EDDYVILLE, Iowa — Three days into the search for a missing man from on the Des Moines River and there is still no sign.

“The family came up to me yesterday and it is, it’s not a rescue mission at this point,” said Mahaska County Sheriff Russell Van Renterghem. “We consider it a recovery mission.”

47-year-old Waylon Straube is the missing boater. 50-year-old Roseanne Benda, of Corydon, was rescued after the pair was thrown from the boat around 9:50 a.m. on Sunday morning. Sheriff Van Renterghem explained what had led up to the pair being ejected from the vessel.

“They actually deployed their boat from here (boating ramp just south of the accident) and they were going north of 310th to check diddy poles that Mr. Straube had out there. And all indications, and we have the boat now, we recovered the boat as well. They went out around one of the concrete pillars on the 310th Street Bridge,” said Van Renterghem. “And because water levels were a little higher, they hit a pile of rubble.”

Pieces of the concrete that sit in the Des Moines River were covered with water making it less visible. The damage on the boat indicated to authorities that is how the accident occurred.

Benda was rescued after a Mahaska County Sheriff’s Deputy deployed a drone shortly after the accident occurred, locating her holding onto a branch in the river. Other deputies contacted fishermen who were out on the water, who then pulled Benda out of the water.

“We can second guess all we want, but possibly, I just wish they both had life jackets on. We may not even be out here,” said Renterghem. “If they had, we would still have to come out and get them off the banks wherever they made it to. But we really we would ask anybody who gets on the Des Moines River, not just the Des Moines, any body of water during the summer, because we’re just going into that season. Please, wear your life jackets.”