The turkeys have been full into it for about five days now. I have a feeling this will be a repeat of last year when they were done before April 1.

I've been thinking that could be the case. I went the second week of north zone season last year around Junction and they were still going strong. Hens messed me up many times.

One of the reasons that spring season opens so late is so that a lot of the hens will already be bred. I have pictures of toms strutting for hens in February.

I hunted south of Poteet last year and they hadn't even started good yet. They were still in winter flocks.

I am north of I-20 and the toms have been at it for 3 weeks now . They were done last year before the season started .

Hens will be with gobblers for a few weeks not all will be bred during that time as others come in. Early season there are a lot more receptive hens than later in the season. Easiest time to call in birds is often near the end of season, when there are few receptive hens and the gobblers are still chasing. On normal years the youth weekend that follows the regular spring season can be the easiest time to get gobblers in front of a kid. Had gobblers come into a set one morning together 3 of the 5 were strutting from the time the decoys were spotted until the first one was shot.

On all turkeys the hen will be bred on the one breeding and her clutch of eggs will be fertile but she might still mate with a gobbler until the eggs get large enough and all she wants to do is eat getting ready for nesting and you will see lone hens out feeding and seemingly not paying attention to much of anything other than food. As more an more hens get that way you have less and less competition with live hens when calling them in.

With Eastern Turkey there are often lulls in the season where you hear very little noise then pick back up a week or two later. I have seen that with Rios but usually it happes less or for shorter duration than Eastern birds.

It’s amazing to me how subjective turkeys being “done” can be. In one place all breeding is basically over and 10 miles away it’s in full swing. To add to that frustration it seems to change every couple years.

Birds started strutting in Feb on our place. I have found nesters with eggs on opening day before. Gobblers can still get tricked

Yep. It’s over here already. Same as last year.