Out The Re

Out The Re

- Aron Synder

A very smart man once told me, “You can’t kill anything if you’re not out there,” and through the years I’ve found that to be as true of a statement as you can get.

It was late April 2015 when my best friend Ryan dropped me off at the gated logging road in Idaho; I wasn’t sure what I was hiking into. We had been camped out for some time bear hunting. He told me that he’s seen multiple bears on this road over the years, and that I had as good of chance here as any. From where I was standing at the time, it looked like a jungle with a maximum shot distance of about five feet. Hiking up a logging road wasn’t the original plan we’d had, as Ryan set up a couple bait sites before I’d arrived. The problem with that was nothing was actually hitting the bait, so walking logging roads was the only other good option with a bow. As I threw on my pack and grabbed my bow, he instructed me to “hike to the end of the road and you’ll probably see something”…so that’s what I was going to do.

The first mile or so was thick with re-prod, and a bear would’ve had to be on top of me for me to get a shot. I knew Ryan to be as much of a prankster as me, so the thought had crossed my mind that he was sending me on a wild goose chase to keep me occupied. Either way, I figured I would get some exercise at the least, and I couldn’t kill anything but time sitting at camp. After hiking in a couple miles, things started to look a bit more promising and I could actually see 20-30 yards in a few different directions.