GILMANTON, N.H. (AP) – A father and son drowned during an evening fishing trip on Manning Lake, state Fish and Game authorities said Saturday.
Fish and Game Lt. James Goss said the bodies of the father, 50-year-old David Cooke Sr., and 27-year-old David Cooke Jr., were recovered after family members reported the men overdue from a fishing trip Friday night.
Local police, firefighters, state Marine Patrol and Fish and Game officers started their search after 11 p.m.
They found the father floating face down and a partially submerged canoe nearby. After searching until 3:30 a.m., crews suspended their work until Saturday morning. A Fish and Game dive team retrieved the son’s body just before 10 a.m.
Goss said both men lived in Gilmanton. They did not have life jackets and the water temperature was 47 degrees.
He said an autopsy of the father’s body was expected.
“With cold water like that (and) not having a life jacket on, you can be overwhelmed pretty quickly,” Goss said. “It doesn’t take long to tip a canoe over.”
Goss said Manning Lake was calm and flat when rescue personnel arrived Friday night.
There were “no witnesses to this at all so we really don’t have a good handle on what happened,” he said.
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