RedactedNarrative: On the morning of 9/13/2015 WDNR Warden received an email from another WDNR Warden stating that he had received a voice mail message from the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Department from 9/12/2015 advising there had been a fatality on Lake Michigan involving a kayaker. WDNR Warden contacted USCG (who had responded and found the victim and kayak) and retrieved reports from them. Warden also contacted the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Department for additional reports, which were not available at the time of the request. 
  
  Through Warden’s investigation and USCG reports and Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Department investigator comments, the victim was involved in a kayak fishing tournament on Lake Michigan and failed to return after weigh-in time. At approximately 2:40 pm the family of the victim contacted the USCG station at Two Rivers and requested assistance locating the victim as he was over due. USCG TR launched a vessel to patrol and look for the victim and also requested a USCG helicopter from Michigan to search. At approximately 4:37 pm the USCG Helo located a person in the water approximately .5 mile south of Manitowoc. USCG Helo deployed a rescue swimmer who contacted the victim, who was face down in the water (wearing a PFD). The USCG rescue swimmer determined that CPR would not be needed. USCG vessel 45735 arrived on scene and picked up the victim and rescue swimmer.
  
  USCG 45735 transported the victim back to the Manitowoc Marina, where Manitowoc County Sheriff's Department and emergency personnel were on scene to assist with the body. USCG Helo then located the kayak and radioed the coordinates to USCG TR and USCG 45735 recovered the kayak.
  When found the victim was holding a personal hand-held EPIRB that had not gone off. This unit was secured and kept by USCG TR and they will be having the unit analyzed to determine if it was operable or not. 
  
  Manitowoc County SO took possession of the kayak from USCG 45735 which had two GOPRO cameras mounted on the kayak. Manitowoc County SO viewed the footage on the GOPROs and WDNR Warden requested copies of any footage on the GOPROs. No footage of the incident was found on either of the two GOPRO cameras.
  
  No analysis of the EPIRB was available from USCG at the time of report submission on 12/19/2015.
   