NATCHEZ — If you’re a sportsman in the Miss-Lou, this weekend is your holiday.

Mississippi’s inaugural tax-free holiday will begin Friday and continue through Sunday.

The Legislature passed a law creating an annual tax-free weekend in September. The law went into effect on July 1. The holiday will be hosted annually on the first Friday of each September until midnight on the following Sunday.

Individual sales of firearms, ammunition, archery equipment, rifle scopes and certain hunting supplies will be exempt from taxes during the state’s inaugural tax holiday. Mississippi has a 7 percent sales tax.

Sports Center owner Wyatt Craig said he was excited to see the law come across the river to Mississippi. Louisiana has been doing a similar tax-free weekend for three years.

Being the first tax-free weekend for the state, Craig said he hopes many people come out to take advantage of the savings, but has he doesn’t really know what the response will be.

“I have no idea what to expect,” Craig said. “It depends on how many people know about it.”

Jason Wisner, who works in the hunting area of the store, said the tax-free weekend is somewhat of a rare break all Natchez residents should utilize.

“It is an opportunity created by the state to help local retailers,” Wisner said. “Giving the average guy a break isn’t something the government does a lot of.”

Louisiana’s sportsman tax-free holiday is also this weekend.

The 2014 Louisiana Second Amendment Weekend Sales Tax Holiday runs Friday through Sunday and applies to individual consumer purchases of hunting gear, including firearms, ammunition, archery supplies, hunting apparel and off-road vehicles such as all-terrain vehicles designed and intended primarily for hunting.

The exemption does not apply to golf carts, go-carts, dirt bikes, mini-bikes, motorcycles, tractors, motor vehicles which may be legally driven on the streets and highways of Louisiana, or heavy equipment such as cranes, forklifts, backhoes and bulldozers.