Black bear spotted swimming across Oneida lake

This past Saturday began like many others. I meet my charter clients and we headed out on a walleye charter around 6:30 AM.  Shortly after leaving the dock we spotted a rather large object off to the side of us that appeared to be moving.  At first I couldn’t tell what was in the water I thought maybe some garbage.  I quickly noticed that there was motion and started thinking it may have been waterfowl. Upon closer inspection it became increasingly obvious this was a large animal and I couldn’t decide if it was a moose or a bear.  At about 150 feet from the animal I realized that it was a black bear was swimming across the lake.   I snapped a couple of photos of the encounter and we proceeded on our fishing trip on a path that would not interfere with it’s voyage across Oneida lake.

This story was featured on Syracuse.com by Dave Figura.