Doing the same things the same way at the same places day after day can become monotonous. Sometimes a break from the mundane routine and a change in scenery is good for the soul and can get your batteries recharged.
West Monroe’s Jay Lagrone, 33, is a construction worker who is a member of a hunting club near his home town. He has hunted there most of the season, and was able to arrow a doe with his bow earlier. However, he became bored and wanted to look at some different woods, so on Jan. 14 he decided to do something about it. And brought home a 180-class buck.
“I have a friend who has some land in Jackson Parish over toward Eros who lets me hunt there,” Lagrone said. “On that Friday, I had the day off so I decided to take advantage of my friend’s offer and went down the Jackson Parish to hunt.”
Lagrone had no high expectations of getting a crack at a deer; he just wanted to look a change of scenery.
“I’m not what you would call a ‘fancy’ hunter with all the modern stuff,” he said. “I’m just a poor old country boy. I took a green plastic chair, found me a good spot to sit against some trees in the edge of the woods that gave me a good view of a pasture.
“I pulled up some sticks and limbs around me to sort of make a blind, and was sitting and freezing my tail off but enjoying the scenery.”
It didn’t take too long for the action to begin, though.
“I’d been sitting there an hour and a half when I noticed a couple of does come into the field, and something seemed to be chasing them,” Lagrone said. “A spike came out and was following the does around when the spike suddenly left like something was after it.”
Half an hour later, that “something” appeared and made the scenery Lagrone was enjoying much more interesting.
“I looked up, and this big old buck stepped out at the same spot where the does and spike came from,” he explained. “When he first came out, I didn’t get a good look at his head except to tell he had plenty of horns and they looked heavy.”
Click here to see other photos of the big buck.
When the buck stepped into clear view at 130 yards, Lagrone took aim, squeezed the trigger and the buck dropped in his tracks.
“While I was walking up to him, I called my wife to tell her I’d shot a big one and I tried to talk to her and count points,” he said. “I finally told her I’d have to call her back because there were so many points I couldn’t talk and count at the same time.”
Indeed, the task of counting and talking would be difficult for anyone because the 260-pound buck with unreal headgear sported 24 points, including a drop tine.
The inside spread was 16 inches with main beams measuring 21 and 20 inches. The unusual non-typical rack was palmated and measured 8 ¾ inches around the center of the rack, Lagrone said.
The buck was taken to TP Outdoors in West Monroe and entered in the big-buck contest the store annually hosts. Scorers at the store came up with an unofficial measurement of 186 2/8 inches.
“You can bet I’ll be looking at the scenery on that piece of land in Jackson Parish a lot more next season,” Lagrone said.
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