reservation without activating railpass

Hi
Im visiting japan during may and would be travelling from tokyo to hokkaido(7 days and 6 nights using the 7-day JR pass). my question is: can I reserve seats for FREE on the hayate bound for hokkaido as soon as I get my JR pass without activating the JR pass? ( i will only be activating the pass on the day of travel to hokkaido and intend to reserve seats the day before while the JR pass is still not activated)

When you exchange the voucher for the rail pass you will be required to state the starting date on a simple form. Your pass will then be stamped with the start and end date. You can make your reservations at the same time you get your pass.

or, to put it another way, you can land on Monday 10, exchange your voucher at the airport for a pass that very same day but ask for the pass to start on Tuesday 18 and reserve a seat on a train to ..for the 18.

thank you very much! I will be landing on 20May and hope to travel to hakodate early morning 22May. I hope there would still be seats left on the hayate. I heard that train gets fully reserved easily. Are there any other fast train routes I can take if the seats are fully booked?
By the way, would any of you guys recommend a place in Hakodate where I can try many of the local specialities at night for dinner (I dont mind road side stalls)? I know the morning market is famous for it but im guessing it's closed at night haha =)

you can try toyoko-inn @hakodate. it is only 2mins away from the station. there's a nice ramen place reachable by tram at nite. and the morning market is just next to toyoko-inn.

There are several Shinkansen trains that ride the Tohoku Shinkansen rails, you just need to make sure you get to Hachinohe, the end of the line where you transfer to a regular express. In May, I've never had any problem with seats except when I wanted 2nd level seats on the Yamabiko (a double decker shinkansen). Even then, I've only had to get reservations seated separately. The only other option is to fly as local trains or trains up the center (from Yamagata) or west coast (from Niigata) tend to be slow, although scenic.

In Hakodate, there are some good restaurants near the base of the Hakodate-san cable car. There are also some restaurants around the Hakodate Brewery on the other side of the morning market. A few restaurants stay open around the morning market later in the day. If you get in too late, just check out Za Dom on the main corner by the tram and bus stops in front of the station. They have good cheap domburi's. Across from the Hakodate Brewery is the Ika Matsuri, a kaiten sushi place where the plates go around on a belt. Check at the tourist info counter in the station before you leave to see what they recommend. You can also check at the front of wherever you stay.

The Toyoko Inn refered to is the Toyoko Inn Asaichi. There is also a Toyoko Inn Daimon in the same neighborhood. If you want a bit cheaper place, there's the Yado Aozora, to the left as you exit the station. Their web site is only in Japanese, though.

thank you so much everyone for your help!
I've got one more question though haha. Since I'm in hokkaido from 22-27May, I've found out that I can see moss pink in kutchan from this site: http://www.hanatairiku.jp/b/english/tourplan/tourplan_haru_0...
But I'm not exactly sure where the place in the picture is. Is it near Kutchan JR station? Are there any other places in kutchan or near Sapporo/otaru/Noboritetsu that I can see moss pink slopes as well without going to kutchan?