I might go call to someone elses birds but sure ain't calling to mine....

Sounds like a story I read about somewhere.

It is illegal in some states. That law probably has saved some folks from some sound arse whippins over the years.
Only place I would consider doing it would be in a place like a park or somewhere there was no hunting whatsoever.

I was gonna head up to skyline the first week of March. You got any places I can go knock the rust off Brent?

ILL RIDE WITH YA JOHN AND WE CAN SWING DOWN BY YEKRUTS AND DARRYL'S PLACE AND SEE IF OUR CALLING IS ANY GOOD THERE AS WELL

Probably doesn't help if you have your gun while "practicing" your duck calls out of season

Road trip!

The tickets were for harassing wildlife or some such mess

Never do I call before season.

there is no "harassing wildlife" law or reg in Alabama....

I know a guy that does it routinely to gauge the killability of a bird so he can bring someone in to kill it later. He's a turkey killing hombre. He wants to know if the bird is bold or timid primarily. If the bird is bold and comes on in, he has confidence that chances are good it'll be an easy hunt when he comes back with a newbie. He has his own theory about the pecking order and he's wanting to get a feel for where the bird is on it.

I'll do it for scouting purposes once in a while. For example, a place I hunt just had the prime roosting and lounging area logged out. I'm going to try to go in there before the season to see if the birds are still hanging around. If I don't see enough sign to satisfy me, I might call to see if I can locate something.

I don't believe a turkey is intelligent enough to know that those hunters he saw are associated with the hen he just heard. They putt to alert the other turkeys, and the hen he just heard, to the danger he just saw. I believe the problem is not the calling, but disturbing the birds and alerting them to your presence. If they are not used to being around people, when hunters start showing up where they live, they go on high alert and their behavior is changed. Somebody recently did that study in LA that showed how the birds' patterns totally changed after opening day because of hunters.

Hal, I'm going to disagree with you somewhat on calling. My experience over 45+ years of turkey hunting is that if you call a bird in and spook it, it will be harder to call in again. Do it twice and he will be even harder to call in.

I don't think just calling to a bird will do this, but if he comes in and sees you and spooks it can change his future behavior and willingness to come to a call. 99+% of the call shy birds I've encountered can be directly traced back to some, or several someones, spooking that bird after calling it in.

Yep. I agree with gramps on that. Bad experiences with calling stumps and bushes has made many a turkey wary of a call. Fact.

No

My experience is just exactly like Paw Paw says.
I tell you what's really rough is in the early season if you call up 3-4 together and mess up and don't kill the dominant/wisest bird. That joker will get flat out rough to kill if you ever call him up and shoot over him.

kill two out of a group of four and see how hard #3 is......much less # 4

I don't doubt you. I'm just relating what he does. And he doesn't spook them. I personally suspect it's the spooking and seeing a human sneaking around in his bedroom that does the damage, not the calling.

Turkeys don't like humans sneaking around in their safe spots acting like a predator. I'd point to that cool study if I could find it.

No.

Here's an article on that study.

http://www.fieldandstream.com/articles/hunting/2014/05/new-gps-gobbler-positioning-system

“One thing that is very consistent is how quickly they learn that there are hunters in the woods,” Gross said.