2016 Expectations
 

What are your expectations for the year?

The last few I kinda had a feeling for what the season might be like. I'm not sure this year. I have had this theory that the extremely warm Feb. we had 4 years ago led to a very early hatch. The next year I heard tons of reports of gobbling jakes with 5-6 inch beards. Last year I heard of more huge birds than I had ever heard of. 18-19pounds is an average Alabama bird but I heard of LOTS of 21-23 lb birds. Most had 1.25+ spurs. My theory is that these were the early hatch birds of 2012 that due to very favorable conditions were able to outgrow normally hatched birds.

Not sure what I think I'll see this year. Didn't hear just a bunch of jakes last year but that's nothing abnormal. Very mild winter. I'll be hunting some new ground again this year. Last year proved to be very good on some new ground. I'll be hunting the same area but this year I have a few more hundred acres to explore. The only bummer is that I have a cold mill outage the 3rd week of April and I won't have any vacation to use due to an elk hunt in September.

I'm going to kill my first bird this year, which will be my third season. Either that or I'll call one in for my brother to kill. Hopefully both.

The weather is going to be rocky, though. Our local meteorologist is saying that El Nino years feature more tornadoes in the southeastern US, and I think he's right.

EDIT: I just saw you're from Hatton. I'm down in Houston, and hunt Bankhead. I was out a couple weeks ago and saw a pretty good looking flock, so hopefully when the season opens they'll still be kicking.

I'm getting super stoked for this season!! Not really sure what my expectations are other than have fun. I'd really like to have a year comparable to last year, in which I killed 5 myself and called in another 5 for others. Really want to get my 2 little brothers a bird, help get my dad a bird, and help one of my good buddies get his first. It's gonna be fun no matter what. I know for sure I'm hunting Oklahoma and Iowa this spring. Was planning to hunt Kansas also but looks like that might not work out this year but we may replace that with a trip to Missouri, we will see. I just know that I cant wait!!

Im hoping to kill a bird in each state I hunt this year. Also to beat JW with a bigger bird in the spring contest.

Biologists insist it's more the length of the day than weather that affects turkey breeding and nesting. So it should happen about the same time every year.
We had a lot of birds last year and only two were killed off the property so I'm very optimistic about this spring!

they say our hatch last year and this year was the best in 8-10 years. Bet there's a lot of jakes this year but that just means good gobbling 2 yr olds next year. hopefully with me and wife, 4 tags= 4 dead birds.

My expectations for 2016 turkey season are same as always have fun and take home a nice gobbler, maybe even be able to hunt a new area, that's always fun.

Like most years, hunt a few states, kill a handful of birds.

Very mild winter here in Vermont. Mast crop from last fall is still plentiful in the woods. I don't see much happening in the way of winter kill. Should be birds everywhere. Would like to get my daughter her first bird. That would make my year!

I live in the Islands and normally we have a ton of birds. For some reason there weren't many around last spring and I haven't seen many flocks this winter. Not sure what is going on. Can't be winter kill because we don't get much snow and the land is all ag type so plenty of food.

So they say but I heard of multiple people finding nests in late March of 10-12 eggs. That is an abnormal time to find nests and especially that size in Alabama. While daylight does affect when birds will lay I believe that ground temp and ambient temps may push that forward by quite a bit.

I cut my teeth on the A side of Bankhead. I fell off quite a bit when the hogs invaded. A few years back I hunted the B side pretty hard and found tons of birds. I have this thing about getting locked in on one place and staying with it the entire season. Last year it was Waterloo. The year before Cherokee. This year I might venture into Tennessee.

It's gonna be a wet year down here in south Florida! It's the dry season and everything is still underwater so that means whoever has the dry land will slay the birds!

It's looking like we might have a wet spring in AL. Going to make things challenging.

I am riding a 7 year birdless streak. That ends this spring

Wet here in central Florida as well...with more rain coming.

Mild winter here in Illinois. I continue to get nice videos of decent groups of jakes and toms from my trail cams. Still waiting to see what seasons and counties I drew here as the Illinois lottery process is a PITA. Just got some shells rolled up and waiting to get nice weather to pattern. Good luck to everyone.

Expectations
 

Well last year I had a Large late snow storm blow in. Turkeys that I was hunting was around 9000 ft in elevation. Still managed to find some fresh tracks in the powder and after 3 hrs of tracking finally called him in with his 3 buddies at to about 3 ft. So id say expectations are high to say the least.

I am predicting a very hard year up in my neck of the woods.. Last year was a hard year with many striking out up here due to a hard winter. We were lucky to see any big flocks at all. So far I have seen a few large flocks with 30 plus birds in them due to a very easy winter so far. Now the warm temps have some of the birds strutting already. I feel most of our turkeys will be jakes and the like with a few exceptions.. I am hoping to find that exception though which should mean a heavey bird!

I have also had a fight with cancer this winter which will limit my vacation time once I go back to work. I normally take the first week of turkey season for a vacation.. This year it looks as though I will be going back to work around opening week someplace. But I will still be getting a few chances at them with my work being shift work.. Besides I am glad to be able to go after the turkeys once again!! Good Luck every one !!

Mildest winter I've ever seen in Maine. Plenty of birds about,
including 4 Toms and a Jake in my field the pass few days.
Things are looking good for a great season here in this
part of Maine.