Drowned fisherman's body recovered

The body of a missing fisherman was recovered from the Waipaoa River, near Gisborne, this morning.

The body was found at 9.40am by the national police dive squad which joined the search this morning.

Police have not yet released the name of the Tongan man who was single, aged 41 and lived in Gisborne. Family members were travelling from Auckland today.

Senior Sergeant Moera Brown said at about 8am yesterday three men were trying to set a net about 1.5 kilometres upstream from the mouth of the river.

One of the trio was swimming across the river with a net in a blue plastic barrel when it overturned spilling the net.

The man tried to retrieve it but got into difficulties and let it go.

One of his friends reached him and got hold of him but the water was too deep.

He turned back to the bank to get something to hold on to the man with and when he turned around again the man had disappeared.

- NZPA