Sarley: No more talking the talk, I’m almost ready to start walking the walk

I turned sad as I wrote about goose hunting last week.

A lot of physical activities have been curtailed for me ever since I had my stroke last year. I never had the agility of a ballet dancer, and now my movements are worse than they have ever been.

I’m not looking for sympathy. I have to confess that I have been acting like a big baby and wallowing in self-pity. The only one who is going to fix this for me is me. I am going to have to change and I’d like to hold you kind folks to keeping on me to improve.

I have to point the finger at the man in the mirror and take the blame for my inactivity. I haven’t picked up my shotgun in over a year. I don’t think I’ll be climbing any tree stands to hunt for whitetail deer, but there is no reason that I can’t spend a morning blowing a call in a goose blind.

It’s no picnic for me to climb in and out of a friend’s boat, but I can do it. The only thing that holds me back is laziness or lack of effort on my part. I don’t think I’d be successful on a Lake Michigan charter because the waves meeting up with my lack of balance might be disastrous. If I have to delete a charter or two from my agenda, that’s OK if I replace them with some extra bank fishing outings.

I need to take a serious look at what it is that I am able to physically accomplish and plan to arrange for trips to meet my capability.

One thing I would like to do in the near future is to go turkey hunting for the spring season. I did it twice and never got a good shot close enough to pull the trigger on a gobbler, but I totally loved the experience.

I regret to say that turkeys are smarter than I am since they possess brains the size of a kernel of corn, but they have out-thunk me every time. Those crazy-looking birds drive me crazy in the way that they are so cagey and shrewd.

You go out at dusk and walk the woods and fields that you have access to for hunting. While you walk, you look up into the trees to see the black shapes of the turkeys sitting on the branches, bedding in for the night. You’d think that’s where they’d be when the sun came up, wouldn’t you? They are never there. That would be too easy.

By law, shooting ends at 1 p.m. I spend all morning in likely spots waiting for birds and see nothing. Of course, at 1:01, big turkeys start strutting around brazenly, daring the hunters. Incredible.

I once spent an entire morning sitting at the base of a tree watching a flock of birds and calling. They never got close enough to take a shot. After over two hours I was ready to move and got up.

Suddenly, I heard a loud noise above me that sounded like a helicopter taking off. I was stunned to see a huge turkey flying down from the tree branch above me, frantically waving its wings trying to take off. He had been 15 feet away from me the entire time.

“Shoulda, woulda, coulda” is over for me. I’m going turkey hunting in the spring and I’m looking for plenty of other things to fill my dance card.

• Daily Herald Outdoors columnist Steve Sarley can be reached at sarfishing@yahoo.com.