, Bluegrass, Southeast, and Northeast Regional Facebook and Instagram pages from the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources.

Hello, I'm Chad Miles.

Did you know that when you buy a fishing license, it does more than provide summertime fun?

That's nice.

It produces millions of fish that are stocked in our waterways.

It constructs new opportunities like boat ramps and public access.

It provides new sustainable habitats for our native fish.

It creates quality fishing opportunities close to home.

It helps protect our home waters and it makes for a better, more beautiful, blue grass for all that live here.

The Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources.

It's more than just a fishing license.