Contrary to popular belief, it was hunting season and not football that first inspired cavemen to paint on walls.

I&8217;m kidding about football, but you get the point &8212; they&8217;re both special.

This year, The Natchez Democrat would like to be a part of your special hunting memories, and in order to do that, we created our very own &8220;Biggest Buck Contest.&8221;

Each Sunday, at the bottom of the Adventures page, we will post the photos of the largest whitetail harvested by our readers throughout the hunting season.

Each weekly winner will receive a T-shirt in addition to the bragging rights associated with being recognized as having harvested the largest buck in the area.

The grand prize winner will have an article written about his or her hunt, and will receive an added grand prize that we plan to announce later.

Now, before I explain the rules, let me start by saying that we still want all those photos of your son&8217;s or daughter&8217;s first deer. We promise to publish each and every one just as we always have.

We&8217;re counting on you to make this contest a success, so we&8217;ve made it free.

Let me say it again. The contest will be FREE. The scoring will be done by a member of the sports department.

To make it as simple as possible, we have elected to use a modified version of the Buckmaster Trophy Records scoring method. This method was chosen because it allows for the entry of both typical and non-typical antlered deer.

Each deer entered in the contest must be tagged and harvested in accordance to laws governing the legal harvesting of deer in the state that the deer was taken in.

Scoring of the antlers will be done using a tailors&8217; steel tape measure, with the final score derived from the combined total number of the following measurements:

4Total number of antler points

4Tip-to-tip spread

4Greatest spread

4Greatest spread between inside beams

4Total number of irregular points greater than one inch in length

4Total inches of irregular points

4Length of main beam

4Total length of regular points

4Circumference of smallest place between burr and first point

4Circumference of smallest place between first and second point

4Circumference of smallest place between second and third point

4Circumference of smallest place between third and fourth point

All deer must be entered in the contest during scoring hours of 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. any day of the week. Saturday will be the cutoff day for each week&8217;s contest.

To have your deer scored, we do request that you call ahead of time to insure that someone is present to score your deer. The number to call to have your deer scored is 601-431-0609.

We hope that everyone who can will participate, and that you enjoy finding out each week, who is the winner of The Natchez Democrat&8217;s Biggest Buck Contest.

Rick Breland is the outdoors editor of The Natchez Democrat. He can be reached by phone at 601-445-3633 or by e-mail at

rick.breland@natchezdemocrat.com