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 headed down to Kentucky Lake to chase some summertime crappie.

Then Kentucky's deer archery season is right around the corner.

We're going to jump in a tree stand for an early season bow hunt.

But first, we're going to join up with a couple of game wardens as they patrol Kentucky's waterways to try to keep them safe.

Hey man.

Howdy.

I'm Officer Abrams with Fish Wildlife.

We're at Taylorsville Lake today in Spencer County.

I'm assigned to Oldham County.

Officer Casper here is assigned to Spencer County.

This lake is one of the busiest in the state, mainly because of the proximity to Louisville.

It just draws a lot of people from, you know, our biggest metro area.

We get a lot of people out here.

Our mission is to enforce the hunting, fishing and boating laws in the state.

This time of the year, it's mainly boating.

We're out here mainly to keep people safe, make sure people go home without being hurt at the end of the day.

While we're out here doing boat patrol, it doesn't mean that we ignore 150 charges, which is hunting and fishing.

Even on boat patrol, if we see someone fishing, whether it's on the dam or from a boat, we'll go ahead and check them.

And if we have any issues there, we will address them.

Howdy, y'all catching any?

Little bitty sunfish.

Little bitty sunfish.

All right, we're going up all right here beside you real quick.

Get you checked out, be out of your hair.

Okay?

We did a safety compliance check after checking their fishing license.

Make sure they had lifejackets for everybody on the boat.

Had a fire extinguisher, sound producing device.

Last thing.

How about an air horn or a whistle?

Some sort of noise making device?

I've got a horn.

Give me a little toot.

All right, guys.

Well be careful the rest of your day.

Have a good day and hopefully you catch some fish.

Okay.

Thank you, guys.

Have a safe one.

Hey, you too.

Happy fourth.

Thank you.

Look at that dog.

Dog?

Where█s the dog?

Right over there on the swim platform.

That's a good dog.

Got to love the dogs.

Got to love them.

We don't deserve them, lord knows.

Hello.

You got a fishing license handy on you?

No that█s a Florida license.

You have a. You need to have a Kentucky fishing license.

You don't have a Kentucky fishing license?

No.

One bluegill.

A few more and you have a pretty good sandwich.

All righty.

Awesome.

Thank you, sir.

You have a good one.

Good luck.

You guys got a couple of fishing license on you?

Yes, sir.

Awesome.

Thank you, sir.

Yes, sir.

So far, we've checked a few fishing licenses.

We notice everyone on the boat so far as being safe and having fun.

We love to see that.

You know, we're all about fun, but we make sure that you're being safe about it, too.

That's a big thing is safety out here.

So like that girl sitting on the on that pontoon, you'll see that on plane going down the lake.

And that's kind of thing we're looking for.

I mean, in the end, we're out here to make sure everybody's safe.

I don't know if he's got a spotter on the boat.

Yeah.

How are you doing?

Good, sir.

I'm Officer Abrams with Fish and Wildlife.

Alright.

The reason we█re stopping you is because we don't see you█ve got a spotter on this boat for the tubers there.

Okay.

What█s that mean?

Someone to watch the people on the tube while you're towing them.

Do you have any sort of mirrors or anything like that?

No.

Okay.

So next time I have to do that then?

I have somebody that's driving while someone's watching them?

Yeah.

Correct.

If you don't have the mirrors.

Basically one of you guys would have to come in here and watch the other one on the tube.

So that way we can do it that way.

Alright.

We have to have a spotter to be safe.

So a basic boat inspection is us just making sure you have all the required safety equipment on your boat.

A life jacket for everyone on board.

A type fourth throwable if your boat is 16 feet or over.

All boats are also required to have a fire extinguisher on board, and the fire extinguisher has to be serviceable, meaning it cannot be expired.

Okay.

Yeah, that's good.

In addition, all boats have to have a noise making device, whether it's a horn an air horn or a whistle or a bell.

So yeah, one of them is going to have to come in and and, and be your spotter.

So when someone falls off, they see it.

In the future, if you get a rear-view mirror to mount right there, you wouldn't have to do that.

Okay.

All right.

So y█all be safe.

Thanks, guys.

Yep.

Happy Fourth of July.

You too.

Be careful.

Whenever you're towing someone, whether it's tubing, skiing, anything like that, you're going to have to have someone on board with the captain.

Keeping an eye on the tuber, to keep them safe.

Make sure they can alert the captain when he falls off.

Big safety thing again.

If you don't have someone there to watch you, you need to have mirrors like Officer Casper was explaining, so you can keep an eye on the tuber.

Well, there you go.

Let's go get them.

We are.

Yeah, she's holding a kid.

Kid's got a lifejacket on, but she's holding the kid while she's up on the bass seat.

We saw a person riding in a high rise bass seat on a bass boat above idle speed.

It's an illegal, unsafe position.

Good.

I'm Officer Abrams of Fish and Wildlife.

The reason we're pulling y'all over when the boat's underway.

Like it just was.

You can't have anyone sitting up on an elevated bass seat.

Okay?

So hang tight just a second.

I got you.

I don█t want you to get your fingers pinched or fall in or nothing.

Quite often we see people riding on the bow of the boat or the stern of the boat.

The bow of the boat is going to be the front of the boat.

Stern's going to be the back.

That's a violation and is extremely unsafe.

Hypothetically, if your boat's underway and you hit a wake, you have a rider riding in one of those unprotected positions and they fall overboard.

A lot can happen real quick.

So we definitely take that very seriously.

Make sure you do one of the two.

Okay?

All the information you need is on the back.

Okay.

All right.

Be careful.

You all have a safe holiday, okay.

Hope everything goes well today.

Yes, ma'am.

Get ready to go pull this boat over.

Yep.

Stop, Stop!

Stop.

Go ahead and throw it in neutral for me.

How are you today?

Good.

How are you doing?

Good thanks.

Good.

I'm Officer Abrams, Fish and Wildlife.

Look, the reason we're pulling y'all over is because y'all are taking off under way.

And you have a rider hanging outside the protective gunwale of the boat.

Okay.

Okay?

That's a big safety thing.

Okay.

I'm sure you can imagine.

You hit a wake or something like that.

He falls overboard.

You're underway.

Yeah.

It can get real bad real quick.

Okay, Hang tight one second.

Captain, you got somebody Id on you?

When it comes to a pontoon, especially on the front of the pontoon, outside of the protective railing, if you fall off of that, you're just going in between the pontoon straight back to the motor.

And we've seen the aftermath of those types of things.

And that's why we're very serious about them.

And we stop and we write citations for that.

A little two in one action there.

Same exact reason we pulled the first boat over.

It's a really big safety thing.

If, God forbid, something happens when someone's on the outside of that protected gunwale it can get real bad real quick.

So we take those very seriously.

We've flown them out of here to UofL for that.

When they go off the front of a pontoon and get sucked in between the pontoons and takes them straight back to the motor.

We don't have a lot of idle speed areas on this lake, but we have a few.

The main one being by the marina and we get a lot of complaints from the marina about people violating that no wake zone.

So we patrol it often while we're on the lake, mainly because of the damage that it could do to the the marina and the boat's tied up in the marina.

Well, there you go.

Breaking wake pretty big there.

Batter up.

Make sure they don't switch drivers.

All right.

Talking about the no wake right there?

Yeah, that would be the exact reason why we're stopping you.

Okay?

Yeah.

I was actually talking to the baby right here when it happened.

All right.

I'm Officer Caspar Fish and Wildlife.

The reason we pulled you over was because of the wake.

Yes, sir.

Can we see a life jacket for everybody on board, please?

Life jackets are very important.

When something bad happens on the water happens really fast, and you don't have time to put on a lifejacket, basically on a vessel.

Everyone on board has to have a life jacket that they can put on.

If you're under the age of 12, that child has to be wearing the lifejacket while the boat is underway.

So the other issue is the infant doesn't have a life jacket on.

Anyone under the age of 12 has to have a life jacket on at all times.

Okay.

Well, we bought it.

We had it.

We do.

You have one that fits?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Let's see that, On a jetski any time the jetski is underway anybody riding the jetski has to be wearing a life jacket or PFD, which stands for personal flotation device.

If you're skiing and tubing, the person being towed behind the boat on the skis or the tube must be wearing a lifejacket regardless of age.

If we see a violation like that, we definitely stop them because the safety aspect of it to prevent injury or something worse and of course it is against the law.

So whenever we see it, we are going to enforce it.

All right, sir, what I did is I wrote you for the No Wake Zone and Child under 12 not wearing a PFD, okay?

I've had to work a few drownings in my career.

I've only been on a little over three years now and I have already had to work a handful of drownings.

A lot of them, if not all of them, could have been prevented with a life jacket on.

I love being a conservation officer.

It's one of those jobs that I believe I was born for.

I love to hunt, fish, I love boating.

And that's what we do.

We enforce hunting, fishing and boating.

Ever since I was a kid, I realized I wanted to do something with the outdoors.

And when I found out there was essentially a police officer for the outdoors, for people that hunt fish and boat.

I knew that's what I wanted to do.

And ever since I've been hired on, it's exactly what I thought it was going to be.

I just love to get out there and do my part to keep people safe and ensure that hunting and fishing and boating will be around for my children.

Kentucky Lake has been known for many years for its crappie fishing, and it can be good in the summertime as well.

This morning, we're out on beautiful Lake Barkley, and I'm here with Jenko professional fisherman Tony Shepherd.

Tony, how are you doing?

Good.

How are you?

I'm doing good.

Hey I feel really lucky today because you're actually prefishing for a tournament that starts tomorrow.

You're heavily involved in lure design and manufacturing and Jenko lures.

Right?

Right.

Yeah.

I've designed, I think, seven different styles of baits.

I've got like 30 colors and they all have a purpose.

And there's all a day for everything.

So you've allowed us to get in the boat with you and kind of go out and try to locate some fish.

And I want to talk about a little bit about tournament fishing, but more than anything about lure selection, lure color.

I want to go through your process on how you do that, because where to start is pretty important.

Yeah, it is because the faster you can start getting information on what those fish want, how deep those fish are at, how they're going to respond to a particular lure.

The quicker you get that, that's that's really the name of the game.

Whether you're tournament fishing or fun fishing.

Right?

Right, right.

Exactly.

I mean, knowing where the fish are helps a guy catch them a whole lot quicker, you know, especially if you don't get to fish very much.

Like, right now we're out here.

It's water temperature█s 76 degrees, 1st of May.

And, you know, we're postspawn blue.

You know, the fish have been spawned out, they're heading back out.

And, you know, what they do is normally pull out to about 8 or 12ft of water and chill out for a little bit before they make their way back out to the river.

All right.

Well, fantastic.

Well, let's get at.

And I'm excited.

You told me not to bring any tackle.

I brought a rod and reel.

So I'm gonna let you set me up to with whatever you think I need to start with.

Okay.

We'll get you set up.

Thank you, sir.

So, Tony, if they had a tournament that said, hey, you get to pick one lure and you got to fish with that one Lure the entire crappie season.

What are you throwing?

What color?

What we got on this is a baby mermaid.

Just because it's such a natural finesse presentation.

I mean, it's natural.

It looks like a minnow day in day out.

Never catch fish.

I mean, even if they're aggressive, they're going to bite it.

If they're a little finicky, they're still going about it.

So if you had one lure in your entire tackle box crappie fish.

it'd be this.

Yep.

There you go.

Oh, wow.

That's a good that's a good one right there.

There you go.

Look at that.

What a nice fish.

Now is that one big enough to get you excited tomorrow.

I hope not, I hope not.

That fish probably weigh a pound and a quarter, you know.

And I'm looking for more pound and a half fish.

Next year.

He'll be around next next year.

That fishthere will be one that can win you some money.

Yep.

There we go.

There's a crappie Not a bad crappie not a tournament Crappie.

But, this would have been.

You're trying to put together a limit of fish to eat that'd been what you're looking for right here with some mighty fine eating right there.

Yeah, that's just the absolute average sized crappie that you catch that?

Yeah.

That's just your average.

Just the average run of the mill.

Thousands of them.

See how much them fish move around?

Yeah.

That's not- crappie█s nature's not like that.

They they it's more sit still.

And they kick their tail once or twice and they coast.

So like if you see one moving its tail all the time, it's not a crappie.

It's amazing how that's just hours and hours.

Oh yeah.

It's just time on the water.

Let's say.

Like that fish there kind of looks and shape like a crappie.

Yeah.

That's that would be like a pound and a quarter.

Pound and a half probably.

You think he's a good one?

I'm pretty sure.

Oh, yeah.

That is a nice Kentucky lake crappie right there.

More like what I'm after.

That fish is as thick as it's going to be.

And it's probably 15in long.

I'd say it's 15in long.

Got a big ol█ mouth.

Big ol█ mouth.

That's a really, really good crappie.

So this is, this is a spot you█ll remember for tomorrow, huh?

Yeah.

There's another one on there.

So we'll leave him and maybe tomorrow i█ll catch him.

There you go.

Tell me a little bit about what makes a good crappie rod.

I mean, you want you want something that's got enough backbone to get your fish out of the brush quick.

Don't get tangled up.

You want something that's really sensitive and you want something to cast a light jig.

Lookie hear?

Pretty crappie right there.

That's probably what you think.

12.5in crappie.

Yeah, probably a 12.5, 13 inch, 13in, maybe.

It's pretty good fish.

You know, you can see the structure down there and you see the really big fish moving around.

Now those are like the Asian carp.

This is the structure that we're fishing.

There might be another one right in there possibly.

Got lucky.

But that's exactly how it works right there.

You find your structure.

You figure out how far out you got to cast.

And then you swim this little this little jig right there above them.

Nice fish.

I'll tell you what.

If I was trying to put a mess of fish together, that'd be a really good one for a crappie tournament angler.

That's a throwback.

Well Tony, I'll tell you what I know today is a super busy day for you.

You're out here trying to locate some really big fish.

Not this one but we'll take this.

This is, this is a nice nice fish.

And I appreciate you coming out here and showing me exactly what it takes.

You use a live scope.

And to fish like this.

This is a for me, it's a really a learning experience.

It's definitely time on the water.

But, you know, with enough time on the water, with the unit, you can, you know, you can see it's rewarding.

Yeah.

It's fun.

Well, I'll tell you what, tomorrow you don't have to keep any of this small.

I hope they're all on it.

I hope you are a lot bigger.

But, I'll tell you what.

It's been a lot of fun.

I appreciate it.

I█m going to get this fish back in the water.

All right.

Thank you so much.

You're welcome.

I had fun.

Kentucky's deer archery season is right around the corner.

This year, the opening day is on September the 5th.

Early archery season.

I've got an east wind which is putting me in this stand.

It's the only stand i█ve hunted this year.

We've had this consistent east wind.

I've been seeing some deer, had a couple of pretty close encounters, and I have seen a small eight point buck.

So I know there's some bucks running around in here.

So conditions are just about perfect.

Light breeze temperature in about 60 degrees.

Let's hope something comes out here today to try out these beans.

What a crazy morning hunting the beans You know, I got to be honest, I wasn't excited about hunting this stand this morning because this is not my favorite morning spot.

I've had a lot of luck in the evenings, but the wind put me in this situation where this is the stand I need to be in.

thought for sure that deer is going to bust me.

That deer walked right in that trail, the same trail I walked in on, finally presenting itself a shot.

Felt like it was a pretty good shot.

I'll wait it out about 30 40 minutes, see if I can't pick up a good blood trail.

And hopefully I've got some fresh venison in the freezer.

Oh, yeah.

Here we go.

Here's blood.

And here's my arrow.

Definitely blood soaked.

Alright, I always like to take my arrow where it's found.

I've got a lot of blood right here.

This is where my trail starts.

So if I ever need to come back and repick it up, it gives me a good spot right there.

You know, it's going to get really warm today, like almost 90.

So, I would█ve liked to have stayed up there and hung it a little bit longer.

But due to the fact that I'm pretty sure this deer is down, I waited about 30 minutes.

It's time to go see if I can't locate it.

I have a very, very solid blood trail right here.

Right here is where she entered the woods here.

There she lays right there.

Probably ran 120 yards or so.

So.

Looks like she's down.

Let's go check.

Well, I'm super, super excited to have my first year on the ground of the year.

It was a great hunt.

You know, I didn't see any bucks, but I saw quite a few does and they were literally surrounding me.

I didn't expect a deer to come from the exact path, which was straight downwind from where I was at, but it sure did.

I tell you what, there's not a better way to bring fresh venison home to the table than getting out early with a bow and arrow or a crossbow, and putting the venison in the freezer.

It's a great start to the season.

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 this nice largemouth bass that was caught by Michael Yon.

He caught this fish while bluegill fishing.

What a surprise.

Cooper Pyles was out cat fishing and caught this nice channel catfish at Craig's Creek in Gallatin County.

Congratulations.

Here we have Sophia, who was out fishing on Laurel River Lake and caught her first walleye ever.

This fish was 21in long.

Nice job.

13 year old Rob Goins went out largemouth fishing at Cedar Creek Lake and caught this nice trophy.

Congratulations.

Here we have siblings, Sam and Sarah, and they caught this nice largemouth bass at their Pappy█s farm pond in Owen county.

Nice Job.

Here we have Wallace Beeler of Grayson County.

He went fishing at Nolin River Lake and caught this nice bass.

Check out this impressive walleye that was caught from the Middle Fork of the Kentucky River.

Daniel Watkins caught this fish while muskie fishing.

Nice job.

Here at Kentucky Afield, we'd like to wish you and your family a happy 4th of July.

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.