It started out the same way most opening days of deer season begin. We drove to the farm we were going to hunt before sunrise, slipped into our pre-determined locations, and settled in for a cold pre-dawn November morning.

Not long after first-light, a doe and a young buck walked by, extremely close to the blind my son Jordan was sitting in. I waited for a shot to ring out, but none came. The deer, which slowly and playfully had been making their way across the field, suddenly bolted, and then they were gone.

It turns out that Jordan was waiting, at first, for me to take a shot at the buck. That had been our agreement. He had taken a nice 10-point buck a couple of years earlier, and was willing to allow dear old dad to take the first shot at the first buck of the season. When I didn't shoot, he tried to reposition himself for a better shot, and that's when the whitetails decided to exit, stage right.

The fact is, it was still dark enough that I didn't really see any antlers until the buck jumped the fence onto the next farm. By then it was too late.

An hour later, a trio of does circled in from the west through a sunken creek bed and appeared directly in front of Jordan's blind. In an instance, the largest one spun, ran about 20 yards, and tumbled to her death. A single shot from the borrowed .308 caliber rifle had found its mark.

That afternoon, after driving back into town for lunch and to purchase an additional doe tag for Jordan, we were back in our stands.

About the time I started to think a nap would be nice, I heard shots a mile or so away to the west. Something told me I should be alert -- that the shots might have scared up some deer, which may well be coming my way. Two minutes later, a monster buck ran into my field of vision, stopped for a split-second, and bounded across the creek bed and into the soy bean field across from where I sat.

"He's huge!" I said out loud, though no one was there to hear me. Then I gave a little bleat to see if I could get him to stop again. He stopped and looked back to see where the noise had come from.

The .243 in my hands barked and the deer bowed up a bit before running to the east, looking for an escape route. Then he was down.

Jordan ran ahead of me as I crossed the creek. As he neared the buck, he turned with a large smile on his face and his hands stretched out on either side of his shoulders and shouted, "He's huge Dad! … He's huge!"

He was right. The inside spread on the ten-point rack was just under 22 inches -- a trophy by most standards.

We were indeed blessed with harvesting a very nice buck to go along with the doe he had taken earlier that day. The freezer was filled for the winter, just as Jordan's mother had requested.

In addition, a third hunter in our party harvested a buck that evening, just before quitting time. He, too, went home with a smile.

It was, to say the least, a very successful day.