This week on Kentucky Afield, when you're taking on an invasive species as prolific as Bush honeysuckle, you need some firepower.

We're breaking out the helicopter.

Next, nighttime coyote hunting has become extremely popular and it's now in season.

So we're giving it a try.

Then, we're rabbit hunting, but not with shotguns.

We're using a hawk.

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.

Most outdoors people do not realize how invasive honeysuckle can be, and the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife is constantly looking for new methods to control it, including helicopters.

Today we're doing an invasive treatment for Bush Honeysuckle on clay wildlife management area.

This type of project is a little bit different than other treatment methods that have been used for Bush honeysuckle.

The main difference is we're using a helicopter instead of using foliar spray or cut stump treatments.

This project is roughly 600 acres in size, with an additional 400 acres off the WMA on private property.

So we're using a helicopter today because a helicopter gives a few advantages over some other treatment methods.

One of the main advantages is it's very cost effective to use a helicopter compared to using ground treatment methods.

A helicopter also allows you to take advantage of a narrow window when all the native vegetation is dormant and the bush honeysuckle is still actively growing, which gives you the opportunity to treat it when you don't have to worry about overspray killing other plants.

Bush honeysuckle is a real problem in our forests, especially around central Kentucky.

The main reason is because it doesn't provide a lot of food for wildlife.

It also prevents other native vegetation from growing.

So it basically clogs up that real estate and blocks out the sun in that area and nothing really grows underneath the bush honeysuckle.

So you end up coming away with basically just a desert of green growing under your forest.

And in those conditions, you know, there's a few animals that will eat the fresh leaves.

Deer will nibble on a little bit, but for the most part, it doesn't provide very good habitat compared to what could be growing there If there was more sun able to reach the ground.

So the chemical that we're using is glyphosate, which is basically the active ingredient in Roundup, and normally that would kill pretty well every plant that it landed on.

The advantage of spraying within this narrow window is we're in the late fall and the only plants that are still actively photosynthesizing are plants that are not aligned with our growing season.

And because of that, the Bush honeysuckle and other invasive species are still green and photosynthesizing and can accept that herbicide, whereas our native vegetation is for the most part dormant.

This is a practice that's been used in other states for at least ten years.

Illinois and Missouri have both used it for a long time and they've seen great success and no negative impact on the wildlife or the native vegetation in the areas that they're treating.

There's a lot of other ways the bush honeysuckle can be treated.

You can use a cut stump treatment where you cut the stump off and treat that cut area with a herbicide, a foliar treatment where you're basically just spraying herbicide over the top of the plant, and there's also a basal bark treatment that you can do where you apply herbicide just to the base of the stem to kill the plant.

All of those methods work and are really effective and we continue to use them, even though we're also using a helicopter.

The disadvantage to those methods is they're pretty expensive and they're very time consuming for our staff.

So we end up spending a tremendous amount of time each year treating honeysuckle, and we only accomplish a fraction of the acres that we're accomplishing with a helicopter in just one day.

So the work that's going to be done today will be: they're going to treat 600 acres of Clay WMA today using the helicopter.

Tomorrow, they're going to treat 400 acres on private property.

Those landowners have property that's infested with bush honeysuckle, and they're working with the Kentucky Fish and Wildlife to get it sprayed.

If you're a landowner and you want to learn more about treatment options for your property, you can actually reach out to one of our wildlife biologists.

It█s a free service.

They can come to your property and look at it with you and decide whether or not potentially aerial spraying is the best option for you or the traditional treatment methods like cut stump or foliar spraying.

Last year we did 600 acres already and we've got at least one more year of treatment on clay before we do what we set out to do, which was treat the majority of the honeysuckle on the WMA.

After looking at last year's treatment, we're going to need to do follow up treatments.

There's going to be areas that they miss, areas that don't die completely.

So we'll probably end up doing multiple treatments over the years but right now our goal is to do three years, 600 acres each year on clay, and that's going to treat the majority of our Bush honeysuckle.

Are you looking to participate in one of our newest hunting opportunities here in Kentucky?

Well, that would be nighttime coyote hunting with a rifle.

And it's now in season.

Well I'm super excited to be out here tonight.

I'm gonna try my luck with a little bit of nighttime coyote hunting.

There's so much dedicated gear to be out here, and this is a perfect time of year to do it.

It's February.

It's cold out.

It█s right before the breeding season for coyotes.

And hopefully they're already out and about because coyotes are nighttime scavengers and hunters.

Now, coyote hunting here in the state of Kentucky can be done day or night, year round.

But if you're going to use any type of means to illuminate a field or to help make any wildlife visible in a field like what I'm using tonight, which is an infrared scope or a thermal scope or any other type of light, it has to be done during a limited season.

Hopefully I can get out here and get set up, use some coyote vocalizations, get a coyote interested, get them in range and hopefully get a shot.

Looky there.

Now, I don't know if a coyote is responsible for killing this deer, but it's obvious that a coyote has drug this leg of this deer out here.

I'll tell you what I deer hunt this place quite a bit.

So, I have no love for the coyote.

All right.

Let's start out with a female invitation.

Chad right there.

There's one in the field at 1:00.

All right, here we go.

I don't know.

It came in to the right.

I tried to get on it.

I got down right where I thought it was at.

And when I finally saw the coyote I shot.

I don't know what happened.

It may have been a clean miss.

Oh, man.

Well I looked all over for that coyote and I guess it missed.

The good news is it's early.

And I got time for another set.

This is a spot that I like.

It's mainly because of the way the field is crowned where I can see all the way across the field.

So I█m going to get the call set up, tuck back in these woods, get set up on the bipod, give it a try.

All right.

We█re going to start out here with a couple of female howls.

Try to see if we got anything in the area.

All right, now I'm going to move to the yipping coyotes.

Oh, that was a bark, that was a coyote bark and it sounded like it's...

There it is again.

I should be able to see this coyote.

There he is.

I got him.

I got him.

I got him.

He's barking.

The coyote█s moving to the left.

But I think I█ll still get a shot.

Oh, man, I don't see the coyote.

That's a that's a little further than I was wanting to shoot tonight, but it barked soon as I made a call.

I wasn't expecting it to be so fast.

I hope I got a coyote down.

Lets go take a look.

There he is right there.

Sure enough.

Oh, my gosh.

Well, I can tell you, this is not how I expected this to go down.

You know, you might see a coyote one every three or four times you set up.

This time I came out and put the call out, put a female howl out there and literally waited a minute.

And before I even got to put my next call out, I heard a bark.

This coyote was right on me.

It was literally 200 yards away.

And when that happened, I got an opportunity to see that thing actually barking on camera.

I see it carrying on.

It gave me enough time to get down, try to get a really good shot.

Thank God I was on my bipod and my shooting sticks.

I got down, I was on a knee and was able to put this coyote down.

And I'll be honest with you, until I walked through this field and saw this coyote, I wasn't sure I'd hit it.

My first nighttime coyote with the new rifle season here in Kentucky now it█s been in for a couple of years.

What a cool experience.

One more coyote off this piece of property.

Hopefully this is good for my deer, my turkey, my rabbits and everything else.

I'm going to get my gear and this coyote and get it picked up and get it out of the field.

And I'm going to be looking at my calendar and trying to look and see when I can get back out here and do this again.

One of the oldest forms of hunting doesn█t use a weapon at all.

It includes using a bird of prey.

You brought two beagles, right?

I brought two.

Yeah.

So we got three females.

I brought checkers today.

We're not actually hunting with the shotgun today, are we?

No.

It's going to be a little different today.

You█ve brought a bird of prey that you've trained to rabbit hunt out in front of your bagels, right?

Yes, sir.

It's a harris hawk.

Well, let's get the bird out.

This bird, if you watch Kentucky Afield, you've seen this bird before.

It's on the opening scene where that bird comes down and hits the rabbit, and it's actually the same exact bird.

It's the same exact bird.

Okay.

And that was this bird here, Bullet.

Bullet.

Let's meet Bullet.

I believe we got one going.

You better get the bird, huh?

This bird here was a juvenile that first year.

Okay, so this makes her fifth season.

This bird knows what those dogs are doing and it's going to get up on a limb and follow those dogs around waiting to see the rabbit so they can attack, right?

Yep.

He's wanting to go right now.

You do what you need to do.

All right.

We'll see if she hears them bark again, and if she does she'll go to where they're at.

She'll get somewhere where she can see good.

This is some real good habitat for rabbit.

It looks great.

If they aren█t all frozen stiff.

Get in there, Checkers.

Hunt ‘em up.

Get in there, checkers.

there!

There he goes!

Go get it, checkers!

Here he goes.

Here he goes.

Right here.

He should be getting on it.

There she goes there again.

And she's getting higher and higher up in the trees to where she can get a better vantage point to see this rabbit.

And she pretty much hangs back.

She's been hunted enough to know that when that rabbit is jumped in a certain area, it'll generally come back to that same area.

And that's what she's doing right now.

And now she's going to the big trees and watch for the rabbit.

I need to get on up that way.

This rabbit just ran round this way down into that brush pile.

Then the dogs ran the rabbit out and now the bird is just following it right on down through here, knowing it's probably going to come right back here.

Yep.

I see the rabbit right there.

Look, it's out there in the open too.

Oh, rabbit cuts coming down hill, Rabbits coming down hill right here.

Yeah.

She should take another perch and then look for it.

She went down one time after it.

She█s cold, man.

Saw it, she wanted it, but she wasn't 100% committed.

She█ll get loosened up to it.

If it happened on the very first dive, that wouldn't be normal anyway.

Now, I don't know if I want to watch the dogs or the bird.

I need to be able to take one eye, one direction, one eye on the other, and watch the birds and the dog at the same time.

Exactly.

Exactly.

I feel like i█m going to miss something if I look away either direction.

Yeah, they already get on it, rejump it down there somewhere and get some more action.

There she goes.

Stay with those dogs.

She's powerful enough to take one of those dog down, but she sees it as a relationship to use those dogs to try to capture gain.

It's pretty wild.

Get in here.

Get in here.

Look for him.

Look for him.

Find him, girl.

Find him.

Come on, Checkers.

Here, here, here, here.

Come on.

Hunt in here, hunt in here, hunt in here.

Man, that all looks good, doesn't it?

Yeah.

Looks good.

I think they may have jumped this rabbit.

That's why my bird flew down here.

I think it's seen one.

That bird is just waiting for us to get here because it saw that Rabbit.

Yup.

That rabbit already took off.

It's down there.

Checkers is on it.

I need to go get around that barn though.

Just being bullheaded.

They'll do that sometimes, especially when they get in a barn where there aint no wind and she thinks there's a rabbit in here.

There it goes, there it goes, there it goes.

Ho, ho, ho, ho.

There it goes, there it goes.

Here comes the rabbit down the hill and the bird█s in the barn.

Look.

Well, our bird decided to take a break and took a perch in this barn.

It literally ran right at my feet.

But the bird█s in there taking a break, so we need to get the bird back out here.

Tell it It's 15 minute lunch break is over.

Time to get out here and get busy.

I know that people say if you're a houndsman, it just gets in your blood.

It█s something you love, and obviously you got a deep passion for that.

Is it very similar for the birds?

I mean, is it something that just gets in your blood?

Oh, gosh, yeah.

Same thing.

I mean, you know, you're you're getting the best of both worlds here.

Like you said.

You're getting to listen to the rabbits run, like a lot of people just go out and they like to run their dogs.

Yeah.

But this one here, you█re getting to watch the bird at work and try to catch that rabbit.

I mean, you get to watch the rabbit.

How it operates.

I mean, every day in the field when you're out there, you learn something and you listen, you learn your dogs, you know, when they're hot, when they're not, when they're off track, watching dogs, which ones leading, how they honor one another.

You learn something about your dogs, you learn something about your bird, and you learn something about rabbit hunting.

Absolutely.

You just can't beat that.

No, you can't.

I do a lot of genealogy and stuff.

I've got Native American blood that I've found and knew that from my Memaw in Hazard, Kentucky, and in doing that, I got all the way back to my 11th generation and my 11th great grandfather, him and his brother Simon, and their last name was Latham.

They wrote a book on falconry.

Its “Falconers Lure and Cure,” I believe, is the way it is.

It talks about husbandry and taking care of the birds and stuff like that.

Anyway, I got to do this research and find out that that my 11th great grandfather was Sergeant of Falconer for King James the First of Scotland.

Really?

in the 1600█s.

It's crazy.

That is crazy.

Talk about getting in your blood.

Yeah.

I mean, I had no idea.

But, you know, and one of my daughters got me the book for Christmas this year.

That█s awesome.

Yeah.

You thinking about moving these dogs and making our way up that way?

We can hunt clear to the creek that way.

Hey, we've been running one rabbit the entire time, and I can still see the truck.

That barn wasn't there so we█re close.

Come on, Lucy!

Turn them loose here?

Yeah man, this is it.

They should get right in there and know what to do and have one up in a little bit.

If I turned her loose here and where she█d be down low in a growed up pond and with bulldozed in it and stuff.

She█ll follow the dogs around in there and she'll have this short purchase.

But what I would rather them to do while i█m holding her on this side is if they can take the rabbit out of here and bring it down through here.

I've got a lot better shot with her in the trees up here of getting one.

There she goes, Hey, check this out.

I can definitely see why Steve brought us to this particular location.

It's a big pond that█s dried up and they filled it in with a bunch of debris and the rabbits are piled in there, and I'm up on the edge of it right now.

And look, every one of these little thorn trees here are chewed off.

What this is, is end of January, not a whole lot of food on the landscape.

And these rabbits have come up here and they will to this off and eat this.

And there are probably 30 or 40 of these little trees down here.

And every one of them have chewed it off, all at about four or five inches high.

There's definitely a lot of rabbits here.

This is one true, sure sign when you see this you got rabbits and probably a pretty good population of them.

I'm going to check this right here real quick.

They jumped one in here the other day.

He█s in that thicket.

Getting ready to see that rabbit squirm out of there.

There he goes, there he goes.

Ho!

How could you have not seen that bird?

I saw one go over the hill right there.

My dogs just took that one in the barn.

Right here.

Right here.

Come on, Lucy!

Here he is!

Ho, Ho, Ho!

well there█s the bird, she's going after it.

She might have got it.

She might have got it.

She may have that rabbit.

Golly man, she missed it.

Right at the edge.

That was pretty cool.

We jumped the rabbit out of here and we went to chase the dogs.

And the bird stayed here.

Yep.

Right where it was jumped.

Right where it was jumped.

I didn't think that the bird was even making an attempt because bird was on the other side of this pond bed here.

Right.

Lo█ and behold, she came down and tried to smash it.

Yeah.

She's made a good effort with it, there.

Well, Steve, I always enjoy watching a bird work like it did today.

That was a great day in the field.

And we got no rabbits.

Right.

Yeah, we don't always get them, but it's like I told you before, it's a lot slimmer chance and getting them going out there with the shotgun and.

Oh yeah, that's one of the reasons why I like it so much because when you do get one, it's a thrill.

It's like, it's like getting that big buck, you know?

Yeah.

I mean, each and every one.

And I mean, this bird here actually has taken a four rabbit limit before, which is what you're allowed with a gun in state of Kentucky.

It's almost like when she dives down, it's almost like taking the shot with with a gun.

You don't always happen.

I mean, how many times you miss?

You know, sometimes she is diving down and trying to grab something with her feet moving.

Sometimes you miss.

And but, you know, watching the whole process of her watch the dogs, you just can't beat that.

Oh, yeah.

I love running my dogs.

We got a lot of work with the dogs, and our three dogs worked together real, real well.

They did.

Well, You taught me a lot about falconry, and I look forward to doing it again someday.

Thank you so much.

Yes, sir.

Anytime.

I really appreciate it.

I do, too.

Now let█s check in and see who else has been out having fun In this week█s Ones that Didn█t Here we have Mason Ray Kidwell with a nice fish.

He loves to hunt and fish with his brothers.

Nice job.

Here we have 13 year old John Boyd Davenport with his first buck, a nice deer that was taken in Christian County.

Congratulations.

Check out this beautiful 20 inch sauger that was taken by Darrell Armstrong from the Ohio River.

Nice fish.

Check out the size of this beaver that was trapped by Todd Netherly on the Salt River.

This beaver weighed 47lb.

Nice job.

Check out this beautiful ten point buck that was taken by Katie Warford in Shelby County.

Congratulations.

Here we have eight year old Riley Lee with a really nice buck that he took in Whitley County with a crossbow.

Nice job.

Ten year old Cameron Higdon took this nice eight pointer while hunting with his dad on the second weekend of modern gun season.

Nice job.

As 2023 winds down in the holidays approach.

Hopefully you can find some time off work outdoors with your family.

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.