Boaters Think Bald Eagle Sitting In The Water Is Injured, Turns Out He’s Dragging A HUUUGE Fish

iStockphoto / StefanoVenturi

Seeing a bald eagle swimming is an unsettling sight for a lot of people, myself included. These otherwise majestic creatures glide effortlessly on the wind and can drop out of the sky in an instant to snatch prey off the ground. But in the water, they are complete nincompoop doofuses incapable of looking awesome.

I shared a viral clip of a bald eagle swimming about two months ago. If you haven’t seen that yet you can check it out here, but not before watching the crazy footage below that was shared on Twitter by user Dan Goff.

They happened upon this American Bald Eagle in the St. Croix river Wednesday in Minnesota. Andie and Dan Goff told the Star Tribune this encounter happened near the Afton Marina in Minnesota. At first, they thought the eagle was injured by that wasn’t the case at all.

As you’ll shortly see, this American Bald Eagle was dragging an ENORMOUS live Muskie fish in its talons onto the river bank. My hunch is that it chilled out for a few moments upon seeing the boater, possibly seeing them as a threat to its catch.

Half an hour later, they returned and the fish was already half-eaten by this American Bald Eagle who is clearly a better fisherman than half of the anglers on the St. Croix River:

This video has already racked up 666,000+ views on Twitter. If you can’t see that video for whatever reason, possibly if Twitter is blocked at your work or something, you can access it directly by finding the tweet here.

Special shout out to my boy Brett G. for sending this my way!