Walk InThe walk in has the same anti-disruption principle of where to park and we will not spend much time discussing it. This principle minimizes any light, noise and sight disruption to the spring season flock’s early routine environment and behavior. Sight mitigation is achieved with the morning dark, that is for those that can walk in with out a flashlight. Those that need a flashlight should make it red lens and a small one capable of just lighting the ground immediately at foot. Noise attenuation through having scouted a route into the first planned setup location that avoids rougher terrain and thicker vegetation which often means a longer walk in and requirement for an earlier start. Noise limitation is frequently violated by those that carry in a pop up blind or create a blind at their setup. The answer to this should be obvious at this point and that the blind should have been established the night before during the scouting trip. This last point is one that many frequently fail to recognize and its value is based on wild turkey flock behavior. A comment from a reviewer of this article at this point was about our (over) emphasis on the spring season aspect of turkey behavior. In this case the reviewer was not a turkey hunter, but a well educated articulate individual, and we are making the assumption in this article the hunter/reader is well aware of the distinctive flock behavior of turkeys during the spring from pre breeding, peak and trail of the breeding cycle. There go when we make a statement that such and such relative to spring season turkey hunting is such a case we accept the do it yourself hunter has the wherewithal of that specialized behavior and fully appreciates the value of the original statement. SetupSpring season turkey flocks once in a roost at dark will be hard pressed to leave that roost as they do not like to move anywhere after dark regardless of many influences. The hunter that finds a roost then examines the surrounding terrain and the continuing flock behavior knowledge that roost morning flydown is to open ground simplifies where to scout a setup. The next part is to pick a ground setup that will place the hunter near the open area the morning flydown will move to, however not to setup too close. Setting up too close to the spring season roost or the flydown area is the next most fatal error of many hunters.
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