GRANTS PASS — Ethan Swiger and his grandfather drove the Josephine County backroads together Nov. 1 looking to usher the 12-year-old boy into one of the family's more passionate of pastimes.

Some of Oregon's more seasoned elk poachers have learned to side-step getting caught in a backwoods wildlife-enforcement-decoy sting by following the mantra, "If it ain't movin', they ain't shootin'."

EAGLE POINT — In a small ground blind hidden Saturday in a meadow near Eagle Point sat Matt Dunbar and his girlfriend, Adrian Lass, together reviewing the fine points on how to bag a Roosevelt elk on opening day.

Thumb-tacked to the "Bragging Wall" at Sportsmen's Warehouse is a photo of a rather under-whelming black-tailed buck, a little forked-horn deer held up by a man whose smile is wider than the deer's antlers.

Southern bass anglers see it as their birthright to chase the next "sowbelly." But bass fishing may be the latest American original to become outsourced.

The 2009 big-game hunting season will kick off next week with the death of one of Oregon's storied fall traditions — guys standing in line to buy their license and deer tag at the very last moment before the hunt.

A smallmouth bass finning its way around an Umpqua River pool caught Shawna Henderson's eye, and she hoped this fish would usher her into the world of women on the fly.

GRANTS PASS — Derrick Stevenson has waited for years to feel that first bite of a Rogue River chinook salmon, experience that tug-of-war battle to the boat and then to see — really see — his first salmon.

ASHLAND — Amid the moonless darkness, Andrew Jensen plied the murky waters of Emigrant Lake last Thursday for the big blue beast that had consumed his life and his fishing gear for much of August.

After 15 years behind the Costco photo counter in Medford creating snapshots of Rogue Valley fishing adventures, Laurie Stovall finally produced a Kodak moment of her own.