The Cuozzo buck green-scored 212 Boone and Crockett points to make it the largest non-typical buck taken in the Northeast last season. Photo courtesy of Bob Cuozzo.

During the hunting season, Bob Cuozzo of Pine City had a sense that maybe something good would happen for him -- something that would honor the great memories he had with his dad, who had passed away during Thanksgiving Week.

Sure enough, on opening day of the Pennsylvania gun season, Cuozzo managed to shoot a big buck. The whole event felt eerily connected to the death of his dad. At the very moment that he gazed on his nice Keystone State trophy, intuition told him that he would get an even a better buck in his home state of New York.

His intuition proved right. Only a short time later, Cuozzo tagged what would turn out to be the best buck of New York’s 2006 season!

Cuozzo originally hails from Pennsylvania and started hunting at the tender age of 12. It took him nine years before he downed his first buck, but since then, Cuozzo has shot 73 bucks!

Cuozzo now works as a biology teacher in New York, near the Pennsylvania border. He hunts both states regularly and has killed big-bodied, big-racked bucks in both states. An avid hunter, he makes use of opportunities to hunt archery, shotgun, rifle and muzzleloader seasons. He also bowhunts for elk in Colorado.

His dad hunted when Cuozzo was younger, but didn’t have much time to get away. Over the last three years his dad had been in a nursing home, where he struggled with Parkinson’s disease. Every day during the week, Cuozzo dropped by to take his dad out for a ride until his health got worse.

At the age of 8, Cuozzo was actually adopted by his aunt and uncle, who took on the responsibility of raising him as their own. While Cuozzo certainly felt a sense of sadness when his dad passed away on the Monday before Thanksgiving, he also felt gratitude for the time they’d had together.

And he felt a sense that this hunting season would be something special. His opening-day success in Pennsylvania certainly supported his intuition. But an upcoming Empire State hunt would ensure that his 2006 hunting season would literally go into the record books.

DESTINY CALLS
On Wednesday, Dec. 6, Cuozzo made plans for an early-morning drive on a farm that he and his friends had hunted many times before. He planned to get a flu shot early, and then meet his five hunting buddies about 8:30 a.m. They had planned to conduct two drives that day.

As it turned out, the first one would be more than enough.

The first areas they chose to push were a relatively small, brushy lot and a pine grove. Cuozzo was one of three standers. Two other friends would push through the brush and pines. Cuozzo sat at a good vantage point for about 10 minutes. From the ridge, he could see the area around him.

The deer stopped about 45 yards below him, but Cuozzo still could not see the second deer, hidden behind some trees.

Soon after the start of the drive, he saw two deer, running up the bank toward him. As they neared him, he saw that one was definitely a doe.

The deer stopped about 45 yards below him, but Cuouzzo still could not see the second deer, hidden behind some trees.

He kept watching until suddenly both deer turned and looked down the hill. As they turned, he now saw that the second deer was a buck, but he had no idea how big it was.

The doe started to walk away to the right. Cuozzo assumed that the buck would follow, so he pulled up his shotgun -- a new Savage Model 210 in 12 gauge -- and held on the opening. As the buck walked into his scope’s field of view, Cuozzo saw antlers and instinctively took the shot.