37-year-old duck hunter drowns when weather worsens on hunting trip, NC officials say
A 37-year-old duck hunter drowned in a North Carolina lake when the weather worsened while he was on a hunting trip, officials said.
Clifton Peace was hunting in a creek boat on Belews Lake on Dec. 23 when the temperature started to plummet and winds picked up, according to D.J. Woods, a sergeant with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission. The winds, which reached 30 mph that day, created waves on the lake that lapped over the side of Peace’s boat, causing it to sink, Woods told McClatchy News.
Peace was wearing chest waders and no life jacket and drowned in the middle of the lake, Woods said.
A friend who was hunting with Peace in a separate boat was unable to reach him in time, Woods said. The friend paddled to a nearby island and called for help, he said.
Search crews worked for days to find him and, after taking a break from the effort on Christmas Day, found his body on Dec. 26, according to the Winston-Salem Journal.
He was found in 60 feet of water, Woods said.
Friends said on Facebook that they were grateful to have known Peace, who also went by “CP.”
“CP you are loved,” wrote Craig-Tanya Hylton, who shared photos of a gathering of Peace’s friends. “Loved by so many and I pray you now feel that. You have touched so many people and left us all with great memories and for that we are grateful… There will never be another friend like you, we all love you so much and our lives will never be the same without you.”
Another friend, Tanner Fraser, said he was collecting photos of Peace to create a collage in his honor.
“I’m very grateful for being able to contribute in a way that honors the integrity of his character and captures his essence, hopefully for years to come,” he wrote on Facebook. “A tearful, yet artful reminder to us all of how fortunate we were to have known Clifton Peace.”
Fraser told WXII that Peace’s personality was “infectious.”
“If he sees you in a bad mood, he’d come up and kind of poking and messing with you in an effort to make you laugh to get you out of it,” he told the outlet. “And unlike other people, he was actually able to do it.”
Fraser did not immediately respond to a request for comment from McClatchy News.
Belews Lake is about 105 miles northwest of Raleigh. It covers 864 acres and has 88 miles of shoreline, Woods said.
This story was originally published December 28, 2022 at 12:36 PM with the headline "37-year-old duck hunter drowns when weather worsens on hunting trip, NC officials say."