The final monthly round of voting has begun in the Nikon Deer of the Year and Trail Cam contests, with users allowed to choose which photos move on to the grand-prize voting sessions. The monthly voting session will continue through Friday, with the grand-prize session beginning on Monday (Feb. 21).
Each monthly winners will receive an Official Sportsman gear package including a one-year subscription to Louisiana Sportsman magazine, a Sportsman T-shirt and a Sportsman decal.
At the conclusion of the grand-prize voting session, the winner of the Nikon Deer of the Year contest will receive a pair of Nikon Monarch ATB 10X42 binoculars and a $25 gift coupon to the Sportsman Outdoor store.
The grand-prize winner of the Trail Cam Contest will receive a Moultrie Game Spy D-55 digital camera valued at $99, along with a $25 gift coupon to the Sportsman Outdoor Store.
The current Nikon Deer of the Year voting session features photographs by users Tyler Sembera (Tsembera), Benjamin Landry (BLANDRY) and Frank Morrow (morrow630).
Click here to see the entries and cast your vote.
Sembera entered a photo of his 15-year-old sister Abby, who killed her first buck ever on New Year’s Day during a Tensas Parish hunt.
“She kills a few does a year, but she has never been able to close the deal on a good buck,” Sembera wrote about the 150-inch buck the young hunter downed. “Thankfully she didn’t start to get the shakes until after the shot, but I (then) thought she was going to rattle the windows out of the box she was shaking so much.
“Talk about a great experience!”
Landry’s photo is of a very unique buck killed in St. Martin Parish. The deer was palmated to such an extent that Landry dubbed it a “moose.”
“This is the first buck I have taken, and it turned out to be on that might be the best of my life,” he wrote.
In Morrow’s entry, he and his 8-year-old son Taylor are showing off a wide Pointe Coupee 8-point he killed on Jan. 6 at 70 yards.
“The buck walked straight toward me and stopped about 30 yards from me,” Morrow wrote. “I shot the buck knowing it has a wide enough spread but didn’t realize how wide until going to look about 15 minutes later.
“This was the biggest buck I have ever killed.”
In the monthly Trail Cam Contest voting, users can choose from Matt Dubuisson’s “getting down,” Alan Gustin’s (Moustafa) “The Cut Ear Eight,” and Jeffrey Anderson’s “Nanny Nanny Boo Boo.”
Click here to cast your vote.
The photo Dubuisson (known as “uncle matt” on the reports forum) shows two nice bucks testing their mettle in full view of the camera.
“(A)nd the rut is on,” Dubuisson wrote. “(A)re you ready to rumble?”
Gustin (Moustafa) entered an image of a great 8-point in West Baton Rouge that became even more memorable later in the season.
“I finally got this deer after getting many photos of him over the last three years,” he wrote. “Three seasons ago, he got a slice in his left ear that helped identify him in numerous pictures.
“I closed the book on him this season ….”
Anderson’s photo is a funny take on the contest, with a doe looking directly into the the hunter’s trail cam and seemingly taunting Anderson (aka vetdrjeff) by sticking out its tongue.
“This is how I think most deer thing of us hunters,” Anderson wrote. “The does especially think they are smarter than us. HAHA”
The full Deer of the Year photo gallery can be still be viewed by clicking here, or click here to check out the entire Trail Cam gallery.
