BAZETTA - Bill Clark, his sons and father were about to go hunting in the pre-dawn Saturday when they heard screaming coming from the water.
''We could hear them plain as day but we couldn't do anything,'' the Warren man said. ''I never heard a boat or anything.''
Turns out what the four heard was three duck hunters who had capsized while on Mosquito Creek Reservoir.
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Rescue crews search for the body of a missing man Saturday after a boat capsized on Mosquito Creek Reservoir.
Two of the hunters were rescued; the body of the third, Daniel Khalil Jr., was found by a hunter walking the shoreline about 5 p.m. - about 11 hours after Clark called 911. The 35-year-old Pittsburgh native who recently moved to Ohio had been duck hunting with two other men from a boat on the reservoir.
Bazetta and Mecca fire departments responded to the 911 call about 6:30 a.m. in which people were heard yelling for help in the background, according to Bazetta fire Chief Dennis Lewis.
"People on the west shore who were duck hunting heard screaming from duck hunters on the lake," Lewis said of the call.
After Clark scalled 911 he met officers in the cemetery parking lot on the east side of the lake and they asked him to show them a route on one of their ATVs. Clark said as they started out, rescue crews pulled two men from water.
Officials weren't immediately sure what caused the men to go into the water, but said the boat may have been overloaded and a lower than normal lake level could have contributed to the accident. The reservoir is at 896 feet above sea level, which is about four feet below its optimum level for this time of the year.
"There's submerged stumps and hazards that people wouldn't be able to negotiate around in these kind of conditions," said Dianne Kolodziejski, with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The windy and colder weather also could have contributed to the accident, Lewis said.
"It was unsafe to be out today ... if we're going to take those risks we need to have the proper gear," he said.
None of the men was wearing life preservers, according to the chief.
Crews rescued the first victim about 7:15 a.m., and a second person was pulled from the water minutes later, Lewis said. The hunters told rescue crews that Khalil Jr. stopped making sounds about 10 minutes prior to their arrival.
The other two men, whose names were not being released, were treated and released from St. Joseph Health Center in Warren.
More than 60 people from 14 agencies assisted Bazetta with the rescue and recovery operation. The incident remains under investigation.
This was not the first time this year that rescue crews have been called to the reservoir.
On July 7, the body of Eli Miller Jr. of Middlefield was found about 1,000 yards from the Mecca boat launch site and 500 yards from the shore.
Mecca fire Lt. David Dunbar said at the time that Miller was not wearing a lifejacket, estimating the water was no more than 8 feet deep.
Tribune Chronicle newspartner WYTV 33 contributed to this report.