Raquel Dominico Buck

Story:

‘DOCTOR’S OFFICE SMELL’ SPICES UP TINKS

December 21, 2015

By: Edson B. Waite, Jr

      The faint aromas of disinfectant, alcohol and hand-wash do not hinder the effectiveness of doe drops.Raquel Dominico left work early on the fourth day of Ohio’s 2017 firearms deer season, her father’s idea.

     The two of them met at a friend’s 6 acres to spend the remains of the day in an elevated box blind.

“My father has hunted there for years, and I have had the privilege of going with him for five seasons,” Raquel said. “It is an excellent flat property.”

     “Thickets and open woods border the field, and a 30-plus-acre cornfield, which was cut, is also nearby.  My dad built the wooden stand I used to think of as a fort when I was younger.  The box blind is about 14 feet high and overlooks the flat,” she continued.

     Access is by stepladder.  There are large front and side windows.

     “My father and I have taken several very nice bucks from that stand,” she said.

     They have neither food plots nor corn piles of corn, and they do not run trail cameras.  But they do throw out a little corn and a few apples when they arrive, mainly as an offering to the deer gods.

     Whenever Raquel and her father share the blind, it’s usually during afternoons.  Raquel prefers her crossbow, even during the gun season.

     She was shooting it on the fateful day.

     “Dad asked the night before if I could get off early so we could go to the stand a little sooner than normal,” she said.“I agreed and took hunting clothes to work so I could change and be ready before meeting him at the farm.”

     “I left three hours early, dressed and out the door shortly after 2:00 that afternoon.  Dad said the deer would be moving with all the gun hunting pressure in our part of Lorain County.”

     “As soon as we met, Dad commented that I smelled like a hospital.  Well, yeah, doctor’s offices have that smell! He wasn’t sure things would work out so well, but we went on to the blind.  We put out some corn and a few apples, and then he did something different.”

     “He had brought along a Tink’s #69 scent bomb and Trail’s End #307, which he opened and set out near the base of the blind,” she explained.

Father and daughter were inside and comfortable by 3:30. Rick had harvested a very nice 10-pointer the previous week the evening before Thanksgiving – so he was acting as another set of eyes for Raquel.

     “Dad and I sat quietly and made small talk while the area outside returned to normal,” she said.  “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.”

     “About 10 minutes later, I heard a noise, looked out my side window and saw a deer coming toward the field.  I nudged my dad.

     “At first, I couldn’t tell whether it was a buck or a doe.  When it came out into the open, I saw one side of its rack, the biggest antlers I had ever seen.  It tilted its head as if smelling the scent the light wind was blowing right toward it.

     “My heart pounded, and I started breathing hard.  Somewhere in the distance, I heard my dad telling me I needed to calm down and slow my breathing.”

     “It took a few seconds for me to regain at least some of my wits, but it was hard as I was seeing this incredible buck coming closer.  Dad was watching it through his binoculars and was getting a much better look at the antlers than I was.  He understood why I was hyperventilating,” she said.

     “The buck was moving slowly through some brush, gradually edging toward us.  I was looking out in front of it for an opening or hole through which I could thread an arrow.  I had my Ten Point Titan Xtreme crossbow in hand and was ready, just looking for that spot.”

      “Ten minutes passed before the deer finally stepped into an opening,” Raquel continued.  The crossbow was resting on the edge of the window.  As the buck’s shoulder intersected the crosshairs on my scope, I pulled the trigger and released a Rage tipped bolt.”

      “Dad was watching through binoculars.  He shouted that I’d made a perfect shot as the buck bolted across the field for about 45 yards before disappearing into some thick brush.  After we heard the crash, we were sure it was down,” she said.

      The pair sat in disbelief for a long time, thinking about what they’d just witnessed.  Her father talked of how big the rack was, while Raquel could remember only that one side.

       Both were anxious to get down, but they didn’t want to risk spooking the animal.

       Nobody had ever seen this buck on those 6 acres, as far as Raquel and her father knew.  They learned later that other hunters had collected trail camera pictures of it nearby.  Many of them had stories of close encounters.

     After about 40 minutes, father and daughter exited the stand and began searching for her buck.  A large exit wound made tracking easy.

      Until they stood over it, neither knew the rack carried so many points.

     “As the woods began to darken, we tried to drag my buck out of the brush, but it was too heavy and bulky to move more than a few feet at a time.  In desperation, I called my brother-in-law, Steven, to ask if he’d bring his four-wheeler.”

     “He acted like it was no big deal and told me he would get to us when he could.  He thought I was trying to fool him,” she said. “Even after I told him the rack had 21 points, he wasn’t fazed. So, I finally took a picture of the buck and sent it to him.”

     “He texted immediately that he was on his way,” she grinned.

     “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.  They even sent trail cam pictures.”