VMR search resumes

Water police and other emergency workers will continue to look for a missing fisherman who fell overboard on Friday night.

File

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EMERGENCY crews this morning are expected to resume their search for a Maryborough fisherman lost in shark-infested waters for two days and nights.

Police, with local SES and Volunteer Marine Rescue crews and the AGL Rescue helicopter, have been conducting an extensive air and sea search for the 25-year-old, missing off Fraser Island since Friday night.

A second fisherman involved in the boating mishap was rescued early on Saturday morning.

Hervey Bay Water Police chief Sergeant Paul Bacon said yesterday police had not given up hope of finding the missing man alive.

"We'll continue to search until we are told to stop," he said.

"It could go on for a number of days."

"Obviously we are doing everything we can and are still hopeful of finding this person alive for the sake of the family."

He said the search was due to continue until it got dark yesterday, with SES crews conducting foot patrols of beaches and bushland and VMR rescue vessels scouring the shoreline.

As the Chronicle went to press last night, there was still no sign of the missing man.

The rescued man, aged 31, was plucked from the water near the island's Kingfisher Bay resort about 3am on Saturday.

The pair had been on an overnight fishing trip in the Sandy Strait when their open 5m aluminium vessel got into trouble about midnight Friday.

It is understood the younger man fell overboard while trying to fix the boat's motor and his friend jumped in to help, but both men were swept away.

Police said the men were not wearing life jackets.

Despite being in the water for up to three hours, the rescued man was not injured, an ambulance spokesman said.

He was taken to Hervey Bay hospital as a precaution and released later that day.

"It was purely a precautionary transport (to hospital)," the spokesman said.

"Obviously he was quite upset because his mate hadn't been found."

The man was pulled from the water by crews aboard an anchored yacht just south of Kingfisher.

Resort staff are believed to have provided him with a warm shower and dry clothes before he was taken to hospital.

Police were yet to investigate the boat, which they recovered on Saturday morning.