On the second day of the hunt, Ryan made another perfect shot on this second deer. Who says a four-leaf clover isn't good luck?

We had been searching for about half an hour when we saw a coyote run out of a laurel thicket. Oh, no, I thought. Sure enough, we found my doe, half consumed. She had gone maybe 100 yards. Unfortunately, the coyote had beat us to her, but at least I'd still be able to have the head mounted with Ryan's deer.

THAT AFTERNOON, MATT TOOK Ryan and me to the Big Rock blind, and on the way he found a four-leaf clover and handed it over to Ryan. "Hope this brings you good luck, buddy," he said.

Dad went to Bob's Field blind. Even though Dad is an excellent shot, he'd never shot a whitetail with a bow. However, at 6:15 p.m. he let an arrow fly on a mature doe, and at age 64, he took his first deer. The deer dropped within Dad's sight. He was pretty darn happy, and my only regret was that I had not been there to share the moment with him.

I did get to see Josh take care of that deer, however, and that was pretty amazing in itself. Josh had recently broken his right ankle while playing volleyball and had it in a cast. He was supposed to take it easy. Yet, he insisted on field-dressing my dad's deer and then dragging the deer to a nearby creek to wash it up. That effort pretty well demonstrates Josh's desire to make this hunt a memorable time for us Pennsylvania boys.

At about the same time my dad was shooting his deer, Ryan made another perfect double-lung shot on a doe at 15 yards.

"Watch where she goes," I coached, and as Ryan peered out the back of the blind, he saw her drop in the briars behind us.

"She's down, Dad, I saw her go down!" he exclaimed.

"Are you kidding me?" I said aloud, forgetting we were still hunting. "Wow! Your second deer! That's unbelieveable! Man, I wish I had a four-leaf clover!"

OUR MAIN GOAL had been for us all to bag at least one deer, and we had achieved that goal. But we still had one day left, and we all hungered for a buck. We had seen more deer than we had imagined possible, but the monster bucks recorded on Josh's trail cameras were eluding us. Since it was still early in the season, they were probably still mostly nocturnal. But the trail cameras proved they were there, which fueled me with adrenaline for our last day's hunt and a chance to harvest one of these beasts.

On the last evening of our hunt, Ryan went with my dad to sit in a blind. I was happy Ryan would be spending quality time with his grandpa, who has been my mentor over the years -- and still is. That gave me the opportunity to sit in a treestand situated at the base of a mountain in a staging area that led to a field.

"Hold out as long as you can," Josh had warned me. "You'll see several really good bucks coming down off the mountain just before dark."