This week we're talking with Katie Petry about her recent muzzleloading black bear hunt in New Mexico.

I'm really excited to have Katie on the show today to talk about her family history with muzzleloading and how that led to her recent muzzling black bear hunt. Hearing this inspiring story about Katie taking down this black bear with her grandfather's Thompson Center Cherokee is pretty energizing.

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"My name is Katie Petry and I'm just a mom from Indiana. I got into muzzleloading through my grandfather when I was a young kid I loved to follow him around, and I begged him to. Let me go hunting with him, so he was my inspiration into all things outdoors. I recently was very very blessed and able to honor his memory by taking my first black beer with a traditional cap and ball muzzleloader that he gave me about fifteen years ago.

He passed away two years ago and since then I've been hunting almost exclusively with that muzzleloader.

So this was a very special hunt for me as a kid I just a scrawny little kid and I saw my grandpa taking my two older boy: cousins, hunting and I begged him, take me- and he said you know "Oh you're too little you'll get cold, you won't like it", and so finally he was like all right. "You know I'm going to have you shoot my four ten and you're not going to like it. It'll kick and you won't like it, but I'm gonna, let you do it anyway because you keep asking me", and so he let me shoot it and I shot all the cans down that he'd set up for me and he got just an absolute kick out of that yeah. I know I'll, never forget him just laughing and bragging on me and I was very, very young. I can't remember how old I was, but I was so proud of myself and just that whole experience that grandpa was so proud and that I loved it was kind of like the first thing that just got me just passionate about it.

I wasn't the only grandkid I wasn't the only girl, but we had a very special bond over anything to do with the outdoors." Katie is an advocate for hunters everywhere using any legal method of take. As a woman in the outdoors, she's overcome some adversity to prove she can hunt just like everyone else, even with her grandfather's old muzzleloader.

I'm looking forward to following Katie's adventures as she plans for her next hunt.

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