A 67-year-old Muskogee fisherman who found a dead body lying in debris in the Arkansas River on Monday morning said he wasn’t scared as much as he was nauseated.

“It was a sickening feeling to know that what I was looking at what was once a human being,” said Roy Perry, who has fished in the area for more than 50 years.

Muskogee County Sheriff Charles Pearson said it was hours before the body was identified as that of a man.

“The body, which is severely decomposed, is on its way to the State Medical Examiner’s in Tulsa for positive identification,” Pearson said.

It was discovered in the southern part of the Muskogee County, just north of Lock and Dam 16, he said, across the lake from Brewer’s Bend or nine miles east of U.S. 64, near Martin.

It was in a wide area known as Webbers Falls Lake, Pearson said.

The body was caught up in a large amount of debris, and it took a long while to remove the body, he said.

“We can’t determine if there was any foul play — can’t even speculate,” Pearson said.

Law enforcement believe they know who the man was, the sheriff said.

“We did recover a wallet with an ID and believe the man was from the Tulsa area. We have no idea how the body got there (in water).”

Body tattoos and pictures in the wallet also may be of help in identifying the dead man, Pearson said.

But, no name will be released until a positive identification is made, and it probably will take dental records to do that, Pearson said.

“I’m glad the body was found — it can set some people’s minds at ease,” Perry said. “Someone is missing.”