The faint aromas of disinfectant, alcohol and hand-wash apparently do not hinder the effectiveness of doe drops.
Raquel Dominico didn’t have time to go home and shower off the doctor’s office smell before joining her father, Rick, for a deer hunt last Ohio. She carried her hunting clothes to the office, and then went to the woods straight from work after getting off early.
They met at a friend’s small plot of land to climb 14 feet into a child’s-fort-turned-box-blind. It was four days into Ohio’s gun season, but Raquel carried her trusted crossbow.
“As soon as we met, Dad commented that I smelled like a hospital. Well, yeah, doctor’s offices have that smell,” she told Ed Waite, who’s writing her story for Rack magazine. “He wasn’t sure things would work out so well, but we went on to the blind.”
As is their custom, father and daughter threw out some apples and a little corn. He’d also brought along a Tink’s #69 scent bomb, which he placed at the foot of the blind.
“At 4:10, a small doe came into the field from the nearby woods. She wandered about, eating a bite here and there, totally unconcerned,” Raquel said. “About 10 minutes later, I heard a noise, looked out my side window and saw another deer coming toward the field. I nudged my dad.”
When she could make out one side of a giant rack, Raquel realized she’d never seen a rack so big. It gave her the shakes.
“Somewhere in the distance, I heard my dad telling me I needed to calm down and slow my breathing,” she laughed.
She was at bat that day, since he’d already filled his buck tag.
Ten minutes later, she shot the deer when it stepped into the clear. They waited at least 40 minutes before taking up the trail.
“The next morning, I posted a picture on the Internet. Within a very short time, I had about 20 messages asking where I had shot it. Some people said they’d been seeing/hunting it for several years,” Raquel said. “They even sent trail cam pictures.”
Ed also taped the deer for the BTR. It scored 205 5/8 inches.
He did not go home empty-handed.
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