JAFFREY, N.H.—Betting on his buckets.

A New Hampshire sugarmaker plans on rejuvenating tap holes later this season after taking what some would say is a risky move tapping trees at the beginning of February and hanging buckets.

“I’d rather go early,” said Bud Taylor, during a tour for The Maple News on Saturday.

Taylor hung his 52 buckets, mostly the plastic Lapierre brand, on February 1.

This past weekend he enjoyed his best sap run so far, collecting about 80 gallons by Saturday, he said.  Taylor, a retired Navy veteran, says he spends a lot of time calculating the math of his 16-acre operation, which lies in the shadows of Mount Monadnock in southern New Hampshire.

He measured his sap flow rate on his buckets to be running at an average of 5.3 ounces per tap, per hour in the biggest stretch of his sap run Friday into Saturday.

The sugar content from his trees was very high, he said, measuring 3.5 percent on one particular favorite tree which is a 24 inch diameter.

His average sap sugar content for the operation was 2.3 percent, he said.

But it’s his gamble to tap so early without the aid of vacuum to keep tapholes fresh that might raise an eyebrow with other sugarmakers.

Taylor said he plans on a taphole rejuvenation strategy.  

He said he plans on redrilling existing tapholes on 50 percent of his trees, and drilling new tapholes on the other 50 percent.

“We understand the math,” Taylor said.

Last year Taylor said his bucket taps ran all the way from February 21 to his last boil on April 15, making 15.5 gallons for the season, although he concedes the last batches of syrup were not the best.

“Last year we went too long and got buddy syrup,” he said.