Bethel Life Worship Center in Hempfield Township has been hosting sportsmen's fellowship meetings since late last year, attracting speakers and outdoors lovers from within and without its congregation to the church's new building on South Mercer Street.

State Rep. Rod Wilt, Sugar Grove Township, R-17th District, spoke to the fellowship Saturday about proposed antler restrictions and other outdoors-related legislation in Harrisburg. Wilt played a video by Dr. Gary Alt, head of the deer management section of the Pennsylvania Game Commission.

The Pennsylvania Game Commission is expected to vote on proposed antler restrictions when it meets April 8-9. In a January vote, the commission gave preliminary approval to limiting hunters to shooting bucks with three points on at least one side of their racks in 56 counties and with four points to a side in the 11 remaining counties, including Mercer County.

Alt said the goal of antler restrictions is to allow more bucks to mature and let those mature bucks do most of the breeding. As a result of the traditional two-week buck season and three-day doe season, there has been an overharvesting of young male deer and underharvesting of female deer, Alt said.

Less than one buck in 100 lives to be four years old, Alt said. Most are killed in their first year -- 80 percent of all deer killed across the state are yearlings, but that rate is as high as 93 percent in some counties. The average year-old buck's rack has four points, or two to a side.

The average two-year-old buck has a rack of eight points, or four to a side, and a 15-inch spread.

"I have very strong mixed emotions," Wilt, a hunter, said of the proposed antler restrictions.

The proposal has generally been well received across the state and most hunters seem willing to try the changes, according to a Keystone Outdoors report. Some hunters will be willing to shoot fewer bucks this fall if its means more big bucks in the future, the report said. Some cynics say many hunters are going to shoot bucks first and count points later, the report said.

Kent Bell, a congregation member and one of the founders of the fellowship, said he believes the church is the only area one with a fellowship for sportsmen.

Church pastor the Rev. David V. Carr, who said he recently bagged a 700-pound elk, said the fellowship is an effort to reach out to the community and to meet the needs of his congregation by providing members another activity in which the whole family can take part.

The fellowship meets at the church at 8 p.m. on the third Saturday of every month. Other activities are planned, such as trip to the mammoth Cabela's outdoors store in Michigan in April.

The new group is meeting in a new building. Bethel Life's former 73-year-old church -- across Sheakley Avenue from its current site -- was destroyed in an accidental Feb. 11, 1999, fire. After meeting on location for two years, Bethel Life opened its 250-seat sanctuary and fellowship hall in November. The fellowship started meeting at about the same time.

Bell said the church hosted a sportsmen's breakfast the Saturday before buck season -- 42 people, most of them from outside the congregation, attended. Based on the attendance, the church decided to host the regular monthly breakfasts.

You can e-mail Herald Staff Writer Tom Fontaine at

tfontaine@sharon-herald.com