2023 - Isabelle Cook shoots a beauty near McGregor

November 21, 2023 • Voyageur Press

For Isabelle Cook, a junior at McGregor High School, that was certainly the case on opening day of Minnesota’s firearms deer season.

After missing a 5-point buck earlier in the day, Isabelle returned to the woods that evening and ended opening day with the biggest buck she had ever seen — a 12-pointer, technically an 11-pointer after one point broke off.

Isabelle headed to her stand opening morning and patiently waited for something to come along.

“I saw a spike right at first light and five does,” she said. “At around 10 a.m., a 5-pointer walked out, and I decided to take him. He walked right in front of my stand from my blind side and was barely seven yards away.”

With the buck so close, Isabelle took the shot but soon began to suspect she had missed.

“I didn’t know that I missed, but after spending close to three hours tracking with not a drop of blood or any hair, I convinced myself I missed,” she said.

The Paquette family joined Isabelle in the search, but they also came up empty-handed.

“Not even Becky Paquette, who’s known for being crazy good at tracking deer, could find any blood,” Isabelle said.

Despite the disappointment, Isabelle wasn’t ready to give up on opening day.

That afternoon, she headed back out with her best friend, Jackson.

“We went out at 3:30 p.m., which was later than we wanted, but we sat and waited,” Isabelle said. “I actually took a nap, and at about 4:45, Jackson woke me up because a doe had walked out.”

Jackson shot the doe with his bow, and shortly afterward, another deer appeared.

This time, it was a buck.

“He was chasing the doe,” Isabelle said. “I thought this buck was maybe a mainframe 8, so I shot. The buck crunched his shoulder back, and we heard the crashing in the woods of him falling.”

After waiting about an hour, Isabelle and Jackson headed out to search. With darkness settling in, they once again called on Becky and Jeremy Paquette to help track.

What they found was much bigger than Isabelle had expected.

“I cannot express how exciting it was!” she said. “We pulled him out, took pictures, and Jeremy gave me an ‘I’m proud of you’ hug.”

It wasn’t until Isabelle got a good look at the buck that she realized just how impressive it was.

“I’ve never even seen a buck that big before, and he ended up with 12 points — technically 11, because one broke off,” she explained. “I definitely couldn’t have done it without the Paquette family, and I’m so glad they were able to be a part of my first ‘big buck.’”

For Isabelle, deer hunting has been a tradition for years. She has harvested a deer every season since she was 11 years old.

Her first deer was taken alongside her grandfather, Scott Cook.



This year’s opening day, however, will be a tough one to top. What began with a missed 5-pointer ended just a few hours later with Isabelle celebrating the biggest buck of her hunting career.