Hello and welcome to Kentucky Afield.

I'm your host, Chad Miles.

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

Turkey season is right around the corner.

And to get you excited, we're going to take a look back at our 2024 turkey hunt.

Then we're going to head out to a wildlife management area with biologists as they treat invasive plant species from the air.

But first, we're going to head out on a squirrel hunt with some impressive dogs.

This morning we're in Henry County, Kentucky, and we're doing something that I really enjoy doing, and that is squirrel hunting with dogs.

But these aren't just normal dogs, are they?

Now they, they a lil█ different.

Tell me, what type of, breed of dog you've got here and, kind of what they're trying to do.

So Knockout here he is, a treeing cur.

And we strictly just competition hunt.

Mostly.

They're not your typical mountain feist.

When you cut them, they're going.

They don't come back to you.

You guys breed these dogs and raise these dogs just for the competition.

Yeah, we're looking for the next big winner.

So when you talk about competition hunting.

So you turn these dogs loose and they're going to go out and try to try to find a squirrel.

And then how does that work from there?

So basically we'll draw out in the morning and you'll draw out to compete with two other guys and or women and you have hour and a half.

Okay.

So in that hour and a half, it's all about which dog trees the most squirrels in that hour and a half.

Okay.

So if you win that one, you advance to the next round.

And it's basically what they call full elimination.

You'll go from round, round round till you get down to final.

Just three left and that'll be the final.

So you guys, this isn't just Kentucky.

You're traveling all over for this.

Yeah, we actually we leave in two weeks to go to Mississippi.

We've been to Michigan, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, everywhere.

Wow.

And there's actually, there's a lot of money in this, isn't there?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's, there's a lot of money in it.

You can you can really do well.

Squirrel competitions really big in Kentucky?

Yeah.

We, we travel actually, LBL, Land between the lakes.

They have one of our biggest hunts of the year.

They have a junior world and a and a big world hunt.

Okay?

And, was it three years?

Three years ago, they had 63 dogs and we actually finished one, two, three at the world.

Wow.

Tell me this dog's name again.

Pleasant home pearl.

She seems to be the one that's a little more docile this morning, but she's ready to go, huh?

Well, well, don't let that fool you.

She█s just easy to handle, huh?

She's eight little over eight years old now, so she's calmed down a little.

But she don't act like eight year old when you cut her loose.

Especially if there ain't nothing moving.

Oh, yeah.

She covers a lot of ground.

Yes, yes.

I have hunted behind feists and curs this the first time on a treeing cur.

So I'm excited to see how these dogs do.

It's different when you get in the field with people who... when you see how people that raise hunting dogs, the love and the attention that you give.

Oh, yeah, I mean, these are like family members, aren't they?

Yeah, yeah, we spend a lot of time with them.

Our families are big hunters.

Yeah, our whole family's big hunters.

So this is like a family tradition for us.

Oh, yeah, they're beautiful dogs.

I will say that.

And you can tell they're well bred and, and ready to go.

Good to go?

You guys say the word.

Having three dogs is just like a competition.

That's basically the same.

Everything's the exact same right now.

This is like a training competition for you guys right now.

Kind of have a bark like a coon dog, don█t they?

Yeah, that's why we've bred them the way we do.

So we can hear them where they hunt so deep.

You got to be able to hear them.

So the initial barks that we're hearing right now is that indicating anything?

That there's red hot.

They're they'll be treed here in just a second.

They don't.

There's they see that.

That one's red, red hot.

Really?

Okay.

So they go into a different bark when when they're actually.

So them big long balls right there.

That's mine coming treed.

Okay.

Yeah.

When he does those big long balls like that that's him basically showing treed.

Okay.

Well that took what about 30 seconds?

Yeah.

Somewhere in there.

I noticed you were carrying, a thermal monocular, too.

I guess that's a really good way to.

Yeah, a lot of times, like, we go down south or anywhere down and there, we'll- trees down there are monsters and see a lot of pines.

So I mean having that find, you know, just one in a pine or you know, even being able to just find where to locate you know it can pay for itself basically.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

Because you're, I mean if you're training dogs it's really nice to know is there really if I can't see it physically see it with my eyes.

But if that'll help you find one.

It helps your training does it?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, it'll even show heat coming out of a den, you know, that kind of thing.

So, yeah, if one of us get beat out.

Say we go to hunt and one of us get beat out, a lot of times we'll stay.

Like, if he if he advances or if I advance or Josh advances, we'll stay and we'll go and help and we'll take the thermals and we'll run the thermals while he's handling on the dog.

You know we can find the squirrel quicker.

You got, you got, you got a time limit.

So you got five minutes when you get treed after you handle to find it.

So it's just.

Oh yeah.

Something to help speed up the process.

Absolutely.

I can I can understand that.

Yeah that makes sense.

Well you guys let me know how long you- we█ll go to this one here first.

We got Cat treed right here.

This is a little different squirrel hunting than the way I was raised: sitting in there being real quiet, waiting for a squirrel to come out.

Man, you cut these dogs loose, then suddenly we got three squirrel opportunities within minutes.

One█s right here.

You ready?

Ready to go.

All right.

We're going to see if we can't get this one out of here.

Got him.

Good shot.

There he comes.

Good job.

Thank you.

Nice young gray!

There you go.

I'll tell you what you like eating squirrels don't get no better than that.

Perfect.

Nice.

Young gray.

Yep.

Good start.

It is a good start.

There we go.

I say we go over to this next one.

We'll have another one.

We've already got a. I've already got dogs.

On another tree ready to go.

So we're going to load this squirrel up in the, I got a game pouch here, and, we'll see what this next dog has.

You already see it?

That big left limb up there about 20ft from the top, I think I see it.

You got him.

Oh, there he comes.

Good shot.

There we go.

Shot well thank you.

Lookie there.

Got him a male squirrel there.

Oh we got another dog on a tree, don█t we?

Yes, sir.

All right, let's go.

See him there in that point?

Oh, I do not see it.

He's right there to the right in the right side of that limb.

Oh, yeah?

Yeah, I see it.

There█s nothing like getting out, working your dogs.

Get a little target practice.

Taking home a mess of squirrels for the table.

This is a perfect morning.

There's very few things that█ll take you back to your childhood than this right here.

When you were a young kid did you use dogs then to?

Oh, yeah.

So you█ve been using dogs your entire- I've had dogs my whole entire life.

Beagles.

Some of squirrel dog, coon dogs, something.

All right.

Well, let's regroup and see what we got.

Everybody good?

And the race is on.

Cat█s treed.

Furle█s treed and I think Knockout█s about to get- Yeah.

Well which one do you guys think we ought to go too first?

They're closer.

Okay.

Squirrels in that second tree.

That's the first one.

He's about- you can barely- Oh, I think I see.

he's on the right side.

Yeah, I see, I see him right there.

There's two squirrel.

Oh there's two?

Yeah there's two.

There's one right below that one on my side.

Well okay.

Good shot.

You guys saying under the second squirrel in here?

Wait, I think I see.

Oh yeah.

You guys look up and see where the, the right up there were kind of splits.

It's on the right hand side.

You see that squirrel up there?

Nice shot two for one.

Do you get bonuses on that?

Nah, that don't count.

I wish it did sometime.

Squirrel number two.

It's a male.

Another gray squirrel.

You see it, is it in that cedar tree here?

Yeah, he's just sitting there Chad, If you go right up the hill there, you should be able to see him.

see that little nest in this tree?

Yeah, he's sitting right above it.

All right.

You hit it.

I heard it, thud.

Hit him again, you better get him another shot.

That got him.

well, Michael, I have to tell you one thing.

That is the quickest limit of squirrels I've ever killed.

I've hunted some pretty good spots and had a bunch of squirrels, but literally just walking from tree to tree, chasing these dogs.

That's six in- Ah well I can probably pretty much tell you by this.

We've been on the ground about 32 minutes, 32 minutes, and that's when walking we walked, what, 250 yards?

Before we even cut loose.

I'll tell you what.

These dogs are absolutely amazing.

And you hear them.

They're they're ready to go.

Yeah.

They█d do this all day, wouldn█t they?

Oh yeah.

Yeah yeah.

There's a lot of times we have to hunt three rounds a day, so you know.

Yeah.

They gotta be in good shape and they█re ready.

I am done, but I█d like to see the dogs tree again if you want to cut them loose.

Yep.

Yeah.

We'll, we'll get them gathered up.

We'll get around the point and cut them back loose.

What a fun day.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Are you ready for the spring turkey season?

It comes in this year on April the 12th.

And now it's time to get ready.

This morning on the way to my first set up, there were two toms already in the field.

They just hit the ground, full strut.

I didn't even get to make it all the way there.

I had to sit down and try to call a little bit, but there were also some hens.

I couldn't see the hens, but I could tell the way they were acting.

They kept making their way down this direction so that ridge line right there is where I was set up about four or five hundred yards away.

The birds were coming this way.

So I made a move to try to get out in front of them.

If they█re with those hens, they may go quiet for an hour or two, and that's totally common with turkey hunting.

So hopefully I'm out in front of them.

I'll give a little bit of calling here and there, and hopefully when they finish up with those hens, I can get them to move to this field.

This is a great, hidden, little field.

Perfect area for turkeys to pick bugs or whatever.

So hopefully I can get them in this field.

If I can get them in this field and they work this field edge they█ll get in range.

Bird right there.

What█s that?

Right over the ridge line.

It█s head is popping up.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah That's a gobbler too.

Oh we got another one over here too.

Oh he█s strutting up, here we go.

Oh, he█s looking for us.

Look how beautiful that bird- how much color it has.

We've got birds gobbling all around.

This little field is a perfect spot for these birds to strut.

Now that bird was walking off, and now he's coming our way.

At least 120 yards away right now.

I can█t tell how long the beard is but it doesn't matter that's a mature gobbler right there.

Oh, yeah.

That bird's probably in the 60 yard range right now.

We've got a bird that just walked barely, barely on the edge of range to my right.

I can't see him right now because of this tree.

But a second bird is making its way from my extreme left.

So literally got birds on both sides of the field right now.

This could happen.

Oh, look right here.

We got a hen coming out right here.

That's better than a decoy.

As long as she don't drag them away.

There's three of them stepping in the field.

Alright, they█re bunched up.

As soon as the one in the rear clears, I█m going to shoot the one in the back.

Alright, the one in the back.

Ready?

Yup, go for it.

Look, watch this.

They're going to kick the crap out of that bird.

Watch this.

This is real typical in turkey behavior.

When one bird seems wounded, the other ones just try to start beating the crap out of it and that's what we got.

You got two dominant turkeys that are trying to show their dominance over the wounded bird.

Oh my.

I█ll tell you what: that's what makes turkey hunting so exciting.

Here we set up here and thought- set up here and thought that we missed our chance.

We had that tom work its way all up the field, veered off to the right, didn't get a shot, but we heard these birds gobbling and they came in and turned out to be three birds.

They paraded right out in front of us, standing side by side.

Had a rough time trying to pick out which one I was going to get a clean shot at.

Finally got an opportunity.

Bird stuck its head up, pulled the trigger and the other two started flogging it.

What an awesome start to this turkey season.

All right, there those other birds go.

All right.

Let's go out there and check out the bird.

There it lays.. Oh, man.

Well, what a nice, beautiful, mature gobbler.

He's got a pretty nice beard on it.

All three of these birds were about exactly the same size.

I didn't care which one I took.

I just wanted to make sure it was a nice, clean shot where I only got one.

Big, beautiful fan on this bird.

What an awesome start to the season.

You know, it's early, got a long season, may try to get out and take another bird, but if I don't see another turkey the rest of the season...

This year has been a blast.

Managing invasive plant species can be tough, but biologists with the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife have a new tool for this process.

We're here on Rock Castle River Wildlife Management Area in Pulaski County.

The prior land use on this property was strip mining and during that, especially during the reclamation stage.

Oftentimes, landowners will use fast growing species to put back on the landscape.

In some instances, especially previously, they used species that are non-native invasive species.

So in June of 2023, we started a fairly extensive invasive species removal project.

We rented a dozer and actually spent a month dozing out autumn olive, bush honeysuckle, multi-flora rose, and basically just piling up these invasive species.

To eliminate or reduce the amount of autumn olive specifically on this property.

Doing one thing alone is not going to be the answer.

We've got to follow that up with other types of management practices.

So prescribed fire is another tool that we're using and then of course this herbicide treatment and we're trying to adapt, you know, as things evolve and technology is coming along.

And so we had the money to go ahead and fund this project to get the helicopter out here, do the aerial spraying.

We did 330 acres of that, and then we followed that up with 65 acres of the drone treatment out here today.

It's just a really good way to get a good coverage of herbicide across the area.

And it's a different technique, something that we haven't done in the past.

So we can compare those two practices and just see which one is going to be the most efficient moving forward.

Non-native invasive species are really good at establishing quickly on the landscape.

They can reproduce very quickly.

They can also spread very rapidly and pretty much cover a landscape and smother out all of the native species.

If you don't get every single stitch of root out of that autumn olive, it will re sprout.

So the helicopter coming in, basically what we're doing is we can spray 333 acres fairly quick.

We can get a landscape level impact for the habitat and for the local wildlife.

So you're talking about a very large impact really quick.

Autumn olive is one of the most hearty plants and hard to kill plants out there.

And he was able to run that thing with 95 gallons of herbicide in it, and he was treating about 20 to 25 acres at a time.

And then he would run that herbicide out, come over and land it on top of the tanker truck, refill it.

So we could see we were getting a good coverage of herbicide that's being treated.

Herbicide application with a helicopter has allowed us to address multiple acres.

In the project that we've done this week that would have taken us months on the ground if we were spraying it via a tractor or if we were going in and actually cutting those down.

So it's much, much more time efficient and then also cost efficient when you look at all the cost, that is rolled into there.

So helicopter application is definitely something that is going to benefit us at being able to address large acres of this species over time.

We're also spraying with the drone and the drone is actually going to be used to spray a different type of invasive called sericea lespedeza.

It's more of an herbaceous weed that grows in these poor soils.

And what it does is it basically takes over as well.

It outcompetes all your native species and has zero benefit for wildlife.

The drone is going to treat a smaller area, but for situations like this, we had 65 acres here today.

We could have never contracted that chopper to come over and do that because it's not worth their time.

So drone comes over.

They got a 25 gallon tank on it, you know, much smaller than what the chopper is.

It's a slower process, but this guy's flying like 13 feet above the vegetation.

Same set up.

He's got a tablet.

We can see the transects he█s flying.

We keep the herbicide where we want it.

And you can see in the video, I mean, he's getting awesome coverage on everything that we're spraying.

And so it's another tool in the toolbox for us.

If we're treating a smaller area, we can call on the drone to come in and do it.

Or if we've got these bigger acreage plots, three, four or 500 acres or more, I think that's at a place where we want to use the chopper.

Not only are we addressing that acreage here on Rock Castle River WMA, but we're also looking to expand this and have done that on some of our WMAs in eastern Kentucky as well.

The landscape is extremely similar and unfortunately it's inundated with these non-native invasive species such as autumn olive and sericea lespedeza.

The next step is we're actually going to come in next week, once some of these weeds start dying down, and we're going to drill native warm season grasses and forbs.

We have a lot of quail in this area and there's not very good nesting cover or escape cover for those quail, which is what you need.

So we're going to come back in and plant some native warm season grasses, which acts as their nesting cover, and then some forbs as well, which brings in those insects.

It allows for good brooding habitat for young poults and it creates great browse for deer as well.

So it's kind of a one stop shop.

Once we get some native cover on the ground, that's actually going to be a fire tolerant species and it's going to allow us to run some hot fires through this.

The thought process is that we're going to be able to set back these invasives over time.

That way we can provide better habitat for all of our wildlife species.

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 beautiful muskie that was caught by Michael Waters while fishing on Cave Run Lake.

Nice fish.

Ten year old Grayson Moore went fishing today, and he caught this nice 13 inch rainbow trout while fishing at Mill Creek Lake.

It's starting to feel like spring out here.

And you know what that means.

Our live turkey question and answer show is right around the corner.

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.