Boat flips after recreational shrimp trawl snags; 1 dead

SLIDELL, La. (AP) — A 62-year-old man died Thursday and another man was injured after their recreational shrimping skiff overturned in a lake north of New Orleans while he and a friend were out trawling.

The trawl snagged around midnight Thursday in Lake Pontchartrain, and the boat overturned while the men tried to free the net, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries said.

The department said in a news release that neither Ricky Hodgson of Pearl River nor the other man was wearing a life jacket, but the second man survived. He was injured, the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office said in a Facebook message.

The Coast Guard found them near the St. Tammany-Orleans Parish line, between the Interstate 10 twin spans, the sheriff’s office said.

The sheriff’s office had put out an alert for a 21-foot blue shrimping skiff boat about 5:15 a.m., after the men were reported overdue from a trip that started Wednesday night.

Hodgson’s body was recovered about 9:30 a.m. Thursday and turned over to the St. Tammany Parish Coroner’s Office to determine an official cause of death, according to Wildlife and Fisheries.