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Man who found tackle bag belonging to missing JFRD firefighter calls it 'God's work'

Garrett Shurling was the boater who found the tackle bag of missing JFRD firefighter Brian McCluney.

Garrett Shurling says God had His hand in finding Brian McCluney's tackle bag 50 miles into the Atlantic off the coast of St. Augustine.

"Even if you are on top of debris like that on a boat, it's so difficult to see," Shurling said. "The fact that we were able to recover it, is beyond coincidence."

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McCluney, a firefighter with the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department, went out fishing near Pear Canaveral with his friend Justin Walker, a firefighter from Fairfax, Va. Days later, and the two have yet to return from what was supposed to be a short day trip.

It was late Monday morning when Shurling, along with his dad and a family friend, spotted McCluney's tackle bag in the water. 

"We traveled 50 plus miles in the ocean after stopping and turning and checking other pieces of debris and just happened to intersect this bag that was running up the gulf stream," he told First Coast News.

Shurling heard of the missing firefighters over the weekend and while in church in Savannah, Ga. on Sunday, he prayed about it.

"I said, 'Hey God, if you want me to go, just give me a sign here while we are at church and we can pack up and leave,' and the sign came 10 seconds after I prayed that," Shurling said.

Like so many others, Shurling and his group spent eight hours on the water Monday and Tuesday, hoping the tackle bag would lead to something bigger.

Shurling is paying it forward, hoping others would do the same for him.

"It's just something we hope other people would do for us if we were ever in that position," Shurling said.

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