Here’s a western Pennsylvania buck caught on camera in July.
Trail cameras have, if not revolutionized how hunters scout for deer, at the very least turned watching whitetails into even more of a year-round activity than it was before.
They’re just fun. It’s a special kind of anticipation you feel when pulling a memory card to see what pictures might appear.
Now, capturing a really cool photo could earn you another camera.
The Pennsylvania Game Commission is holding a big-buck photo contest “to showcase some of the huge whitetails caught on trail cameras this summer and fall in Penn’s Woods.”
Here’s how it will work.
Contestants will submit photos – no larger than 5 megabytes in size — to the commission via email, at PGCtrailcam@pa.gov. They must be of wild Pennsylvania deer taken with trail cameras.
The contest runs from Aug. 1-Nov. 30. Photos must be taken during the month of submission, meaning if you submit a photo in September, it has to be of a buck caught on camera that month.
All submissions must include the photographer’s first and last name, hometown and the county where photo was recorded. Turning in a photo gives the commission the right to use it in promotional materials.
Winners will be selected monthly.
What’s that get you? Recognition and a cool prize.
The commission will select a group of “contending” photos from among the monthly winners. They’ll be chosen on the first Monday of each month, starting Sept. 1 and ending Dec. 5.
Those photos will be put in an album on the commission’s Facebook page. Visitors to the album will vote by “liking” their favorites.
That will result in one overall winner.
The best part of the deal is that trail cameras will be awarded to all winners, so they can go out and collect even more interesting pictures.
Before you go out, though, remember one thing. The commission is reminding people that using bait to attract deer to your trail camera is unlawful in disease management areas and discouraged elsewhere.
