On February 25th, 2023, TWRA officers received a call of an overturned vessel that Rhea County 911 dispatchers had pinged on the western, Rhea County side of the Tennessee River north of the Cottonport Boat ramp. The callers had stated to 911 that they had just flipped over their boat while on the lake and had swum to shore and that nobody was injured. 

The parties remained on shore until first responders could find them. Once the parties were located, Officers were able to find out that while the three were traveling down stream going towards one of their racoon hunting dogs that was alerting to have treed a racoon, they struck an unknown object in the water. This cause the vessel to capsize and the large aluminum dog box that was on the bow of the boat to fall off and sink to the bottom of the river. There was a hunting dog in the box at the time of the incident that was unable to be recovered. Once officers were able to look at the vessel out of water there were green paint transfer marks on the port side of the vessel. This would be consistent with the green navigational buoys that were on the river. The operator stated that he did not se a buoy but also wouldn’t have been able to due to the large dog box on the bow of the vessel. The placement of the dog box severely obstructed the visibility for the operator during the incident. There were no parties injured however during the incident.
CHICKAMAUGA RESERVOIR
DAYTON                        