Birds acted a little odd in SW Michigan this year, mostly because of the wacky weather patterns. We had a week of 60 deg weather in early February that brought them out earlier than usual - birds were strutting in fields by the 2nd week in February. A month later - when they typically start strutting - we had a few heavy snows in mid to late March. Given the number of hens I still see with the toms, including those in the afternoon the last week, I'm quite confident that many hens started and lost nests.

The winter here was mild and we have a good number of 2 & 3 year old toms. However, late nesting will lead to large numbers of late hatches and small poults heading into winter, which will be especially bad if we get a colder than normal winter due to La Nina.

Maytom - you need to hunt a different section of NYS. I heard from friends that the birds in the Central and Southern tiers gobbled hard most of the season, with only the normal lull during the 3rd week of May. One of my friends and his dad, from where I grew up in the Southern Tier, had action every day the first 10 days of the season. His dad bagged his best bird to date in 40 yrs of turkey hunting and my buddy missed a bird he named 'turkzilla'...