It’s still warm outside, the mosquitoes haven’t quite died off, and most people’s lawns still have one more cut left in them before it really feels like fall. And yet, last weekend, the first harbinger of winter arrived — the start of deer season.

Bow hunters were allowed to hit the woods beginning Oct. 1. Gun season starts in November, and there are all sorts of other variants on both between now and February. It seems like there’s as many ways to kill a deer as there are to skin a cat, but thankfully we only like to do the former here in Mississippi.

I’m not a hunter. It’s one of those things that, if it doesn’t grip you at a young age, can be difficult to get into later in life. I grew up in an urban area of New Jersey. We had plenty of deer hunters up there, but no one in my family was one and I was never exposed to it. Therefore, it never did grip me. Sleeping in a warm bed on cold Saturday mornings gripped me.

That said, I have come to appreciate the special place it has in the culture of Mississippi. Hunting here is just something you do. It’s a tradition passed down from father to son, with life lessons learned and lifelong friendships formed in the woods and at camp.

Here at the Vicksburg Post, we’ve long celebrated this tradition and will continue to do so for as long as we can. We welcome families to submit pictures of their children — or adults — with their deer for us to publish. It’s something that was started decades ago, and that I consider an honor to continue.

We do have a few rules. First, please keep the gore to a minimum and take pictures of children before they get blooded. If the picture has too much blood and guts, it won’t be published.

Secondly, please make sure your picture is in focus and well lit. Photoshop can only forgive so many sins. If a picture is blurry or taken in the dark woods, it’s hard to reproduce it in print.

Thirdly, we prefer e-mail submissions. You can send them to us at sports@vicksburgpost.com. We still take old-fashioned prints, but digital copies are quicker and easier to deal with. We’ll run pictures as we get them, as the “Top Team” item on Page B2.

Good luck to all of our hunters this season, young and old. I’ll look forward to seeing what kinds of memories we make this season.

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Ernest Bowker is a sports writer for The Vicksburg Post. He can be reached at ernest.bowker@vicksburgpost.com