When we got the phone call Wednesday night about a double drop-tine, 200 class buck being killed in the sugarcane fields of West Baton Rouge Parish, my first thought was that someone was pulling our leg. “Sure,” I thought, “I suppose anything is possible, but a 200″ B&C in West BR? Come on…” I had to dip into the Louisiana Big Game Records first before I spent half the night tracking another hunter down. As I scoured over the pages searching for West Baton Rouge Parish entries, the highest scoring buck I could find was still under 140″—a far cry from the 200″ mark which echoed throughout the grapevine that night. “Was this parish even capable of producing such a freak?” I thought.

If it wasn’t for the report’s reliable source—Chad Cazas, or “Teepagoux” as he’s known on BayouBucks.com’s forum—I might have written it off for another day. I’m glad I didn’t, because the story is true. The buck is real. And Jeremy Horner of Erwinville, Louisiana has the rack adorning his kitchen table to prove it.

On Wednesday, December 16, Horner set out to take advantage of the breaking weather and make an afternoon deer hunt on some property near Erwinville he has permission to hunt. Admittedly, he was a little late getting to his stand and settled in about 4:30 PM. “It was windy, and my seat was wet from all the rain we’ve been having,” Horner recalled. “By 5:15 my butt was soaked and I was freezing, so I decided to get down and break out.” Through fate or God’s grace, this was the best decision Horner could have made that evening.

As Horner headed out and approached the parking area, something peculiar was waiting a mere 30 yards beyond his truck on the sugarcane field’s right-of-way. “As I got closer to my truck, I got a text message,” Horner recalled. “I was walking along, reading the text, and something caught my eye in my periphial [vision]. It was him—just standing there behind my truck next to the cane—and I froze.”

The big buck stared back intently—head high and fully alert—and at only 55 yards away, Horner had quickly noticed points shooting off in many directions as well as a couple of drop tines. “What do you do?” an excited Horner laughed. “I had a million things running through my mind, and after what seemed like a long stare-off, I dropped my phone and threw my gun up to my shoulder.” The buck bolted down the right-of-way as Horner took a quartering away shot, and judging by the buck’s reaction thereafter, he knew he’d made a good hit.

“He wobbled and zig-zagged down the road, eventually darting into the woods opposite the cane,” Horner said. “That’s when I heard him crash. The noise was hellacious; it sounded like a 2X4 laid across two sawhorses getting smashed with a sledgehammer.” Confident, yet cautious, Horner decided to wait until 5:30 before going to look for his buck.

Jeremy Horner's 197" B&C West Baton Rouge Parish monster, killed Nov. 16, 2009.

The brute laid right where he figured him to be, and as Horner closed the distance, his eyes got wider. “What the hell have I done here?” he remembered thinking. “I mean…I’ve been hunting since I could walk, but I’d never felt like this before.” Who can hardly blame him? The monster resting at his feet weighed 240 pounds, sported 18 scorable points, had an inside spread of 18 1/2 inches, 27 inch main beams, and a whopping 7 1/2 inch bases. As if that wasn’t enough, the buck sported two drop-tines—one at 7 1/2 inches and another at 5 1/2 inches. “He actually broke the shorter drop-tine off when he crashed into the tree,” Horner stated. “I went back today (Thursday) and found it where he fell dead at!”

“Why was he there by my truck? I just don’t know,” Horner reasoned. “We’ve had a lot of rain recently and the whole river side of the levee is under water right now. I assume he got pushed across and was living in the swamp we have on the property. That’s where he was headed before and after I shot him.”

The 19 point monarch lost one of his drop-tines when he crashed into a four inch oak tree.

Three different individuals unofficially green-scored Horner’s buck. In all 3 instances, 197 B&C inches of bone seemed to be the common denominator, potentially placing this buck well above any others from this area of Louisiana. “I’ve got a beautiful 149 [incher] on the wall, and this buck makes him look like a baby!” Horner humbly boasted. “I brought him by Raxx Bar & Grille that night and 40-50 people came out to look at this deer.”

Despite this recent claim to fame and a barrage of phone calls, Horner holds tight to his roots growing up hunting in Point Coupee and West Baton Rouge Parishes. “I can’t stop thinking about my two late uncles, Danny & Butch,” Horner recollected. “Both of them were my hunting buddies, and they recently passed away. They’d sure be proud of me.” Congratulations Jeremy on behalf of the folks here at BayouBucks.com. There are many people around Louisiana proud and excited for you today.