The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has found two boaters this morning that were reported missing overnight on the Choctawhatchee River.

According to Stan Kirkland of the FWC, 54-year-old Michael Brandi and 50-year-old Jim Gardener, both of Bonifay, had been reported missing when they did not return from a fishing trip Sunday.

Kirkland said that the neighbors started out around 11 a.m. in separate boats from the Caryville Landing in Holmes County. They apparently tied one boat up on the river at a houseboat and continued in one boat. When the fishermen didn’t return around 6 p.m., family members contacted the Holmes County Sheriff’s Office.

Holmes County authorities searched until midnight Sunday and resumed efforts this morning. A FWC helicopter spotted the two men five or six miles south of the I-10 bridge on the Choctawhatchee River and were headed in with the boaters.

The men had spent the night in a 15-foot Eldocraft boat built in 1978. Kirkland said mechanical failure kept the men from returning to the landing Sunday.