For members of the Delta Theta Sigma fraternity, today is not only an enjoyable holiday, but a matter of survival.

Brothers of the agricultural fraternity, 101 N. Patterson St., know hunting equates to eating. If these 17 hunters return to their house with a large amount of deer, food supply will not be a problem for the rest of the year. This agricultural fraternity relies on hunting deer as the main source of its diet.

"We're hoping for a big day because we're getting pretty low," Joe Stoner (junior-industrial engineering) said. "Archery season wasn't as good as it was last year so we have a pretty low supply."

Pennsylvanian students recognize today as the day after Thanksgiving break, which means a day off for high school students. Today marks the commencement of hunting deer by rifle in the state of Pennsylvania.

Stoner and Kyle Feldman (senior-agricultural and extension education), sat on a couch in the living room of their fraternity house Sunday night, just feet away from a giant caribou mounted on the wall. They were two of only three members of the fraternity remaining in the house. The rest of the fraternity brothers were either home or en route to a hunting site, planning to skip class today to participate in opening day.

Feldman said he would "absolutely be going out" to hunt first thing this morning, if it wasn't for a mandatory lab.

"This is the first opening day that I'm going to class and I'm graduating this semester," Feldman said. "Usually yeah, everybody does [miss class]."

Feldman, who said he started hunting when he was 12, said today is "most everybody's favorite time of the year."

Starting today, Feldman and his friends will focus primarily on hunting for the next two weeks. Feldman said any chance they can get out, either early in the morning before class or in the afternoon, the brothers will look to kill a buck or doe.

"There will definitely be a group of guys in the house going out every day, the whole way through until rifle is over," Stoner said.

The fraternity has three freezers in its house where the members store meat. Upon killing a deer, the fraternity members will bring the animal into the kitchen onto a butchering table. Feldman said they grind up the meat to be stored as ground beef for burgers or use it for loins or roasts.

Stoner, who will head out to hunt after a meeting with his professor in the Penn State open farmland, expects there to be five deer in the house today, ready to be butchered and skinned.

"There's nothing more enjoyable than going out and climbing up a tree and sitting there or sitting up against a tree," Feldman said. "It's a lot of fun, it's a blast."