Two Kansans Drown While On Fishing Trip

Friday, October 26th 2007, 6:33 am

By: News On 6

PONCA CITY, Okla. (AP) -- Authorities have recovered the bodies of two Kansas men who drowned while on a fishing trip at Kaw Lake near Ponca City. Trooper Betsy Randolph of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol says the bodies of brothers John Swinford and Don Swinford were recovered late Thursday. Randolph says the recovery comes a day after the wife of the one of the men reported the pair missing.

The siblings from Sharon, Kansas, had left the wife at a campsite and gone fishing Wednesday morning. Randolph says investigators believe the Swinfords had gotten out of their boat at one point to check on their fishing line and had returned to the boat when it capsized and the men drowned. She says brisk winds may have been the culprit.

OHP troopers were called in to search Thursday after the wife filed a missing persons report on the men in Kay County.

Trooper Betsy Randolph says they searched most of the day without success until just before 5 p.m., when one of the men's bodies was spotted. The other man was found around 7:30 p.m.

Randolph says there were lifejackets in the boat, but the men were not wearing them.