Some days you get the bear, some days the bear gets you.

Oxford Township resident Aaron Curtis got the bear.

More specifically, he bagged his first black bear while hunting on private land near Alpena on Sept. 16.

Field dressed, the bear weighed 157 pounds. “I was happy with it,” said Curtis, a 1998 Oxford High School graduate.

The bear was 45 yards away when, from a tree stand, he shot it with a.30-06 rifle at 7 p.m.

Curtis recorded a video of the whole experience and sent it to the television show “Michigan Out-of-Doors.” He was told it will air this week. The show airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. on WTVS-Detroit Public TV Channel 56.

Curtis plans to turn his bear into a three-quarter mount and enjoy the approximately 50 pounds of meat he’s expecting it to yield. With the exception of saving some for roasts and steaks, most of meat will be ground.

“I’ll make it into breakfast sausage or summer sausage,” Curtis said.

Bagging this bear has been a long time coming for Curtis.

The first and only other time he went bear hunting was 10 years ago. He had a “really nice one” come in and it was only about 10 yards away. But, Curtis was hunting with a bow back then and he “could never get a good (broadside) shot,” so he had to let it go.

Because it takes so long to secure a bear license via the state’s drawing system, Curtis decided to use a gun this time to increase his odds of not coming home empty-handed.

Going after black bears requires “a tremendous amount of work” and expense. Curtis didn’t want to see all that go to waste and his freezer go unfilled.

“I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t have been a little disappointed if I hadn’t gotten one,” he said. He likened an unsuccessful bear hunt to building a house, then having it burn down before you move in.

The most time-consuming and costly part of the hunt is maintaining the baiting locations.

Curtis had three of them going this year and they were by no means close together. Two of them were 4 miles apart, while the third was another 9 to 10 miles away. “They’re all spread out pretty good,” he said. “It would take me four hours to bait the three spots.”

To Curtis, the most difficult part of bear hunting is accessing the areas where the animals typically feel “comfortable.” He said these places are “remote” and the cover is “thick.”

“There’s nothing easy about getting into bear country,” said Curtis, who noted to reach one of his baiting spots, he had to drag a canoe through the woods, then use it to cross a lake.

Baiting for bears takes lots of food. Curtis estimated he was refreshing each of his three bait sites every six days with 250 to 300 pounds of food. “I really wish I had videotaped a day of baiting just so everybody could see what’s involved,” he said.

It’s legal to start baiting bear 31 days before the season opens, according to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

The bait Curtis used included bread sweetened with white and brown sugar, candy corn, popcorn, various frostings and icings used for cakes and cookies, and granola.

“I went through 1,600 pounds of granola,” he said. “I don’t even know how many pounds of bread I used – probably 1,000 pounds.”

Curtis noted the bears “loved” the popcorn seasoned with Kool-Aid flavored drink mix. “That was probably one of my best baits,” he said.

Purchasing all that food wasn’t cheap.

“All in all, I’ve probably spent $1,500 (on) bait,” Curtis said. “It does add up. But, to bait bears correctly, it is expensive.”

To him, it’s real simple – having better food attracts bears. To put it in human terms, Curtis said if there’s a “nice steakhouse” next door to a McDonald’s, people will go to the steakhouse if they can.

It’s hard to argue with Curtis given his results. Trail camera footage showed he had a total of 20 bears regularly visiting his baiting locations, day and night. He said “the biggest ones” were coming in during the last 20 minutes of daylight or when it was completely dark.

According to Curtis, “typically,” the juvenile bears feed first, then the older bears “come in at night.”

“Even though there’s a chance there may not be food there, (the older bears have) been around the block long enough to know you don’t get (to be) big by cruising into bait piles at 5 o’ clock in the afternoon (when there could be a hunter waiting),” he said.

Curtis stressed it’s important to be “predictable” when it comes to refreshing your baiting locations. “You really shouldn’t deviate on your baiting times very much,” he said, because the bears will “pattern you.”

“It doesn’t bother them if they know when you’re going to be there and when you’re not going to be there,” Curtis continued. “But, if you start going in there at (different) times and you start bumping them, scaring them off the pile, there’s a really good chance they will become nocturnal and only come in at night.”

It’s also important to be consistent about the times that baiting locations are refreshed because Curtis said you don’t want a bear showing up when there’s no food available.

“You go into a restaurant and if the restaurant doesn’t have food, you’re probably not going to ever go back there again,” he said.

Curtis noted he never deviated from his baiting schedule by “more than two hours.”

To all those potential bear hunters out there, Curtis advised if they want the “full experience,” they should do all of the work themselves, which includes scouting, baiting, running trail cameras, etc.

Hunters who hire guides to do the legwork and grunt work, so they can just “show up, climb in the stand and shoot a bear” don’t get the same feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction, in Curtis’ view.

“You’re probably not going to think it was a whole lot of fun because you’re basically just a trigger man at that point,” he said.

Curtis said he “definitely” wants to go bear hunting again at some point in the future. “The next time I do it, I’ll use my long bow,” he said.

However, Curtis noted even if he could get a license every year, he wouldn’t want to go after bear all the time because the preparation is “so much work.”

“Anybody that has bear hunted and did all the work themselves, there’s two things they’ll never say: ‘That was easy’ and ‘I want to do it again next year.’”

“I’ll go again in 10 years,” Curtis added.