Search for Duck Hunters turns up boat, but nothing else

Authorities suspended their search Friday evening for two boaters reported missing on the Mississippi River.

“We’ve recovered several items believed to be out of their boat and we recovered what is believed to be their boat this morning, but no sight of Gunner Palmer and Zeb Hughes,” Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace said Friday evening. He said the search teams have been searching the area south of the LeTourneau boat landing where the pair launched Thursday.

“We’ve had airplanes up, we’ve had drones up; we’ve had boats on the water and a ground search team on the bank,” Pace said.

Pace said he did not know if the pair managed to get to land, adding, “We are still treating this as a rescue mission at this point. We don’t have any way of knowing if they would have made it to the bank.”

Pace said the pair are not Warren County residents and that the search will resume at 7 a.m. Saturday.

The search for the boaters began Thursday evening after relatives called the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries & Parks saying the pair put into the river at LeTourneau Thursday afternoon to go look at a duck hunting site near Davis Island. As of Friday evening, they had not returned or contacted family.

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