Who Would I Talk To...

[Phil Lilley]

I called and talked to Charlie this morning. Recorded the conversation.

Unfortunately, I had trouble with the recording and am not able to post it.

He said the water will be a little high due to the snow runoff and discolored a bit but no more than it gets when a lot of people get in the river and wade.

He said he thought fly fishers would do better if they'd wait for a couple of hours and let the river clear out. Then use a sinktip line and get some woolies or leaches down deeper. he said he was tying up some "killer" spinner woolies for his shop.

He also mentioned the otters... he had talked to some people over the winter and made observations himself about the blooming population of otters in the park and how they were depleting the trout population in the winter.

[fishinwrench]

Note to self: Do not mention the word "otter" in front of Chuckie unless I have no plans for the rest of the day. Thanks for the heads-up.

[Wayne SW/MO]

Well if there are so many otters they are decimating the trout population they may crowd out the fishermen. They put a lot of trout in that spring branch. In my experience they always lose some fish during the winter, but not necessarily to predation. Some fish move out into the the river where they can move up or downstream in the winter.

[laker67]

The one trip that I made to bssp this winter, I too witnessed a river otter in addition to a rather large mink. Both are big time fish killers. River otters showed up several years back at clarence holland dam. They suddenly disappeared. I would hope that was not a fluke. Blue herons are few and far between as well. Maybe JR should start a petting zoo. Phil, I would say that your recorder burned out during the interview.