Two winners were named in the second annual Big Buck Contest Friday after the deer season came to a close. The Selma Times-Journal and Rountree Outdoors awarded Robert Perdue as the Big Buck winner and Emily Strickland as the winner for the junior competition.

“I was actually sitting in a chair out in the open and had on no camouflage,” Perdue said about the day he shot the 10-point deer that scored a 136. “I was just sitting there and it was about dusk and I was looking around and I saw a deer in the brush to my right. When I saw he was a 10 point, I ranged him at 135 yards and then the decision came.”

Perdue said he was in pursuit of a large deer all season, one in particular that he has seen but not yet shot. He said this deer was smaller than the one he was in search of but he made the decision to pull the trigger to be able to compete in the contest. Perdue said he hopes to shoot the deer next season.

This was his first year competing in the contest and he will hunt next season in the free deer stand he won and $1,000 prize for his buck. Perdue also won a free deer mount from Mim’s Taxidermy.

Strickland, 10, said her deer was not as big but she is still excited about the prize money and is giving $100 of the $500 prize to her little brother.

“I go every weekend,” Strickland said about how often she hunts with her family. Strickland, a fifth grader at Morgan Academy, said her favorite part of hunting is “getting to pull the trigger.”

And she certainly got to several weeks ago when she shot a prize winning deer in the junior division for hunters under the age of 15.

Rountree Outdoors, Mims Taxidermy, Pepsi, Fuzion 100 and The Selma Times-Journal sponsor the Big Buck Contest.