Anderson: With Bud Grant gone, his partner recalls good times afield while anticipating Minnesota’s deer opener

Pat Smith can remember as if it were yesterday the first time she fired a rifle, because it was the one and only time she shot a deer, an 8-point buck. This was near Roseau, in northern Minnesota not far from the Canadian border. The year was 2019, and she and Bud Grant were in a stand all day, side by side.

Bud and Pat had been partners since after Bud's wife died in 2009 of complications from Parkinson's disease.

While watching for deer on that cold November day, Bud and Pat fell easily into small talk, whispers mostly, and laughs, their on-again, off-again conversation interrupted occasionally by a squirrel scampering along a deadfall or by Canada geese migrating in neat arrows overhead.

"We both shot bucks that day, Bud and I,'' Pat said. "I shot mine first. Then, at the end of the day, another buck appeared and I said, 'You better shoot it, it's going to be dark pretty soon.''

In 2019, hunting near Roseau in northern Minnesota, Bud Grant and Pat Smith each shot 8-point bucks on the same day. (Pat Smith/Courtesy of Pat Smith) Replaying like endless videos, memories of her time with Bud, who died in March 2023 at age 95, are what Pat has now.

After his passing, she moved back to Mankato, back to her home after being gone so long. It's there, while working in her yard or cooking dinner or watching a Vikings game on TV, that she often spools in her mind's eye the goose hunts the two of them took to western Nebraska, the duck hunts they made to North Dakota and the fall days they spent at Bud's cabin in northwest Wisconsin.

Growing up in the Twin Cities, Pat didn't hunt or fish. So it was new to her, and fun, these autumnal traditions the two of them forged in their later lives, spending time outdoors together.

"My parents didn't hunt or fish, so I wasn't exposed to it as a girl. But I was happy to go with Bud, so long as I could drive,'' she said. "That was the deal we made. He could look out the window for birds or deer or whatever he could find, and I would drive.''