CORDOVA -- The Coast Guard called off its search Tuesday night for a fisherman whose overturned boat was discovered on the shoreline of a small island near Prince William Sound.
There was no sign of Steve Reutov, the sole occupant of Hero, a 32-foot aluminum boat. A survival suit and life ring were found on the beach.
Reutov was due in Cordova at 6 p.m. Monday. At 9 p.m., his brother alerted the Coast Guard, which diverted a helicopter on a training flight to search the area around Egg Island, where the Hero had been seen earlier in the day, Coast Guard spokesman Kurt Fredrickson said.
The Coast Guard found the overturned boat around midnight. A Coast Guard swimmer found no one aboard and reported damage to the boat, Fredrickson said.
By mid-morning Tuesday, the Coast Guard and Alaska State Troopers were looking for Reutov -- the Coast Guard with a Jayhawk helicopter that scanned the waters to the west, following the current, and the troopers with search dogs on the ground.
Fredrickson described Egg Island as an eight-mile strip with some vegetation. "The state police don't think anyone could make it to land from Egg Island."
Reutov was a commercial fisherman taking part in a 24-hour gillnet opening for silver salmon on the Copper River. Rough water is common on the vast Copper River flats, and fishermen have died there. Typically gillnetters fish alone on their boats, often working in treacherous breakers to net salmon.
