GON’s Big-Buck Contest Back For Year 31

A buddy killed a nice buck last season and would have won a $1,200 Browning deer rifle and a chance to shoot for a new truck. One problem, he didn’t have a GON membership. Why’d he drop his subscription?

“Too many fishing articles when it wasn’t hunting season…”

I just shook my head and reminded him that GON is only $20 for the entire year, 12 issues. It’s worth $20 for one good issue in the fall, not to mention the chance to participate in Truck-Buck.

This same guy got third in a deer cooler big-buck contest. He paid $25 to be in that contest, which gave away a $600 rifle to the best buck of the season.

Sometimes you just shake your head…

Make sure your GON membership is up-to-date. And also make sure to thank each and every one of our Truck-Buck contest sponsors. Y’all have a crazy good big-buck contest—there’s nothing even close to it anywhere in the country. Please don’t take it for granted. The contest doesn’t happen without our sponsors, our GON members, and the GON staff who do all the work behind the scenes to pull this contest off year after year.

This year we will give away our 31st pickup truck to the winner of the Truck-Buck Shoot-Out. Thanks to sponsor John Megel Chevy, who has been with GON since Day 1, the contest awards a new Chevy pickup truck to a Georgia deer hunter each year.

This year’s 31st version of Truck-Buck is again using the original format of Truck-Buck, with no North vs. South preliminary rounds. When you win your week, you automatically earn a huge weekly prize package—a bow, rifle or muzzleloader, plus an HSS safety harness and a bag of attractant and a bag of mineral for new sponsor 4S Wildlife.

We also have a great new sponsor for the four wildcard winners. In addition to a prize from Havalon Knives, the wildcard winners will get a $250 gift card from Agri Supply. They also get the bags of 4S Draw and Antler Addict Deer Mineral.

The wildcards are for the highest-scoring buck by a youth, lady or public-land hunter that doesn’t win a week. There is also a Runner-Up Wildcard for the highest-scoring buck that doesn’t win a week (the best second-place buck of any week).

Entering the GON Truck-Buck contest is simple. First, be a GON member, which means you have a paid subscription to the magazine. When you kill a buck, first take digital photos before you cape the buck. Then go to www.gon.com and fill out the online entry form and upload your pictures.

If you are 23 and living with your parents, you need to buy your own subscription. Only dependent kids (claimed as dependent on parents’ taxes) can enter on a subscription. Grandparents, please buy a gift subscription for the grandkids! The kids even have their own contest. See page 68 for info on the Youth Big-Buck Contest.

The Truck-Buck contest is divided into scoring periods that coincide with the weeks of deer season. Each week, the best buck entered statewide wins prizes and earns a spot in the Shoot-Out. You don’t have to kill the biggest buck in the state, just the highest-scoring buck during a week of the deer season.

Hunters can also make the Shoot-Out through four wildcard divisions: Youth, Ladies, Public Land and Runner-Up. Here are the prizes for the 2019-20 Truck-Buck contest:

• The winner of the Shoot-Out next summer will drive away in a new 4×4 Chevy Silverado pickup truck from John Megel Chevrolet.

• 13 Browning X-Bolt Stainless Stalker deer rifles.

• 4 Mathews Vertix compound bows.

• 22 personalized GON Shoot-Out jerseys from Realtree.

• 22 HSS Ultra-Lite Flex 320 harnesses from Hunter Safety System.

• .50 caliber CVA Accura MR SS Nitrade Muzzleloader with scope and case.

• 22 bags of 4S Draw and 22 bags of Antler Addict Deer Mineral.

• 4 $250 gift cards from Agri Supply.

• 4 Havalon Knives.

Take a few minutes to thank the Truck-Buck sponsors. And when you do business, do so with the folks who support us and Georgia hunting.

Don’t miss out on this awesome big-buck contest. Simply be a GON member (paid magazine subscriber), kill a buck, take photos, and then enter at www.gon.com.