For anyone looking to add a little extra motivation to his or her hunt this season, the Big Buck contest is sure to do just that.

The winner of the contest, put on by Rountree Oudoors and the Times-Journal will win $1,000, along with a free head mount and tree stand. There’s also a youth contest, where the winner takes home $500.

“It is a great opportunity,” said Chet Chappelle, owner of Rountree Outdoors. “Not only does it give your deer season that much more of a challenge, because you know that if you do kill that buck that could win it, you could win $1000 dollars and there’s a free mount and tree stand. It gives you that much more reason to go hunting.”

Chappelle said there are plenty of big bucks out there.

“The deer are big weight wise from the pictures I’ve seen on game pictures, from people bringing in deer on their camera and showing us different racks,” Chappelle said. ”There are definitely a lot of big bucks out there this year, more so this year than there was last year.”

Chappelle said in the last few weeks, a lot of people have asked him about the competition.

“We’ve already had a lot of requests for it,” Chappelle said. “There are a lot of people that are looking forward to it.”

The scoring is done by Mims Taxidermy, with the scoring based on the biggest antlers.

Hunters must be signed up 24 hours before killing a deer they want to enter. The competition runs through Jan. 31, 2014 and registration is underway now at Rountree Oudoors.

The cost is $20 to register for the contest.

If a hunter enters one buck in the contest, but decides he or she wants to try to kill a bigger buck, the hunter is able to pay $20 again and enter a new kill in the competition.

“I think a lot of people didn’t know that last year. They thought it was a one time deal,” Chappelle said. “If you’ve got a deal that is on film that you think is going to score bigger than the one you killed, come back by here, pay $20 and fill out another registration form and go hunting.”

Last year’s grand prize winner was Robert Perdue, who killed a 10-point deer that scored a 136.

Last year’s youth competition winner was 10-year-old Emily Strickland.