Let’s face it, the mallard is the King of Ducks. The canvasback, pintail and black duck are noteworthy, but only rank as princes of our wetland realm. The mallard is the most widely distributed, highly prized and plentiful duck in the hunter’s bag.

U.S. hunters retrieved 5.2 million mallards during the 2001-02 hunting season. This represents 37 percent of all ducks killed, the highest percentage of any species, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service data discloses.

The mallard kill last season was eight percent lower than the previous than year when hunters bagged nearly 5.7 million mallards – the highest reported annual kill since harvest surveys began in 1961.

The distribution of last season’s kill, broken down by flyway, looks like this:

Figure 1. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service harvest data reveals that in the 2001-02 hunting season Mississippi Flyway waterfowlers bagged 2.5 million mallards, nearly twice as many as the second-ranked Central Flyway where hunters shot 1.3 million. Pacific Flyway gunners killed an estimated 970,594, while hunters in the Atlantic Flyway bagged 402,200.

How does your state rank in number of mallards killed? A state-by-state breakdown by each flyway follows. Note that four states are listed in two flyways, thus their kill is apportioned among both flyways.