This week on Kentucky Afield, we're headed to Butler County and we've got beagles in tow.

We're going rabbit hunting.

Next, we'll tag along with an individual that loves crow hunting and loves doing it on public land.

Then we're taking to the skies and capturing elk using a helicopter.

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're a small game hunter and you like to rabbit hunt, you have a couple of weeks left, depending on what part of the state you live in.

And for me, there's not a better way to get outdoors and spend some time with friends.

Cut them loose.

Let's us a rabbit dogs.

Hey, this way.

This way.

Get here to me.

Get here to me.

Get here to me.

Oh, I say it's a jump.

Josies got one up.

Here he goes!

We█re out here in Butler County this morning on this cool December morning.

Got a pack of about six dogs on the ground.

Got some good old friends and we're hoping to have a great day.

Hopefully as soon as the ground thaws, we're going to have fast rabbit running action all day.

There it goes.

He cross the road.

So he kept like running around right here.

So I went up through here, And saw him walking through there, and I stopped, so I just shot him.

Nice job.

How far behind were the dogs?

Uh, I don█t know.

They█re pretty close with it.

Yeah, They were catching up with it.

That's a good job, buddy.

I heard you shoot once, and I thought, well, there wasn█t a second shot then I forgot, you were hauling a single shot.

So, you know, to make them count, right?

Yeah.

One shot's all you get.

Well, good job.

All right, let's get another one.

Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on.

He█s in here.

He's in here.

He's in here.

He's in here.

He's in here.

Get him.

Get him.

Here he goes, here he goes.

I think Jesse rolled that one first didn█t you?

Did you get him Darren?

Well you uh.

You jumped him.

You should have got the shot.

He quick on that single shot boy.

Yeah, he uh, He hit it too?

I think he did.

Yeah, I think I missed it.

All right.

All right.

Dead.

Good dogs, good dogs, good dogs.

Dead.

good girl.

Do you want me to carry it?

Or, do you wanna carry it?

You can carry it if you want.

Put her back here.

Well, there we go.

Nice job.

I█ll tell you what our, our our percentage isn't good, but we're running a lot of rabbits.

I'll take that every day of the week.

You know, if you're getting to see plenty of rabbits, that means, you know, you got another trip.

Jesse says, What are you talking about?

Oh yeah.

I shot twice and shot twice got two Bunnies.

You know, a lot of times we come out here and like to let the kids take the first shot.

Could you.

Would you please let us shoot one?

Good job, buddy.

Nice job.

I shot that automatic before I got one off.

He done fired two more of em.

Good Lord.

All right, let█s find another one.

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

Hunt in here Come on.

Find him.

Here he goes, here he goes.

Alright ya█ll, look alert.

It's right here.

Right here again.

Same exact spot he was at 20 minutes ago.

Second time.

That rabbit is giving me an opportunity at this exact same spot.

The dogs pushed him right back around.

And sure enough, second time I was like, Well, I'm not going to miss that opportunity again.

Go and take it.

Nice rabbit.

Now I got a little bit of weight to pack.

Get in there.

There he goes!

Long shot.

He ain█t there yet.

Coming at you.

Hold on, hold on.

Your way Chad, right there.

See him?

That was a good race.

You know, this is why I always say that when you jump a rabbit, you want to stay close, Jump this rabbit right here, This gentlemen right here jumped this rabbit ran all the way out.

And that young gentleman was sitting back there.

I said, he's in the best spot cause he hadn█t moved, ran right behind him and shot.

And they brought that rabbit all the way back around the field and slipped right back down through here again.

He's literally laying right now within within 25 yards of where he was initially jumped.

That's what makes rabbit hunting a lot of fun with dogs, is that, you know, you work hard to get a rabbit up and then you set and you let that thing, bring him right back to you.

Sometimes it worked out great.

Sometimes Rabbit finds a hole.

We've had a lot of both today.

Located in Bullitt County, just 28 miles south of Louisville, is Knob State Forest and Wildlife management area.

This WMA is over 1500 acres and offers excellent hunting and outdoor opportunities.

The property consists mostly of hardwoods and contains approximately 45 acres of open fields.

Boundaries are marked with state forest and WMA markers, as well as red blazing on trees.

There are currently three small parking areas, two of which are on the south side of crooked Creek Road.

The third parking area is at KY-733.

An information kiosk is at the first parking area and there is a turn around at the end of Crooked Creek Road.

The best hunting opportunities are for deer, turkey and squirrel due to the extensive woodlands.

However, firearms may not be used to harvest deer and trapping is by permit only.

The fields along Crooked Creek Road may offer fruitful rabbit or quail hunting opportunities.

Remember that wildlife management area users must abide by the Kentucky hunting, trapping and fishing regulations.

Also, keep in mind that regulations on WMA█s often differ from statewide regulations, so be sure to review the hunting guide or website for the specific WMA that you're hunting.

For more information about this WMA or the latest regulations and restrictions that pertain to it, visit our website at fw.ky.gov or call 1-800-858-1549.

Predator hunting is growing across the nation, and many people don't realize that a crow is also a predator.

And our wildlife management areas provide a perfect opportunity to get outdoors and shoot some crows.

It's a beautiful morning here in Kentucky.

We█re going to be doing something a little different today.

We're about to tuck in some cedars back here in the corner of the field, set out decoys.

We're trying to call some crows.

Kind of like this set up.

It's a rolling hilltop here, and there's low cedar trees behind us, so we have a good cover to kind of tuck in behind.

We█re still going to wear full camouflage, face masks.

What's nice about these cedar trees being low is that if birds do come over, if we're tall, say, hardwoods like oaks.

They can fly over those trees, be out of range.

If anything comes over today, we should get a good shot at it.

I█ve set this crow decoy just kind of out here in a feeding pattern.

And set this caller up here in this cedar tree and see what happens here.

Well, nothing came to this spot, first set of the day, but got plenty more to go.

And feel confident we can get some more birds in.

All right, well, this spot didn't produce either.

We've got one other spot on this farm, they're going to try out.

If we don't have any luck there, we█re going to head up to Taylorsville Lake WMA and try to do some public hunting.

Just finished the last set up out here.

We had one come in.

It looked kind of interesting.

I don't know what it is, but they certainly don't want to play by the rules.

So we're going to pack the trucks up, head down the road, go to Taylorsville Lake WMA and see what the flocks there are like.

Maybe we'll have some better luck.

We're out here at the WMA.

There was another truck parked up in the parking lot and I hear some dogs, so I'm assuming that he's running those.

Trying to get some more rabbits, but it shouldn't affect us.

This area is big enough to where we shouldn't affect each other.

And we're about to hit up this field, see if we can get a few birds come in.

We got one coming in over here.

He turned.

He's not going to come in.

There's another one behind him though.

He's coming in.

Yeah, he's coming in.

All right, we got one down.

Still hearing a few in the area.

We're probably going to just let this play out.

See if we can█t get a few more to come in.

There's one back here.

One back here.

We just got our second one down off this set.

I'm going to go look for him first and then come back and look for that other bird.

Should be right around here.

There he is.

Alright, I found him.

We knew right where he dropped, but thought it was going to be a little tougher than that.

We know right where that second one is, So we're gonna go try to find him.

All right.

We weren't sure if we were going to find him.

This feels pretty thick.

Luckily, with crows, since they're solid black, it's high contrast, so they're a lot easier to spot than, say, if it were a dove out here.

So that's number two.

We're gonna go try to set up again and get a few more.

They started to come in and I don't know if they just saw something they didn't like or what, but, you know, crow hunting, It's a challenge.

They are the really smart birds.

Actually, one of the few birds in North America, they can actually recognize their own reflection.

They're very smart.

All right.

We're in this new field, so I think we'll put some decoys up here on the top of the ridge, just so birds can see it from a little bit farther away then tuck down here in this little bit lower of a spot.

It's a color and hopefully a few more to come in Right here.

Right here.

There█s a few coming in on the right.

They█ve gone behind those trees.

I think they█re going to come out.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Here we go.

All right, first set did it.

We came to this second field and one right off the bat.

The best part about crow hunting is that the only thing you need is a hunting license.

Just your regular statewide license.

There's a season on them, but there's no limit.

You can just go all day and sure is a blast.

A lot of people probably don't know this, but crows are actually nest raiders and they're particularly hard on duck eggs.

So with this, it's at least helping out the population with other game species.

They're certainly behind us.

They don't want to come in all the way to gun range.

We'll just wait them out, I think if we█re patient they'll come in.

All right, here we go.

I just need to clear those trees.

Yeah.

Got a double on that one.

This is fun.

Alright, there's another one coming in.

He█s pretty high.

Let me try.

A lot of people kind of wonder, you know, what's the point of going crow hunting?

And me, personally, I use the parts off of them for coyote trapping, especially a little bit later in the year, I'd save the breast meat and the feathers, especially that big old black wing sticking out of a hole.

It really catches their attention.

I've had great luck with that.

There are people out there that eat crow.

Personally, I've never tried it.

I leave it for the coyotes and keep using them as an attractant.

There are many ways for biologists to gather data, but one of the best ways is by using their eyes and a bird's eye view.

And the best place to get that from a helicopter.

Today we're in eastern Kentucky in our elk management zone.

We are capturing elk with a helicopter this week.

The purpose of what we're trying to do is we are evaluating our cow reproduction rates and our calf survival.

So when we look at the population monitoring and what we do as a department, it's very important for us to know what percent of our cows are pregnant.

And then of those cars that are pregnant, what percent of them give birth to a calf, and what is their survival rate.

We've had a long history of elk research here in Kentucky, goes back to when the first elk stuffed up the trailer.

It was wearing a radio tracking collar.

You know, elk in the east are a new thing.

And we're more or less writing our own book on elk management in the east.

So this research is critical.

It's a big operation.

We've got almost 25 people out here today.

We're really excited to be working on this project.

For the data derived from this will definitely help guide our future management efforts throughout the restoration zone as a whole.

This calf survival study in particular is very, very important for us.

Calves are the drivers of the population, so it's really important to know how many are living and dying, if anything is killing them, what might that be?

What management decisions can we make to help bolster the population?

What we're doing today, trapping these adult females, It's all a really important part of it.

So essentially from the process that it works, we have a helicopter capture crew, the flies over, the elk they locate and they peel off a single or double, you know, a calf or a cow.

They then shoot a net over the animal.

The animal becomes entangled and then they drop a man out on the ground- They call the mugger- goes over to that elk, puts a blindfold on them, hobbles their legs together, gets the net off, puts them in a flight bag.

He would then radio the helicopter crew.

Helicopter comes back in, drops the rope, hooks the elk up to the rope, and then they fly the elk to us.

So they do everything in the field capture process and prepare them for flight.

And then they bring them to us When we're seeing these animals from where they're captured to our drop zone locations, which may be up to a mile or two miles from where we're set up working the animals, the helicopter crew, they position the animal in there in such a way that it keeps its internal organs safe, keeps its spine aligned properly, so we can minimize our risk for injury during the transportation process.

So once the elk lands the first thing we want to do is make sure that it's in good physical condition from the capture, we immediately check a temperature to make sure that they're not too hot.

We█ll transport the animals down to our work up facility where we've got separate teams ready to take care of each animal.

The first thing we do at the processing facility is check temperature again, make sure they're at a good, healthy level, that they're able to be immobilized.

At that point, we do immobilize them.

We wait for the mobilization of drugs that put them fully asleep, and then we begin the workup process during the workup process will draw blood from the animals to look at this overall health.

They will get airtags for us to be able to identify the animal that will get our GPS collar, that will allow us to track that animal through the life of the collar or the life of the animal.

We collect hair for genetic analysis.

We will also do a just a total assessment of the body looking at fat deposition and fat contents on the animal, just overall condition.

We'll actually give them a numbing injection and we'll pull one of their front incisors and we'll send those off to a lab and they can tell us essentially how old the animal is by counting the rings inside of the tooth.

Kind of like aging a tree.

Yeah.

So my role here is to ensure the health and safety of the animals that we are catching for this project.

We have an anesthesia tech on each animal, making sure that they are having appropriate levels.

I'm right there with them the whole time, making sure everything's good.

We're really working hard to make sure these animals are safe while they're immobilized.

The animals do have a winter coat on, so if they come in just a little bit warm, we'll dump water on them or take other measures to make sure we get their temperature under control.

And we're doing everything safely and humanely as possible.

So during the workup process too, you'll see us consistently trying to move the animal around.

We're just trying to make sure that it remains in a safe position, and particularly with its head, we'll try to make sure that it's upright and in a natural position as best it can that allows the animal to breathe sufficiently.

When the helicopter crew is bringing the animals, they typically will bring them into us two or three animals at a time.

We do this for a couple of reasons.

Generally, we don't want to stressing her too much.

We have very firm establish chase time so that they're not stressed out too much.

It gives us time to really pay attention to each and every animal that comes in to make sure that they get through this process safely.

Part of this project is with the University of Kentucky.

We have two graduate students that are on the project to help with the data analysis and the data composition.

So I'm really excited to be a graduate student at UK working on this project with KDFWR So I get to start to answer some of the questions that you all have and we all have about the elk herd here we're looking at several management focused questions in our research.

So first off, we just want to know how much space these animals are using out on the landscape.

We can get that information from the collar data.

This winter capture season here of Adult elk is really kind of the precursor that sets us up nicely for our summer elk Calf captures where we'll be putting small transmitters on them and tracking them through their first year of life.

So this time around we get to do a ultrasound to check her pregnancy status to see if she is pregnant or not.

And then if she is pregnant, we will insert a transmitter and that will give us a notification of when she gives birth so that we can more easily go out and find that calf.

There's the transmitter that we put into the pregnant cow.

So this elk█s had the workup complete.

She's wearing new radio collars and fresh ear tags and has a vaginal implant transmitter.

And we've given her the reversal to the drug.

And so here in about five or 10 minutes, she'll get off and head up the mountain.

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

Here we have Ace, Jesse and Roy who've been checking trap lines for coyotes in Hardin County.

Nice job.

Here we have Alisha Love with a beautiful bobcat that she trapped in January.

Nice job.

Here we have 13 year old Allie Coursey with a beautiful smallmouth bass that she caught while fishing at Laurel Lake.

Nice fish.

Check out these beautiful black crappie that were caught by Isaac Tackett.

He caught these while fishing on New Year's Eve weekend.

Nice job Here we have a good friend of Kentucky Field, Greg Brissendine, with a beautiful 21 and a half inch small mouth caught on Dale Hallow Lake using the float and fly.

Check out these two beautiful smallmouth bass that were caught by Tony Sweasy.

These fish were caught on Green River Lake, throw in a jerk bait and a crawfish colored crank bait.

Nice job as this big January freeze starts to wind down.

I'm looking for more opportunities to get outdoors and spend some time with some friends.

Hopefully you are too.

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.

Did you know the Kentucky is home to the largest Elkhart in the eastern U.S. with an Elk Zone twice the size of Yellowstone National Park?

And we enjoy one of the most diverse fisheries in the country.

Just ask Christine.

Very nice.

And by the way, Kentucky is known for being one of the top five states for trophy white tails each year.

Additionally, more than 100,000 Kentuckians have benefited from our conservation education programs like the Salato Wildlife Education Center, Summer Conservation Camps, and our learn to hunt and fish classes.

Or did you know about the 1.6 million acres open to the public?

These are just a few things that Kentucky's Department of Fish and Wildlife have helped preserve.

Who pays for conservation in Kentucky?

Well, since the Department receives no general fund state tax dollars, we rely on the sportsmen and women of the Commonwealth.

So if you enjoy Kentucky's resources, help us manage them by purchasing a hunting or fishing license today.

You can do so by visiting fw.ky.gov