Robert “Bobby” Stolt spent much of his short life fishing on the Kennebec River and other waterways both summer and winter, hunting in the woods of Maine and sharing his adventures with family and friends.

And while the 22-year-old electrician from Augusta was well-versed in how to stay safe in the outdoors, he lost his life Sunday while trying to rescue his dog Buck in the rough waters of the Kennebec around Lines Island near Bath. His body was recovered Wednesday evening after a three-day search by the U.S. Coast Guard and Maine Marine Patrol. The Maine Office of the Chief Medical Examiner determined his death was an accidental drowning.

“It’s a really tragic loss of an amazing young man,” his stepfather Jim Kirk said Friday.

Kirk, of Pittsfield, and others who knew Stolt, say he was a kind, giving, positive person who was happier on the water and in the woods than any place on earth. Kirk, a Registered Maine Guide, said he and Stolt were very close and loved to fish together from the time Stolt was 12.

“I don’t think I’ve met anyone who who loves hunting and fishing as much as he did,” Kirk said. “I always remember, he loved it so much that every time he caught a fish it was like the first time — it was new.”

Stolt’s girlfriend, Erica Dickey, was with Stolt in his boat Sunday fishing for stripers when he hooked a fish, she said. As Stolt was trying to reel it in, Buck, an Australian cattle dog, jumped into the water to try to retrieve it, and Stolt jumped in after him. Dickey had her own dog, Benny, a miniature Doberman pinscher, with her at the time, and the dog was the only one of the four wearing a lifejacket, she said.

Dickey said Stolt was trying to fight the current. Dickey and her dog jumped into the water as well and at first, she tried to fight the current but then focused on everything she had been taught about what to do in such a situation, including not panicking or fighting the current, but instead trying to get to a rock, or swim left or right. She said she doesn’t remember everything, but Stolt had gone under the water. She clung to her dog, and eventually two people in a boat rescued them.

“They saved my life,” Dickey said.

Dickey said she watched Buck swim to the island. Prior to her rescue, she said she yelled at the boaters for help because she thought she also was going to drown.

“I was screaming at them, ‘I’m going to drown, I’m going to drown.’ I was really freaking out,” Dickey said. “I was clinging to a rock.”

Dickey, 21, of Richmond, was grieving Friday as she recalled what happened. She said she and Stolt had been fishing all weekend and were having a great time as they typically did. Stolt, she said, was a loving person who taught her a lot about fishing and hunting.

“I shot my first deer with him, and we processed and packaged it ourselves, with his brother,” she said.

Dickey said she and Stolt had been together about a year and during that time, they shared many adventures.

“He was never sitting down,” she said. “He was always doing something, whether it was helping out a friend or helping someone else or working on his boat or out with his dog. He was the most caring and sensitive and empathetic man I’ve ever met in my life and he was definitely the coolest dude I’ve ever known.”

The world, she said, will never be the same without him.

“He was absolutely amazing and I’m so grateful to have known a person like him and experienced a love like that,” she said.

Stolt’s best friend, Bryton Kieltyka, of Monmouth, said Stolt bought his boat two days before he went out onto the water Sunday because damage to a previous boat, a 22-foot Grady White, would take about two months to repair. On July 4, he and Stolt went out for lunch at Five Guys and Stolt showed him his new boat, he said. They had just been fishing together a week before Stolt drowned.

Stolt and Kieltyka met at Cony High School in Augusta, and they immediately became friends, Kieltyka said. Stolt taught him about the outdoors, and they started a landscaping business when they were both 18.

“We’d take our free period and go fishing,” Kieltyka recalled. “He loved the outdoors. He loved fishing more than he loved breathing, to say the least. He lived and breathed the Kennebec.”

A week before Stolt drowned, Kieltyka said, they fished the Kennebec at that same spot, next to Lines Island.

Like Dickey, he was trying to make sense of the loss. He said he hopes Stolt will be remembered for the kind soul he was.

“You never think it’s going to be your best friend,” he said. “He taught me more than anyone about the real world. He taught me confidence. He taught me to trust what you do, trust your repairs and have fun, laugh. Nothing is forever.”

Nahdia Pelletier, 22, of Fairfield, said she dated Stolt for four years after they met through a friend. Although their relationship ended last August, she spoke lovingly of him and the times they shared hunting and fishing. She said she has never met Dickey, his girlfriend, but she feels for her.

“I can’t imagine the trauma she has from that,” Pelletier said. “I just hope that she knows that he loved her.”

Pelletier described Stolt as fearless. She recalled when he picked her up at home after work one night and they drove to Moosehead Lake with the Grady White boat, which had a cabin. It was dark but Stolt insisted they launch the boat. When they got out into the water, the wind picked up, and the boat capsized, she said. They made it to an island and were rescued some three hours later.

She said Buck was a gift for Stolt. When she and Stolt started dating, they had been hunting, and she got her first deer. At the deer processing station, a litter of puppies were for sale, Pelletier said. She bought a pup and they named him Buck to commemorate her first deer, she said. A while after she and Stolt broke up, she gave the dog to him, knowing how much he loved it.

“Buck could not swim very well,” she said. “He was not a strong swimmer, but he loved being on board.”

A phone message left Friday for Stolt’s stepmother, Julie Stolt, was not returned.

A gofundme has been set up for Stolt’s family at https://www.gofundme.com/f/supporting-bobbys-family-after-tragic-loss?attribution_id=[…]-amp15_t1&utm_medium=customer&utm_source=facebook&v=amp14_t2

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct where Robert Stolt and Nahdia Pelletier met before traveling to Moosehead Lake.