Weiland sticks with it, gets rewarded with his Marathon County bear

Patience is a virtue, as they say. This bit of wisdom is especially true to your average outdoorsman. The amount of time spent sitting in a stand or blind or holding a fishing pole, waiting for that one moment of opportunity is likely an uncountable number for most. Hunting is a test not only of skill, but of mental endurance and the ability to suddenly go from hours of near motionlessness to lining up the perfect shot.

Local hunter Aaron Weiland was no stranger for having to wait. After spending nearly a month and a half baiting for a bear on a piece of land near Cherokee Park, east of Colby, his efforts seemed to have been for not. During that time, a few had shown up on his trail cameras, but none of the baits had been hit, nor had he seen any in person. As the Sept. 7-13 hunt came close to an end, that luck had not changed.

But, as he went out on the final day, the winds of fate shifted.

Over the week, the chances of Weiland finding what he was looking for dwindled by the day. Still in search of his first bear, it seemed like that status would not be changing any time soon. As he went out the morning of Sept. 13, the expectations of finding any sign of bear were low. In fact, he had mostly come out to check his trail cameras for deer, which were much more plentiful in the area. What he found instead, however, was much more exciting.

“I just happened to be going in there, checking my regular trail cams, with deer season coming up,” Weiland said, “and as I was doing that I saw that the bait was hit.”

After more than a month of minimal activity, it seemed that perhaps his patience had finally paid off.

He then checked his cameras and saw that there indeed had been a bear there earlier in the morning, around 9:30 a.m. While the animal had certainly been around earlier, he wasn’t sure if had moved on or not, given that that had been the case with the others he had seen before. Still, he decided it was worth a shot.

He actually accidentally scared the animal off the bait around 1:30 p.m, confirming that it had indeed decided to stay. That of course gave Weiland another choice and he debated about whether or not it was worth going back out later.

“I thought, ‘Well, he seems to be around today, so I might as well go for him.’” Weiland recalled. “I figured, even if it might be late, I’d better stick around and try and hunt.”

While it was indeed getting late, push-

WEILAND on page 15 Aaron Weiland’s hunting story of patience and persistence ended with the harvest of this black bear on Sept. 13. ing past 5:45 p.m. when he finally set himself back up, this time no patience would be required. Not even 15 minutes later, the bear had returned, whether due to the noise or perhaps oblivious to it. Regardless, it was back, and Weiland hoped that he would get his opportunity.

The animal lumbered just into range and Weiland silently waited for his chance. After the time he had spent prior, keeping quiet for another minute or two seemed a small price to pay in order to get a better shot. The bear continued its creep towards him, and as the gap narrowed, he drew his bow up. It was 7 yards away when Weiland loosed his arrow and his aim struck true. The 220-pound boar went down and he had scored his first bear.

While certainly memorable in its own right, Weiland noted the most interesting part of the hunt was the slight irony in the fact that it had taken so little time for the bear to come by after he had set up in his stand for the final time.

“Sitting in the stand for 12 minutes, definitely,” Weiland said when asked if anything in particular stuck out to him about the details of getting his first bear. Which is hardly surprising, given a hunter’s normal routine. This was only heightened by the fact that he had not had any luck in this spot prior and had not even come into the day expecting anything different. Even when he had decided to head out later in the day, it was almost more on a whim than anything.

But sometimes that is the way of things. One can prepare for days or weeks and see nothing, or sometimes one can sit down and get your prize in a matter of minutes. Sometimes, all it takes is that one decision to go out, even if it is only for an hour or two, and that can pay dividends.