Life is difficult for the upland bird hunter in western NY. Pheasant numbers crashed after about 1972, grouse numbers are on a multi-decade decline. Habitat has been a big factor. The reforestation of NY is ongoing and modern ag practices make life for pheasants impossible. Turkey numbers are mostly stable to increasing. Dove hunting is forbidden as the morning dove is not considered a gamebird in NY. A multi year effort to establish a dove season is slowly gaining support but the anti forces in NY are fighting it.
Duck hunting has been on a decade long decline with mallard numbers in our flyway falling by half. Finally the feds have recognized the decline and reduced the bag limit by half for mallards.
So I hunt ducks locally and I am OK with the lowered limits (most days we don't shoot a limit of mallards anyway) and travel. The traveling bird hunter is the future for me. It is what it is and hunting birds and collecting vintage shotguns is important to me so I won't get discouraged or give it up. Craig
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