A Farewell to Lorelei

Last year, Lorelei never showed up. I guess this is as good a time to write her farewell. This all started back in 2010, and lasted until 2012. I’m still a little hazy on the start of it. I do remember spooking a doe early in 2010 on my way to my stand. She came back after sunrise and searched for me. That might have been my first meeting with her.

Over time, Lorelei got to patterning me. When I would get into my ladder stand at Campground, she would show up and play a hide-and-seek game with me. She would appear from a variety of directions, and stand behind a tree with her butt and her head sticking out and snort at me and then take off. Later, this evolved into coming right to my stand.

Then the really freaky stuff started. On one occasion, she came by my stand at a pretty fast clip. She stopped. Looked back, and then took off again. A short time later an 8-pointer showed up. I shot him. She came back, saw the dead buck and looked back at me and snorted wildly while hopping back and forth in . . . I’m not sure now if it was fear, glee, or what.

After she cleared out, I came down from the stand. The buck had piled up in some weeds and I missed him the first time through. I spent a half-hour combing the woods for him only to find him piled up in the fence line, right where I shot him. I called for the truck, dragged him out, and then went back for my gear at the stand. The doe was bedded next to my duffel bag and gear.

By the next season, I had her named. ‘Lorelei’ comes from a German drinking song, Der alte Dessauer

And when we spy a Lorelei with captivating ways
Let us drink to life all our live-long days.

This was one of the tunes I had for getting folks up in the morning at deer camp that year.

She kept visiting me through 2012. The last time I saw her, Angus and I were hunting the Midway ground blind on the last weekend of rifle season. She led a small 6-point buck to us. As I remember, she came to visit me at Campground, and I saw her checking for me in the binos. She then disappeared and showed up at Midway, crossed in front of Angus who was hunting the North side. Then she came round the south side where I was sitting and stuck her head in the window. The 6-pointer was a few feet behind. After making nearly a complete circle around the blind she wandered out into the field with the buck in tow.

Angus and I discussed taking the buck, but figured it was better to go in empty handed and let him grow up a bit. That was the last time we saw deer that year, and we both ate tag soup.

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