Get to the Spot

I spent this past weekend with my immediate and extended family in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. We took advantage of the Columbus Day holiday on Monday and made it a long weekend vacation, which was much appreciated by my wife and kids. With as many outdoors opportunities as I have been able to experience lately, my primary goal this weekend was to spend time with my family, so I intentionally, but with concerted effort, put fishing way down on my priority list. However, I did carry a few rods with me, in the event that a blitz was on, and I found a brief opening at first light Monday to head over to the Little Bridge, located between Nags Head and Manteo. This is a popular destination for inshore anglers, who routinely catch speckled trout, puppy drum and rockfish this time a year from the fishing area along the bridge. Although the weather had not been good at all due to the effects of the nor'easter, fishermen had still been harvesting these species daily along the Little Bridge. When I got there, the parking lot was already full, and droves of fishermen were stacked up the entire length of the bridge. However, I only needed to be there for a few minutes to realize that I was not within casting distance of one particular 10 foot wide spot where all the bites were occurring. Anglers who frequented the bridge had arrived before daylight and had positioned themselves in just the right spot in order to reap the fruits of their labor. Unfortunately, those of us out of range could only watch and speculate why the population of trout and drum being caught that morning were in such a small, confined area.

 

Romans 5:8 (NASB)

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Where are You Now?

Well, I've finally done it. Yep, I just recently joined the smartphone revolution. Yeah, I know what you're saying, it's about time I got in on that, since the modern smartphone era is now more than six years old. I just wanted to make sure that it wasn't a fad and was really going to stick around for the long run, yeah, that's my story...Anyway, I have been discovering this great all-in-one functionality that the smartphone offers, and I am wondering how I ever got anything accomplished without one of these devices. In addition to the standard phone conversation, I have the family calendars, contacts, email, instant messaging, social media, pictures, documents, and the Internet all in the palm of my hand. Of particular interest are the many available apps that will be of great assistance to me in planning, doing recon and carrying out a well executed hunt or fishing trip - Compass, Google Earth, Topo and Nautical charts, Solunar forecasts, NOAA Smart Buoys, Riverflows, and TidalFish to name a few. But there is one significant thing that most all of these apps require of me before they can be effectively utilized - activate my phone's global positioning system (GPS) and indicate my exact location.

Genesis 3:8-9 (NASB)
They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?”

Location, Location, Location

Well, it finally happened. On Tuesday of last week I was blessed to be able to harvest turkey number three and tag out for the first time in my life during the spring gobbler season. As it was just starting to get light, a gobbler that I had hunted unsuccessfully the previous morning began sounding off at a feverish clip, giving my buddy and me a good opportunity to pinpoint where he was and set up on him. We decided to split up on him, sitting in different spots along a field edge with the roosted gobbler in the woods behind us. The bird eventually pitched down after gobbling up the tree for over an hour, got quiet and disappeared for a bit, then reappeared along with two hens out in the field and out of my shooting range. He started gobbling and strutting again, paying no attention to my Avian X decoy, and all I could do was to helplessly watch the show. What we didn't know was that there was another gobbler in the vicinity, which quietly worked its way into the hunt and appeared next to my buddy's decoy. Upon him shooting that bird, the first gobbler ran right back near me on the edge of the field and I harvested him at around 40 yards. If the bird that my buddy shot doesn't show up out of the clear blue, neither of us likely kill a bird. Needless to say, it was a divinely crafted morning with both of us tagging out at nearly the same time.

1 Corinthians 13:1 (NIV)
If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.