It is believed that the missing person/operator went fishing on March 25th sometime in the afternoon.  It is also believed that at some point he fell out of V1 and was not able to re-board.   

This officer was contacted at 1:45am on March 26th by dispatch advising of a missing fisherman near point 19 on Bull Shoals Lake. The dispatcher advised Missouri Water Patrol was also responding.  After launching my patrol boat and driving to the area in question, I met a Missouri Water Patrol unit and they advised they found the missing boat (V1) but no one was on board. We began a search with spotlights and also conducted "hailing" searches by calling out the missing man's name.  Both searches were unsuccessful.  The missing man's father was then contacted and notified of the situation as V1 was towed to a nearby resort dock.  The father advised this had happened before a few years ago; where his son went fishing and fell overboard.  He said his son was "fairly" large and had trouble getting back into the boat but that he was close enough to the bank to swim to safety.  He said the experience scared his son and he began wearing his life jacket whenever he was in a boat, but apparently he had gotten out of the practice recently.   

Due to the extreme cold, I returned to my vehicle to warm up and wait for assistance to arrive from the Marion County SO.  At daylight we returned to the area and began searching again.  We were able to find a paddle and a pair of boots across the cove from where we found V1.  The missing man's father believed both the paddle and boots belonged to his son. I did a hasty searches of area cabins and the point of land near where we found the boots with no success.  Several search teams were called in to conduct further ground searches over the entire area that day but didn't locate anything.  Over the next few days Arkansas Game and Fish Dive Team conducted searches with sonar equipment and also did not locate anything.  We are continuing to conduct searches of the area periodically. 

This is a preliminary report and will be updated when any new evidence or body is recovered.
 
UPDATE 04/30/13: A fisherman discovered the victim's body on 04/28/13 at approx. 11:00am.  Body was recovered and taken to Burn's Funeral Home at the request of the Coroner.  
 
GPS Coordinates:
 
Boat - 36' 28' 58.60  92 42' 49.04
Boots - 36' 28' 58.20  92' 43' 02.13
Body - 36' 28' 49.211  92' 42' 34.79
PEEL