The 2010 waterfowl season should surpass the 2009 version
Add to that the fact that southeast Pennsylvania arguably the epicenter of the state's waterfowling area Moncler Vest For Girls was socked by two successive blizzards in mid December.
Those storms brought frigid temperatures that lasted for several weeks, freezing ponds, lakes and rivers and keeping fields buried under a thick blanket of snow during the meat of our hunting seasons for ducks and Canada geese.
Then, the area was hit with more heavy snow and frigid cold in February, followed by a fast warm up in March. Combined, the early 2010 weather ruined much of the conservation season for snow geese.
So how did all these bad conditions affect the hunting?
For starters, it apparently kept Pennsylvania hunters from even going out.
The estimated number of active duck hunters here last season was 25,200 down from the 26,300 who hunted the previous year and down 15 percent from the long term average from 2000 08.
The estimated number of active goose hunters was 30,500 down from the 37,500 who hunted the previous year and down 21 percent from the long term average.
Overall, Pennsylvania's duck harvest last year was Moncler Coats For Men 125,900 down from the 176,600 shot the previous year.
Numbers for all the major species hunters bag here Moncler Online Outlet UK mallards, blacks, green winged teal, buffleheads were down last year, except one.
The wood duck take of 41,800 was up from the 38,900 shot the Moncler UK previous year.
The Canada goose harvest last year was 161,900 down from the continent leading 232,000 shot the previous year.
The number of snow geese taken during the regular season last year was 6,800, which was down from the 10,000 birds taken the year before.
During the conservation season, Pennsylvania hunters shot nearly 3,000 snows down from the nearly 6,000 they took the year before when the season was several weeks longer.
So that's the season we're looking back on.
Good riddance, I say.
Given those statistics, we can't go anywhere but up, right?
Let's start looking ahead to the coming season with a discussion about ducks.
Mallards, wood ducks and green winged teal are the most important species here in Pennsylvania.
Mallard numbers throughout the Atlantic Flyway are considered stable, but they've been trending downward over the past decade.
That's not necessarily due to any problems Moncler Coats For Men though, according to Kevin Jacobs, one of the Pennsylvania Game Commission's waterfowl biologists.
"We've experienced some of the most liberal seasons and bag limits in recent years, compared to the past," Jacobs said. "We've been spoiled."
Hunting pressure likely has depressed mallard numbers, which Jacobs said was a goal of waterfowl managers in the flyway, due to the way mallards compete for nesting space.
"Mallards are known to fight a lot for nesting cover," he said. "The thinking was, if we could get the numbers down, maybe there would be less competition and clutch sizes would grow."