Wisconsin Birds
 

Anyone out there scouting a bunch or hunting this next season feel that the general order of things are a bit ahead of schedule this year. I.E. 1st season will be more like 2nd season and 3rd is like 4th....or even further along than that. I have 4th and 5th season tags. Trying to figure if I want to put my Tom decoy out at that point or just hens. Things seem to be leafing out a little early.

Day length primarily governs the breeding cycle, not necessarily the weather. We are getting some leaf growth already, but the weather can change, (note the snow today) which will slow things down.
I've always had better luck with just a single hen or no decoy at all during the late seasons. For one thing, leafout closes in the open areas so that many times the birds are in range by the time they should be seeing something, and, by that time, they've been 2-hens-and-jake'ed to the point of avoiding tom decoys.

Have you seen many birds this year? I hunt primarily in Waupaca County, and it seems that either bird numbers are way down this year or they haven't broken up from the bigger flocks of winter yet. In previous years I would have seen many more birds in fields while driving around than I have seen this year.

I've been actively scouting my usual hunting spots since the snow left. Up til yesterday, I hadn't seen a track or other sign anywhere where they have been in the past. Yesterday, in the snow, I finally saw turkey tracks. They seem to have been slow in breaking up this year around here.

I live in hill country, so seeing them or not seeing them doesn't mean much around here. With so much undulation in the terrain there are so many places for them to hide that they could be in a valley or just on the other side of the hill. I didn't see a bird all winter though and just in the last few weeks have I seen some groups of them. I hunt based on past knowledge and the hopes that they are where they normally are. I did see three birds last night and one was strutting, I couldn't tell what they were but I assume 1 was a hen and 1 was a tom, I couldn't tell the third, it may have been another hen. They were picking soybeans along a tree line, in an area I was able to get a shock gobble a few days ago, not our property, but nearby.