Photo: Canadian Coast Guard

Search and rescue officials say they have recovered the body of one fisherman and are looking for three other men missing off the south coast of Newfoundland.

The Canadian Coast Guard says the body was recovered at the western end of the mouth of Placentia Bay, almost 40 kilometres from the coast.

Mark Gould, regional supervisor for search and rescue at the Maritime rescue sub-centre in St. John's, says it appears the 12-metre fishing vessel sank, though the exact circumstances remain unclear.

He said a few pieces of the boat and the man's body were located early in the morning on Tuesday.

However, three other men from the vessel out of St. Lawrence, N.L., hadn't been located as of noon local time, and a search was continuing under good weather conditions.

"It's sad so far, and our thoughts are with the family of the person we've found," Gould said.

"After finding what we found, we knew something catastrophic happened."

The spokesman said it appears the small vessel didn't have an emergency position-indicating radio beacon, or EPIRG, and the search and rescue centre hadn't received any signal from the boat.

The four men went missing after leaving from St. Lawrence early Monday to fish for crab.

They had been scheduled back at 8 p.m. but did not arrive, and a search was started after a person called in a report that the vessel hadn't returned on time.

A Cormorant helicopter, a Hercules search and rescue aircraft, an Oceanex vessel, members of the coast guard auxiliary and several coast guard vessels were involved in the search on Tuesday morning.

"We'll keep going until we've exhausted all possibilities," said Gould, adding that all four on board the 12-metre vessel were from the St. Lawrence area.