Your definition of over calling...

[kyturkeyhunter4]

One big mistake I see happening is on Tom's that have hens. Most people still try and work the Tom which is the wrong aproach. He ain't going anywhere those hens ain't going. If you can get the lead hen to answer you then start mimicking her and cutting her off. Get her mad and headed to you then odds are good that big boy will be bringing up the rear. Conservative usually wins but sometimes you gotta give them the kitchen sink.

I have to agree with happy on this one, if the tom has hens his hard to work. But if you can mimic those hens and get them fired up and call them in you have a very good chance on killing that gobbler. Main thing is just be patient because his not far behind.

[turkeywhisperer935]

I've been hunting em for 15 years and I am by most people's standards guilty of calling too much but I also think it has to do with the turkey you are on. How responsive he is and what type of call he wants to hear. Some of them just want you to crank it all the way in and some want you to be shy. The ones that love it loud are in my opinion the most fun. I hate silent birds.

[Happy]

I agree that a hard gobbling bird is a whole lot of fun to deal with and there are times I throw caution to the wind and call till their ears bleed. The downside of this is that the more you make a Tom gobble the more attention you bring. On hard hunted land that will hurt you a lot. I have lost track of the birds that I had fired up and coming and next thing I know some nimrod comes running in on me and spooks the bird off(usually on an atv or side by side). Also I have learned that the more you call to an older Tom the more inclined they are to stand and gobble cause they fully expect that a hen that hot to trot will come to them. This is especially true on the roost. So yeah its fun to call and have one gobbling his fool head off but if I am serious about killing him I am gonna take it a little slower. Weekdays and remote hard to reach areas are my best friend when I want to call more aggressive.

[MK M GOBL]

I have always tended to run by where I am hunting, I would say for the ground I hunt and whether in the field or hunting timber makes a difference. Then it comes down to the bird, some birds require more calling to keep them interested. If you "learn" a bird over a number of unsuccessful hunts and alter your calling to match his attitude. "Taking a birds temperature" will entail many factors from age, attitude and even the day or where you are in the season. As you gain experience you will learn how to read a bird, seasoned hunters gain this kind of knowledge and it is a hard skill to pass on. I would tend to say I "overcall" birds with success! 

MK M GOBL

[Gobble!]

Varies bird to bird. I have seen some birds come on a sting when guys are just screaming at them with the call so there was no over calling to those birds and others where the bird had been shot at earlier in the year where if I called to him he would stand still waiting for me to close the distance, I killed him by shutting up.

[boatpaddle]

As a newer member to the sport without allot of experience/exposure..

     More is less & soft is super....

     Treat a gobbler like a lady working the stage at a gentleman's club...

      Get a feel for the crowd/ gobbler.

      Start slowly to work them, so their hand is continually in their pocket pulling out ones...
      In turkey hunting, that means, just giving the gobbler enough to keep him coming...

      At some point during all this...She should be in her birthday suit, you should be out of money 

   
     and our turkey hunter should be looking down his gun barrel, squeezing the trigger, at a beautiful long beard, who committed from playing the game right ...

[hunter22]

Great analogy and description Zumer. I am guilty of trying to call too soft when hunting. But I don't want to crank on a call and sound like a sonic boom going off. If I can get a hen to answer me I mimic everything she does. Lots of times she will run right in looking to whip her competition and drag the big boy right with her. Sometimes she turns and goes away not wanting any competition and the gobbler lives to see another day. That's why I love turkey hunting. No two hunts ever exactly alike. Call soft and have a lot of patience is my hunting style. 

[drenalinld]

Over calling??

[Sadler McGraw]

I don't think turkeys become "call shy" they become "people shy".    I have heard hens call nonstop for minutes on end, sometimes multiple hens calling off the roost for 20 minutes or longer.  The gobbler in most cases doesn't shut up and run for the hills because the latest issue of Turkeys R Us says that you shouldn't call to much.

What I am calling people shy is just that.  You start bumping birds on the Bad Boy buggy, or when you pop out into a food plot after calling for two minutes behind the shooting house.  Or when you let 5 3.5" Nitros lose down through the pine plantation and only knocked feathers out of him.   These are things that educate turkeys.

My best friend and I used to start in mid Feb every year going and calling up turkeys off the roost and filming the hunt and up close interaction.  Everyone would say all your going to do is educate those turkeys.  But we never knowingly spooked those gobblers when we called them up.  We filmed them as long as they would stand there, and let them walk off.  Most times we killed them the first few days of season every year with no problem.   But they did not associated the calling they heard with humans.

You have to use common sense when calling to turkeys, but I will blast one from the limb to the gun barrel with everything under the sun if I can get away with it.

You can call to turkeys a whole lot more than you think you can, if they don't see you every time you leave the woods!!!

[357MAGNOLE]

What a great thread. 

[greentag]

this has been good reading,i also think you can get away with  a lot more if the place is private and they dont see you coming and going.ive hunted places were i have gotten permission were it is gated and no one is ever around coming and going,those birds you could hammer and they would come running all the way to the gun,stay undetected after i tag out and take the owners kids and call them up for them the same way,all within a couple of days,also i have hunted public places were  it seemed that if they heard a call the day was over,but on those places you could set your clock to the new turkeys as that one post said,and they drive trucks down gravel roads stopping every hundred or so yards and blasting some ear piercing yelps,and continue driving.on those birds to get them i would call very light with more light clucks and purrs and would sometimes be fortunate enough to get them.i tend to agree with sadler that he didnt make those birds so called call shy,if you stay undetected and can actually sound like a hen,which we all know he for sure can.here in kentucky we have a law that states"it is illegal to call to a turkey before opening day in the spring,by mimicking the sound of one in any way.in a way this is good though because you have a lot of weekend warriors that only call on a call a few times a year driving around and blasting yelps at turkeys, and running about bumping birds before anyone even gets to go hunting.also i think you need to worry more about doing the same thing over and over than actually calling to much,just listen in the spring,you can hear a yelp that sounds like the real thing,then a few minutes it will be the exact same yelp,same cadence,same everything,then again and again,you know then its someone with a call,and i think turkeys do to.so be sure not to get caught up in doing the same thing over and over,change the cadence,light or loud,and you will be more sucessfull,even if you do call a lot.