The feeling when when a fish hits your bait, you set the hook, and the fight it on is one of the best you can have.
And when that fish is a big one, it reaches levels close to euphoria. But the feeling of getting that sucker to the shore or boat and losing it, well… can be pretty damn awful.
I have to think this poor bald eagle was feeling all kinds of bad in the video from Olympic National Park in Washington.
Tourists spotted the eagle swimming through a river and immediately knew something was going on. While they’re no strangers to the water, from the way he was moving it was clear he’d grabbed something big and wasn’t able to get any lift off from the water.
After swimming over to a downed tree, he drags it up on the log and low and behold is a nice sized fish. Because the video was shot at distance it’s hard to tell exactly what species it was, but it appears to be some type of trout.
Not quite the size of the carp a bald eagle snagged in Wisconsin, but certainly enough to feed himself and any babies back in the nest.
But there was still a problem… the eagle just couldn’t get into the air, the fish was too heavy.
Despite a few efforts, nothing was working. You really start feeling bad for him when he starts looking around, seemingly checking if anyone is noticing, but most likely scanning for anything that was getting ready to pounce on an easy meal.
While the video cuts off before we see what he decides to do, I hope he just ate half of it there, or at least flew some pieces back to the nest to share and enjoy.
Because the feeling of losing a big catch right at the last second… well that’s just tragic.
