MINNEAPOLIS — Saturday morning, most Minnesotans slept in rather than set their alarm clocks to ring hours before sunup.

That’s what Pat Smith of Mankato and I did, also John Weyrauch of Stillwater. That way we could be in the woods early enough to hear turkeys gobble and see ducks skitter onto quiet ponds while celebrating the opening day of deer season, watching for whitetails.

We weren’t too far north of St. Paul when we walked to our stands in the still-dark of early morning. John hunts from a castle-like hut that sits maybe 10 feet in the air, and he angled for it, while perhaps 600 yards distant from that perch, Pat and I settled into a makeshift ground blind whose decorative motif could fairly be described as Early American Hillbilly.

Our blind’s appearance aside, when dawn broke — revealing a mostly clear sky accompanied by scant winds — Pat and I were feeling good about our chances.

“In this blind, deer will either walk in front of us, moving right to left or left to right, or they’ll walk behind us, walking right to left or left to right,” I whispered.

To her credit Pat didn’t roll her eyes upon hearing this hogwash packaged as sage advice. The longtime partner of Bud Grant, the late Vikings coach, Pat at dinner the night before was effusive in her gratitude for being invited to hunt.

Then she announced she wouldn’t be shooting “just any deer” but instead wanted only a buck.

“And a big one,” she said. “At least a 10-pointer. I’ve shot an 8-pointer. This one has to be bigger.”

“Huh?” I said.

“A 10-pointer,” she said.

In the first half-hour, Pat and I saw one deer, a doe that alerted to us quickly before bolting. Like all hunters we were hoping to see approaching animals before they saw us. Then Pat could ready her gun — only she was carrying a firearm — and send a scope-directed slug in the deer’s direction.

“There!’’ Pat said. “Did you hear that?”

This would be the first of a half-dozen or so ghost deer that approached our position from the woods behind us, only to disappear before coming into complete view.

Beguiled and entertained by all things wild, Pat considered each of these sightings a treat, especially when mixed with the incessant chattering of squirrels from the surrounding oaks and the caw-caw-cawing of crows that seemed to grow louder as the rising sun bruised the eastern sky a fusion of red, copper and saffron.

Some 400,000 other deer hunters were immersed in similar feasts of sights and sounds throughout Minnesota Saturday morning.

Near their longtime camp in the northwest part of the state, Mike Eilertson of Detroit Lakes, accompanied by his 9-year-old grandson Decker, together with John Korzendorfer of Hermantown and Mike Scarborough of Alexandria, were seeing only two does and a small 6-point.

Northwest of Park Rapids, in their 45th year at the same camp, Skip Stromberg of Bloomington, Jim Simones of Walker and his son Jer of Bloomington saw no deer Saturday morning, while “Dead Eye Judy’' — half of the Marv and Judy Koep deer-hunting duo of Breezy Point — shot a doe while hunting with a bevy of gun-toting relatives in the Brainerd area.

“It’s the 63rd year Judy and I have hunted deer together,” Marv said.

Meanwhile, in the blind Pat and I shared, I had poured a cup of coffee not long after 9 a.m. when she exclaimed, “A buck!”

This was a good animal, 8 points at least, and out in front of us. Nose down, he moseyed without apparent purpose. But at about 80 yards from us, it was outside Pat’s marksmanship comfort range by about 30 yards.

Ducking down to stay hidden, I watched as Pat nevertheless aligned the crosshairs of her shotgun’s four-power scope on the unsuspecting animal. A less disciplined hunter would have succumbed to the temptation to let one fly. But Pat respects deer too much to risk wounding one. She never reached for the safety.

Ambling along a woodsy path, the buck disappeared in John’s direction.

Fifteen minutes later, John’s Savage 220 20-gauge slug gun, an extremely accurate firearm, effused a big bang.

An 8-pointer, probably 2 1/2 years old, the buck was about 60 yards from John’s stand when he took his last step.

The skidding of John’s opening-morning prize from the woods was accompanied by the usual disruptive rigmarole, which gave Pat and me time to trade a few Bud stories.

I told her the one about Fran Tarkenton approaching Bud while the team was eating dinner at training camp in Mankato.

“Coach,” Tarkenton said, “You know a lot about dogs and I want your advice about a new dog I’ve got. No matter what I do I can’t get him housebroken. What do you suggest?”

Bud didn’t look up. “Shoot him,” he said.

He didn’t mean it literally. He was just messing with his quarterback.

But Tarkenton was aghast.

“Shoot my dog?” Tarkenton said. “I’m not going to shoot my dog.” And he walked away.

Tarkenton would get the last laugh.

Years later, when the Vikings wanted him to come back to be feted with other legendary players, Tarkenton refused — the only one of his teammates to decline.

Bud called Tarkenton to ask him to reconsider as a favor to his old coach.

“OK,” Tarkenton said. “Because you’re asking, I’ll come back. But if I do, you’ve got to do a favor for me.“

“Anything,” Bud said. “What?”

“Shoot my dog,” Tarkenton said.

Opening morning ended, and Pat and I saw no more deer.

But there will be other opening mornings. It’s hunting partners who are hard to find — and keep.

Especially good ones, as Pat knows.

John and I agreed we’ll hunt with Pat again.

Who else could we find to shoot our 10-pointers?

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