Mr. Longbeard,

It's all about the cover of darkness for the covert operations

In all honesty, when it is pitch black the turkeys don't know what's moving around on the ground---could be a deer, coyote, bear---they could care less as long as it doesn't stop under their roost tree.

But I will agree, 50 yards is too close if it is starting to get light. And highly pressured birds on public ground can be startled easily...but if you spook them off the roost in the dark, sometimes that makes for an easy hunt...they come back hot looking for their hens.

Under pitch blackness one Spring, I took a gobbler at 25 paces from his roost. He glided down, I raised, he clucked, I fired...end of story.