Lamar Madtes served as spokesperson for the annual sportsmen's banquet Jan. 26 at Hope Community Church, Clauss-ville Road, Weisenberg Township.

Pastor Ken Kalisz gave the invocation.

This event gathered various sportsmen together for an evening of fellowship, along with an excellent meal.

The menu included game dishes such as venison meatloaf, elk casserole, rabbit and pheasant.

Hunting stories were in abundance; new friendships were made and old ones re-kindled.

Attendees were invited to bring one of their trophies for exhibit.

These were entered in a contest and the audience judged the best mount.

Judging was divided into two categories: whitetail deer mounts and other mounts, which included three elk, a turkey, a bear and a fox.

After the meal, Bud Daneker of Allentown, Dan Martin, a dairy farmer from Lloydsville, Westmoreland County, and Phil Yetter, of Etters, York County, told the audience the story of their elk hunt last year in Wyoming.

Martin was the guide of the expedition, which took them to the northwest corner of Wyoming near Yellowstone Park.

The intrepid hunters backpacked in and slept in tents for the two week trip.

They made a short video of the trip and showed this to the audience. Each of the hunters was successful in bagging an elk. Daneker was the first to relate his side of the adventure.

"Dan's philosophy of hunting is to cover territory, listen for bugling and then hunt," Daneker said. "It was the hunt of a lifetime for me. I have never been on a hunt such as this.

"This was not something that you would pack up your gear and leave the next day. There was training involved."

Martin said they applied in January 2012 for the license and were notified of acceptance in February. After that, the training started. Being in top physical shape was of the utmost importance.

They trained with 50-pound bags of feed on their backs, hiking about three to four miles a day.

The packs they took with them weighed about 80 pounds.

"You always take too much stuff," Martin said.

Temperatures were from the teens at night to the 70s during the day.

"The warm days were nice, especially when the elk you shot runs into a frozen lake and you have to go in the lake to retrieve it," Marin said. "That's what happened to Daneker's elk after he hit it six times. Elk are tough animals."

Each hunter got about 250 pounds of meat from their elk.

After concluding their presentation, door prizes were given and the winners of the mounts were announced.

Winner of the deer mount prize was Northwestern Lehigh student Jessie Wertman, of New Tripoli. Winner in the "other" category was Daneker with his elk.