I hunt every day now that I am retired. The Pawling and Millbrook area of NY has not been blessed by flight woodcock, as far a I can tell. I usually do birds in the morning and ducks in the afternoon. Woodduck numbers are up in my area as are mallards. Overall mallard numbers are down and the limit has been decreased to two birds. But you wouldn't know it by the number of mallards in my swamp. I'm actually seeing a lot more mallards than I did as a kid hunting the swamp. This is probably due to the large number of beavers that are flooding areas which open up more open water as the trees die over the years. The swamp looks a lot different than it did when I first started hunting it at thirteen years old. The swamp has always been a mecca for waterfowl and that hasn't changed over the years.
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