MINNEAPOLIS — When Bailey Sandmeyer saw a black bear saunter toward her bait, her left hand tightened the grip of her bow. Drawing back her bowstring, she thought she had a shot — but just for an instant.

As quickly, she reconsidered and returned the string to its resting position.

This was in the deep woods of northeast Minnesota, and her eyes held fast on the big boar, which promptly turned its back to her and sat on its butt.

Bailey, 33, grew up in Nicollet, in southern Minnesota, and hunted there as a girl with her dad and her two older brothers.

But before this season, when she joined a near-record applicant pool of 27,572 Minnesotans and others who sought bear-hunting permits from the Department of Natural Resources (DNR), she had never pursued a bruin with a bow.

“Being an animal lover, while also being a hunter, is a contradiction I feel every time I hit the woods,” she said. “There’s sadness in that. But there’s also gratitude in knowing any life I take will provide food for me and my family, and that I’m taking responsibility for that food, instead of pretending it came from nowhere.”

Bailey and her husband Noah, 27, live near Walker, Minn. She works for the state, traveling northern Minnesota as a court liaison. He runs a winter fish-house rental business on Upper Red Lake.

They have bears near their home and could have hunted there.

But the couple has friends who had been bear hunters in the northeast, and they were intrigued by their pals’ tales of scouting, baiting and hunting on remote public land — and camping in their wheeled fish house while they did.

“Bait could be put out this year beginning Aug. 14, and Noah and I drove to the campground that weekend with our bait,’’ Bailey said. “I really enjoyed putting it in places we thought bears would visit, and where we could hang stands nearby. It connected me more to the hunt and my preparation for it.’’

Bear baiting is allowed in six or so Canadian provinces and about a dozen states, including Minnesota.

Hunting methods such as “spot and stalk’’ (popular in some Western states, where open landscapes are common) and “bear drives’’ (as in Pennsylvania, where walking hunters attempt to push bears out of woods to be shot by other hunters) likely would yield significantly reduced Minnesota harvests — and more human-bear clashes.

Which bears always eventually lose.

“Some of our older friends who hunted the same area in the northeast used early versions of trail cameras and had to run to the nearest town to get film developed to see what bears, if any, hit their baits,” Bailey said. “Today’s cameras send photos directly to your phone. But it doesn’t always work. Two of our cameras got chewed on.”

Because berries were abundant in Noah and Bailey’s hunting area, especially wild raspberries, they worried bears would spurn their baits in favor of the natural food.

That wasn’t the case.

Not only did bears show up in the couple’s pre-season photo reports, the animals, which often travel at night, came in daytime. One brandished colorful ear tags and a large communications collar, identifying itself as among 50 bears the DNR is studying.

The collar sends the bear’s position and habitat choices, among other information, to DNR researchers in Grand Rapids, who ask hunters not to kill the study animals.

About 3 in the afternoon on the first day of the season, the couple’s preparation paid off. A bear visited a bait Noah was watching and his bow shot was true. The animal fell in heavy cover 30 yards from where it was hit.

After field-dressing the bear, Noah and Bailey loaded it onto a large sled and dragged it to their campsite. As evening approached, a bear guide in a nearby town gave them a place to hang, quarter and ice the animal.

“Bear hunting in northern Minnesota is a big deal, and the guide and his clients were excited for us,’’ Bailey said.

In the weeks leading up to the season, a cinnamon-colored black bear had appeared on the couple’s cameras. So had two bears with white patches.

Both color variations are rarities among Minnesota’s approximately 16,000 bears. On the hunt’s second day, as Bailey climbed into her stand, she hoped one of the uniquely hued bruins would visit her bait.

That didn’t happen.

But soon a bear did appear, that big boar.

As it did, Noah was sitting in a nearby tree, playing videographer for the day. He filmed the animal as it approached Bailey’s bait, and filmed Bailey drawing back her bowstring.

He also filmed her relaxing the bowstring as the bear sat on its butt, facing away from her.

“I drew back and let off five more times before the bear finally stood broadside. Then I drew back again and took a shot,” she said.

Fifteen feet up in a tree, and 21 yards from the bear, Bailey had sighted her arrow to hit just behind the animal’s front shoulder, hoping for a heart shot, a lung shot, or both.

“He ran, but only 8 yards or so. He was out of sight. But I could hear him die,” she said. “This was very tough for me and I shed a few tears.”

Forty-five minutes later, as she approached the bear, Bailey said a prayer of gratitude for the animal’s life, and for her own.

“I felt a mix of emotions: pride, sadness, gratitude, and an immense amount of respect,” she said.

Noah and Bailey will process their bears themselves, like they do their deer and other game. Some of the meat will be canned. The fat will be rendered into grease for waterproofing and conditioning leather. And Noah will fashion an old-time backpack out of his bear’s hide.

Bailey is uncertain whether their home has a wall big enough to hang the hide of her bear.

“Including practicing with my bow all summer, the camping, the hauling of the bait and setting up the stands, this trip was about so much more than filling my license,” she said. “I’m psyched to go again.”

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