I guess I may be more progressive on taphole drying than most. To me a dry taphole is one that's losing yield, not necessarily completely dry to the bone.

I always see sap in end of April when I pull spouts, makes sides of tree wet and I say man should I be pulling??
I also get sap at the releaser- not the full tanks that I got in March but a third that amount (for example 1000 gal in March, maybe 400 in mid April).
Guess I'm not sure how you would interpret that?

Had one isolated sugarbush last year 600 Taps all on CVS( had to try one more time) and I didn't see anything spectacularly different from the other 3 bushes I have or previous years, total sap gpt numbers were all in line. So I don't know, seems things always happen differently around here!!