Poteau teen takes black bear

BY KELLY BOSTIAN Outdoors
Tuesday, October 05, 2010
10/05/10 at 7:57 AM

Go to Kelly Bostian's blog Original Print Headline: 17-Year-Old Takes Black Bear

ON THURSDAY she had her nails done; on Friday she became the first woman to kill a black bear in Oklahoma.

Kelsey Weaver, a 17-year-old from Poteau, is described by her family as "your typical good country girl."

"We're proud of her," said her father, Wesley Weaver of Poteau. "She is an avid hunter, an honor student, she can put on a prom dress and be the prettiest girl there or she can put on her boots and go hunting."

Kelsey has hunted with her family for years. She has killed deer and turkey with rifles and shotguns, but when she heard her father talking about hunting black bear in Oklahoma's archery season, she was immediately excited.

"When I heard that I was just, 'Oh my gosh, I wanna go, I wanna go, I wanna go,' " she said.

Wesley Weaver was happy to hang a second tree stand and share the day with his daughter.

"I kind of thought the season would last more than one day," he said. "I wanted to let her have the first shot and maybe I'd take one that night or the next day."

The season only lasted one day this year. The state set a quota of 20 bears, and 31 were taken on the first day. The limited season was open only in Le Flore, Latimer, McCurtain and Pushmataha counties. Bait can be used to lure the bears, but only on private land.

Weaver said that this was his first experience hunting black bear as well. "I've hunted all my life but never black bear," he said. "We just kind of experimented a little, but it worked."

He said it didn't take long for bears to find his bait station. He just used a large log and put out piles of corn, dog food, cake mixes and sweets. "Honey Buns, lots of Honey Buns," he said. They made the trek out to the bait station every other day or so for two weeks to replenish the bait.

The father-daughter team endured a few errors during the hunt. An early-morning bear was lost to an errant shot caused by using a fixed broadhead point on a crossbow bolt they hadn't used before.

"It caught on the front of the bow and shot off," Weaver said. The pair then switched back to a mechanical broadhead they'd used in practice.

The bear they ultimately killed approached in the late afternoon from behind them and stopped at the base of their tree.

"We didn't have a shot," Weaver said. "I had a bucket at the bottom of the tree with some cake mix and extra stuff in it. ... He was digging around in there and getting the cake mix out of the wrapper until he finally got bored with it and eased on toward the bait, which was about 25 yards out in front of us."

He told the nervous teen to get ready to shoot, but when she shifted in her tree stand her backpack fell to the ground. "He shot out of there like a bullet," Weaver said.

The startled bear ran some distance and stopped to look back, apparently not sure what the noise was. "That was so frustrating I wanted to cry," Kelsey Weaver said. "My dad said to sit and relax and maybe he would come back. We calmed down and about an hour later I saw him circling back around."

A second chance was all the teen would need. With the bear coming to bait, she was able to wait for a perfect shot with the bear standing broadside at about 25 yards. "That was the best feeling ever, it was so cool," she said.

The bear approached quietly. "I saw it before I heard it," Weaver said. "You think of a bear in the woods and you'd think there would be all kinds of noise. They're really quiet."

"It definitely was a different experience, it was a whole new level of adrenaline. I was really shaking, let me tell ya."

When they checked the bear with game wardens she was informed she was the first girl to shoot a bear. "Being a girl and going hunting you get a lot of weird faces," she said. "I can do it and I guess I'm just showing the boys I can do more than they ever thought of doing."

Associated Images:

Kelsey Weaver, 17, of Poteau became the first female to harvest an Oklahoma black bear when she killed this male on Friday in Le Flore County. CINDY WILLIS / Courtesy