I belong to a duck Club next to the Montezuma Refuge in the finger lakes region of western NY. We have kept detailed hunting records since 1986. Mallards have traditionally made up just under 50% of our bag. In the last 12 years our success rate has dropped from 2.6 ducks per hunt to 1.5 ducks per hunt. All of the reduction in success is due the fewer mallards taken every year in light of stable regularization. The mallard count in the Atlantic fly has dropped from 800,000 to a little over 400,000. From my observations and hunting records mallard numbers are way down. In our area other factors many have caused some of the decline. The Montezuma Refuge has expanded by 3500 acres in the last decade which allows more safe/ non hunting areas for the birds. Mallards seem to be arriving later and later which means our marsh could be frozen during peak mallard migration.