Women Who Hunt In Episode 3 of the Outdoor fEAST Podcast Todd sits down with Katrina Talbot who operates the BOW program in New York. BOW (Becoming An Outdoors Woman) provides opportunities for women to explore hunting and determine if it's right for her. This is a great conversation about all the work being done in New York state and really developing women who hunt.     The Outdoor Feast Podcast has Katrina Talbot on. Listen how the BOW Program identifies women who huntShare on X Editor's Note: If you're curious about starting your own hunting journey shoot an email to [email protected]. This content is funded in part through a grant provided by the Minnesota DNR. Learn more about DNR efforts to recruit, retain and reactivate hunters on their website.  ******** Transcript of Podcast ********* Introduction Welcome to the outdoor feast by modern carnivore. If you're new to hunting, fishing or foraging, we welcome you to the conversation. Get ready for stories and insights that start in the northeast, but range to the south, Far West and wide-open spaces in between. Now, here's your host, Todd Waldron. Todd Waldron Welcome to the outdoor feast. This is Todd thanks for joining us this week. Welcome back. I am thrilled to be talking this week with Katrina Talbot from New York's Becoming an Outdoors Woman program. Katrina is the state coordinator with the Department of Environmental Conservation in Albany, New York and I had the chance to sit down with her back in November at the Albany headquarters for DC and we had this great conversation about becoming an outdoors woman and what it means to the participants and all the great mentors and the teachers out there and how it contributes to their personal hunting stories and to the future of conservation in New York State. why it's important. So, Katrina is a she's a Hunter, she's a conservationist, she started hunting as an adult. She was a vegetarian in high school. So, she's going to be sharing her story about what the program is, and how she got involved with it. And also, a little bit about her hunting season this last year, and the deer that she harvested so I'm absolutely thrilled anytime I have a chance to sit down with Katrina. It's always a great conversation. Becoming an outdoors woman's doing great things in New York State for a lot of my friends, and I just asked you to support it. So, thanks for listening. If you haven't subscribed yet to the outdoor feast podcast by modern carnivore, please do so. Wherever you listen, please Also, consider subscribing to the modern carnivore podcast with my good friend Mark Norquist, and thanks for checking us out on the social channel. Animals at modern carnivore and on the website at mod carne. com. So without further adieu, here's a conversation with Katrina Talbot, New York director becoming an outdoors woman program with Department of Environmental Conservation. We are in Albany, New York at the Department of Environmental Conservation building with Katrina Talbot. And Katrina is a wildlife biologist and you are the program director for becoming an outdoors woman right for DC. Katrina Talbot Yes. Yes, I am. Todd Waldron Thank you for being on the podcast. It's great to have you. Katrina Talbot Yeah. It's great to be here. Thanks, Todd Todd Waldron So, let's just jump right in. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your hunting season this year, and then we'll get into what you do and some hunting trends. Katrina Talbot Sure. Yeah. So I am, like you said a wildlife biologist in the hunter education program at DC and I am the statewide coordinator for New York's becoming an outdoorsman program. So, I took over the program a little over a year ago now last September, and Bo has actually been in New York for 27 years, 26 years now we're going into our 27th year. So, my predecessor Kelly staying brought it to New York after she went out to Wisconsin in 1991. When it was created, and she realized what an amazing program it was to recruit women into a whole array of outdoor sports. She brought it here. And yeah, I took it over from her last year. Todd Waldron I had no idea that it had been going that long. That's incredible. 26 years. He said, Yeah, Katrina Talbot yep. And it's actually in over 40 different states, two different Canadian provinces. It's a really huge program. It's really popular. And its sort of getting a resurgence right now, because of the R3 movement. A lot of states are willing to support it a little bit more. Because it is so focused on recruiting women into hunting, trapping and fishing. Todd Waldron Yeah, for sure. So, talk a little bit about that and lead right into that conversation. Katrina Talbot  Okay. Yeah. So I mean, as you know, I love that we're linking this all in with modern carnivora and breaking down barriers and the whole are three movement because Really bow and our three just lend to each other so well, women face a lot of really specific and unique barriers to getting into outdoor sports, especially hunting and trapping, or just a lot of, you know, factors go into it that men in general just don't have to worry about, you know, historically women's place wasn't necessarily in these hardcore outdoor sports. I mean, women have always been hunting and trapping, but they haven't necessarily been recognized for doing it that long. And really, when you're talking about like, you know, inspiring kids and inspiring new generations and even adults, you can't really be what you don't see, right. So if you don't see a lot of women out there doing it in media in publications and marketing, then you're not really sure if it's for you. So what becoming outdoorsmen does is tries to break down a lot of those barriers and provide women with sort of inspiring mentors show them that they can do all these things. We provide them with this really big fun Welcoming non judgmental atmosphere where they can learn lots of outdoor skills. Todd Waldron  How do people find that and get involved in? What's the whole program? Like, like, talk a little bit about that, like, what's it been like for you in coordinating the program? And what's it like? How's it structurally works and everything like that for people to find it? Katrina Talbot Sure, yeah. So, you can find us on our webpage, you go to the New York State DC web page and just go into the search bar and search becoming outdoorsmen. Were there We're also on Facebook. So basically, we run the structure of the program is there's a big workshop every year usually in September. It's three days long. We offer over 50 different classes. You choose to take four different classes; you learn four different skills throughout the weekend. And it's all women who attend. We have a really incredible group of completely volunteer instructors who are highly skilled and really incredible. What they do and also really incredible of being, you know, really patient, inspiring teachers. So, women sign up for that workshop. And it's, it's really, it's like an electric event. It's really exciting. It's really inspiring to be part of it. Before I was the coordinator, I instructed for four years, a whole slew of different classes. I helped teach crossbow, archery, backyard ecology class, a lot of stuff like that. And it's just really great to help these women help pull them out of their comfort zone and empower them to realize that you know, these things that they've went maybe some of them have wanted to do it their whole lives, and now they feel like they actually can. So, it's an educational program for adult women, it's ages 18 and up we are ages at the workshops range from 18 all the way to 85. Our mean age is our average age is around like 3748 result. But yeah, so the structure of the program, we have the big workshop in September. And then we have smaller breakout like beyond bow, or what we call them like one to two-day workshops that are usually like continuing education. So, you learn the basics of shotgun shooting at the big workshop, you learn it for three and a half hours and you are really jazzed about it. You want to start like shooting trap and skeet and maybe even small game hunting with a shotgun, but you're not quite there on your marksmanship yet. So, we'll do a beyond bow event where women who took it at the bow workshop can then hone in their skills in a full day workshop, shooting trap all day, really, really sort of practicing the details of it and getting better at it. And this year, actually, I'm starting in 2020, a winter workshop to teach women winter outdoor skills. So that's going to happen in February in western New York, which I'm really excited about. Because you know, when lasts up to six months in New York State. And if you're lucky, yeah, I used to live out west. And it was great because everybody wanted to do stuff all winter. I mean, it wasn't as gray out there. So, I think that contributes to it. But people were just a lot more just, you know, get out and like snowshoe snowmobile ski do whatever they could go ice fishing. And I feel like that just makes your whole year a lot more enjoyable. Yeah. And so, I really want to start pulling women into the outdoors during the winter and make them realize they're actually you know, holed up in your house all winter. There's a lot of really rad stuff you can do all winter long to Todd Waldron just embrace it, right? Katrina Talbot I mean, it's going to happen. It's inevitable. There's going to be snow. So, you might as well find some joy in that. Todd Waldron Yes. So. So this is fantastic. So, it gives women an opportunity for skill set building and an opportunity in a nonjudgmental way just like an inclusive community. It also helps them I think,...