At issue is the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission’s plan to take a serious look at making blaze orange mandatory for hunters to prevent accidental shootings. The commission is directing the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to look into the pros and cons of mandatory hunter orange and present its findings at its June 4 meeting. The ODFW will also be collecting input from the public about the issue at the annual big game tag meetings conducted in each of its districts.

Sparks may fly at some of the sessions.

“There is a lot of passion associated with (the hunter orange issue),’’ said Richard Hargrave, information and education division deputy administrator for the ODFW.

Many hunters see this as a black and white issue — they either support or object to mandatory blaze orange.

Walt Blackman of La Grande, a former hunter safety instructor, is in the pro mandatory orange camp.

“I taught hunter safety classes for 20 years and we always preached about wearing hunter orange,’’ Blackman said. “I totally agree that it should be worn.’’

La Grande outdoorsman Phil Gillette opposes mandatory hunter orange, arguing that the issue is becoming a political  football.

“I don’t want the government making it mandatory to appease a certain group,’’ said Gillette, the owner of Phil’s Outdoor and More.

More than 50 members of the Powder River Pistolettes club received marksmanship certificates during a season-ending awards dinner Oct. 23.

Sponsored by the Powder River Sportsmen’s Club, the Pistolettes formed in May after Buck Buckner, a certified pistol instructor, proposed women-only shooting sessions twice a month at the Sportsmen’s Club’s range at Virtue Flat east of Baker City.

Registration for the Youth Hunter Education Challenge program is set for Nov. 4 starting at 4 p.m. at the Powder River Sportsmen’s Club at Eighth and Broadway streets.

The program, sponsored by the National Rifle Association, started locally 10 years ago.

Matea Huggins, 12, shot this mountain goat on Oct. 18 in the Elkhorns.

By JAYSON JACOBY

Baker City Herald

Matea Huggins isn’t even a teenager yet but already she’s the star of a hunting tale that would enchant listeners at any Oregon campfire.

It’s even true, this story.

Truth being a quality which is, well, a bit scarce in many of the yarns spun after dark has come to an autumn hunting camp.

On Sunday Matea, who’s 12, pulled off a feat that fewer than 100 hunters in the state, almost all of them at least twice her age, can boast about.

Matea bagged a mountain goat.

It was no average billy, either.

And then there’s the other hard way.

Which way you go depends on what you prefer to punish.

These two ranges, which bestow on Baker Valley its almost unfairly scenic backdrops — the Elkhorns close by to the west, the Wallowas a bit farther and to the northeast — are in other respects much more like siblings than, say, second cousins.

“If there’s a mosquito in town, it will find me,” said Burrows, infection control nurse at St. Elizabeth Health Services.

And some people aren’t bothered at all by the obnoxious insects. The attraction, Burrows said, is all about your body chemistry.

Phillips Reservoir is lapping at the ponderosa pines again.

This is good for the pines.

But it’s better still for the potatoes and the alfalfa.

Boaters and anglers appreciate the situation, too.

Or else loved it.

Some strong emotion, anyway, seems to have influenced the responsible party.

I can think of no more likely explanation, at any rate, for why this eminence on Grant County’s topography came to be saddled with such a ill-suited moniker.

Fishing for hatchery-raised chinook salmon is open now on the Snake River below Hells Canyon Dam, and in the Powder River between Mason Dam and the Hughes Lane Bridge in Baker City.