The difference could be pressure on the ducks, Stan. There seems fewer hunters here as the years go by. Hunters who've given up use their pickups to drive to mailboxes at end of their driveways.

My experience in our harbour, depending on ice or open water, sometimes involves blinds and decoys on a tiny island and a marsh on outside edges of a refuge, common feeding places.

Local birds and northern migrants have more feeding places outside the refuge. They don't huddle inside for protection. I've a dozen guaranteed good chances of my choosing within 2 1/2 miles of the refuge.

I'm not aware of hunters hereabouts ever asking for access to refuges. Could it be your circumstances are like pictures I see of anglers elbow-to-elbow on popular US streams: bim-bam, skybustin', refuges good places for birds to be?