Great Crowd in Gully for Hunters Supper Event on Deer Season Opener!

Great food, great company and great weather brought a near-record crowd into Gully on the opening of Deer Hunting rifle season last Sat. November 5th. They came for the traditional Deer Hunters Supper Event hosted by the Lund Lutheran Church Congregation in Gully.

The annual fund-raising event has become a homecoming for Gully friends and families who’ve made it part of their deer season tradition to join the fun and lighten the workload. Extended family, friends and old neighbors come home Saturday to gather for fun visiting and to participate in setting up, serving and cleanup details of the event and to share in a good meal. Prep-day is attractive to the hunters because it is on the Friday before the season opens and doesn’t interfere with the hunt.

The Hunters Supper Event in Gully also attracted the shopping folks. The Lund Ladies Aid Annual Fall Market has become a highly-anticipated, interesting and convenient pre-holiday shopping experience. Handicrafts, home-baked goods, garden produce and home-made preserves were presented alongside many other specialty gift items. Early birds got the worm this year as items flew to the cash table almost as fast as they could be put on display. (Note for next year: Non-hunters be early for the best shopping.) 

Shortly after sunset, the whole event became a buzz of festivity. A mass of hungry hunters came for a hearty meal and to hear how others were doing in the hunt. Many came dressed in orange; some of course, because they came right in from the deer-stands, and others, including non-hunters, wore orange just because it was the appropriate style of the evening. Even the kitchen workers were wearing new blaze orange hunters supper aprons made locally especially for the event.  Lund’s Congregation and Friends served up a hearty meal of meatballs, gravy, potatoes, wild rice, baked beans, corn, lefse, bread, dessert and many extra trimmings to the large crowd, and sent out many takeouts. Meal proceeds will support the General Operating Fund for Lund Church.  

The fun didn’t stop there. Each year, a huge highlight of the event is the Gift Basket Raffle held by the Gully-Trail Parish Youth Group. This year there were sixty fun and fancy gift baskets of all sizes and themes displayed for hopeful ticket-holders to preview and try to win. The baskets were made up by the Youth Group with items and novel containers that have been donated all through the year. Dollar tickets are dropped into a container next to the basket (s) that one would like to win. Drawings were held from those containers for each basket. This really has been an entertaining and exciting activity for all ages. It’s a lot of fun even for very young participants. Hunters can hope to bring a nice gift basket back home, and many times people just try to win a little treat for themselves while supporting the Youth Group. Whether you win or not, it’s great entertainment to pick your favorite baskets, and there have been various “strategies” adopted by some veteran basket bidders. One approach is to put all your tickets toward one carefully chosen basket, theoretically increasing your chance to win, but then, of course, this is just like putting all your eggs in one basket. Another popular method was to find the baskets with the least tickets in their container, again hopefully increasing one’s chance of winning. Others prefer to look the choices over, choose favorites and just go back for more tickets if needed! Tons of fun, some of these amazingly creative baskets are whimsical, some are practical, some pretty, some themed for various holidays or activities.  

Those who participated in this year’s annual Gully Lund Church Hunters Supper Event know it was a great evening. Those who missed know they missed out. Anyone wishing to join in next year and participate in the prep, set-up, serving or cleanup of the meal, contribute to costs or donate handi-work, bake sale or preserves items for the Lund Ladies Aid Fall Market, or any items that can be used in making baskets up for the Gully-Trail Parish Youth Gift Basket Raffle, please know that you will be welcomed and your help is really helpful! 

The Gully Hunters’ Supper Event, sponsored by Lund Lutheran Church in Gully, is held annually on Deer Season Opener serving from 5 to 8 p.m. It’s always “Come as You Are” and everyone is welcome. So put the Hunters Supper in Gully in your hunting party’s menu plans for next year! Make it part of your annual hunting opener tradition. See you there!