Hunters gather in Sisters

Three hundred hunting and fishing enthusiasts were treated to an evening of exhibits, instruction and fellowship at the First Annual Sisters Sportsman's Banquet held at Sisters Community Church Saturday, April 1.

The event, which included a catered steak dinner from Tumalo Feed Company, was sponsored by four local churches including Sisters Community Church Three Sisters Fellowship, Sisters Christian, and Calvary Chapel.

"I'm really glad our first event in our new facility was an outreach," said Dennis Kizziar, senior pastor at Cascade Community Church. The church recently completed a remodel, creating a new sanctuary.

Participants browsed through exhibits including taxidermy, chainsaw carvings, game calls and guided hunting and fishing excursions.

The vendors, including local business such as Lutton's Ace Hardware, Mountain Man Trading Post, Sisters Smokehouse and Deep Canyon Hunting Preserve, contributed over 40 door prizes that were drawn throughout the evening.

A large contingent of volunteers, including over 20 children, helped serve a satisfying steak dinner.

"The meal was excellent," said Brian Berg.

Larry D. Jones provided a lecture on "How to Find Elk." Jones, a maker of animal calls, is well known for his hunting expertise. His instructional "Elk Fever" videos have been sold throughout America.

With the aid of slides and a laser pointer, Jones gave the audience a 60-minute lesson in elk habitat, behavior, and tracking. Jones intermixed some cow calls and bull bugling into his informative talk.

After intermission, Harry Gualco, internationally known among fishermen, shared his Christian faith and stayed with a fisherman's theme in talking about evangelism.

"God will continue to run lures by you," he said, "it's just a matter of whether you'll finally bite or not."

His slideshow helped illustrate his message and showed off the fabulously exotic fish that he has seen while fishing throughout the world.

Gualco operates Rod and Reel Adventures out of his home in Cooperopolis, California and has been featured on television and radio.

Scott Teeny, event chair, said the strong evangelistic message was not planned and expressed concern that it wasn't what the audience came to hear.

"We built expectations that were not what we delivered," he said. "We misrepresented ourselves by having such a strong Christian message and that was not our intent.

"It was an honest mistake and I apologize," he said.

Two raffles and a grand prize drawing were held to end the evening. Joel Horning won an E.F. Payne fly fishing rod. Gary Tompkins won a Ruger 10-22 rifle with a Simmons scope, and Herman Bremer made off with the grand prize, a .54 caliber Lyman muzzle loader.