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After a full season of watching bucks from your stand, scanning trail-cam pics, and reading stories about monster whitetails, your ability to estimate a buck’s Boone & Crockett (B&C) score should be razor sharp right now. So why not put it to the test with the chance win a trail camera as the prize?

Welcome to the F&S Buck Scoring Contest. It’s simple, really. Below are photos of three different whitetail bucks. None have been widely publicized, and all have been scored by an official B&C measurer. (We have a copy of each score sheet.) All you have to do is estimate the gross B&C score for each buck, to the nearest ⅛ inch. I repeat: gross score. Then you need to add those three estimated scores up to achieve a total score for the group, also to the nearest ⅛. (Note that while B&C’s convention is to always use 8 as the denominator, as in 2/8 and 4/8, will accept an equivalent value, as in 1/4 or 1/2.) To be clear, your final contest entry should include four numbers: your Buck #1 score, Buck #2 score, Buck #3 score, and your total composite score.

The winner of the camera will be the entrant whose total score is closest to the sum of all three bucks’ actual gross scores. Why do you need to submit the individual scores, then? Because we’ve done this before, and ties are not unusual. In that event, we’ll go to the individual scores to determine a winner.

photo of Browning trail camera
The Browning Strike Force HD Max is a prize worth about $150. Browning

What, exactly, are you playing for? A Browning Strike Force HD Max trail camera, one of the company’s newest offerings. The Strike Force HD Max has an adjustable 0.3-0.7 second trigger speed, 0.6-second recovery speed, 100-foot flash detection, with Browning’s new zero-blur technology, and an 18MP camera that shoots tack-sharp pics or 1600X900 HD video. All this is packed in a compact (4¼x3x2½-inch) case, and the camera accepts a 512GB SD card, which means it’ll store a pile of pics or vids while you’re babysitting your other cameras.

So, let’s get started.

Buck #1: Nice and Clean

We’ll let you flex your buck-scoring muscles first on this Iowa muzzleloader giant. It’s a beautiful typical whitetail, and it’s clean enough that you should be able to get close.

photo of hunter with whitetail buck mount

Buck #2: Tall and Tight

This one should be a bit of a curveball for some of you. Most hunters equate inside spread with an impressive B&C score, and yet this Illinois stud is just about as tight as they come.

photo of whitetail buck mount

Buck #3: The Character Buck

Just to keep things interesting, we had to throw in a buck with enough junk to incite some head-scratching. In fact, this Iowa whopper is funky enough that we thought it only fair to supply a couple angles for you to view.

hunter with whitetail buck mount
photo of hunter with whitetail buck mount

So there are your bucks, but before you start guessing, a little housekeeping: You must submit your four scores in the comment section below or in the comment section of the related Facebook post. This one:

You must submit your entry by 5:00 pm next Thursday, February 10th. We’ll announce the winner next Friday, the 11th. Only one submission per person. We’ll need to have a bit of an honor system here: If you happen to know the score of any of these bucks, please refrain from playing and kindly keep it to yourself so everyone else can have some fun. (We posted three different bucks with this in mind; someone might know one buck but almost certainly not all three.) Your first guess, and only your first, counts. No revising scores, so make sure you write them down correctly before you submit. (Edited comments will be disqualified.) If you are the winner, we will reach out via FB or email for an address where we can send you your prize.

Now, with all of that out of the way, have at it. Stretch that imaginary tape, turn on your mental calculator, and win yourself a camera!