On the morning of Sunday, August 13th, rangers recovered the body of a 58-year-old man who’d drowned in the Neches River. On Saturday evening, the man had been reported overdue from a fishing trip on either the Angelina or Neches Rivers. Agents from Texas Parks and Wildlife and a Big Thicket ranger conducted a hasty search that night of the nearby public boat ramps on both rivers, but did not find the man’s vehicle. On Sunday morning, his truck was located at a private boat ramp just downstream of Dam B on the Neches River. The NPS took the lead in organizing and conducting a boat search of the river. Rangers Mike Hughes and Keith Flanery located and recovered the body from a recirculating pool just below the dam spillway. They transported the body to the Tyler County side of the river and turned it over to the Tyler County Sheriff’s Department, which handled the death investigation. The Corp of Engineers maintains jurisdiction on the river for about 250 yards below the dam – beyond that, the river falls within the jurisdiction of Big Thicket. The Corps shutdown the dam’s spillway, making it possible for rangers to find the sunken boat on the river bottom immediately below the spillway. The boat was hooked, pulled to the surface and towed to shore.
