Otters!

[lobina grande]

What's up with all of the otters hanging around the docks and stealing everyone's fish?  My wife and I were visiting with my sister on the Grand Glaize arm and decided to just fish for crappie and catfish off the docks last weekend.  The fishing was slow but we managed to catch a nice mess of crappie with 4 eating size channel cats.  When it came time to quit and clean the fish, all of the cats were gone and we only had about 1/2 of the crappies that we should have.  I was perplexed and thought that the catfish were able to get out of the bottom of the fish basket.  So that night, I sewed up the bottom of the basket with some braid and we when back down on the docks to catch more crappie.  No sooner than we caught a channel cat and crappie when we saw the otters (a mother and young pup) trying to get at our fish from the bottom of our basket.  No matter what we did, they would not leave our two fish alone.  I was even jabbing them with my rod and they would take off only to return.  We ended up leaving the dock to go fish off another dock on the other side of the resort.  As soon as we put the fish basket in the water there was a big male otter trying to reach into the top of our basket.  He was in between the dock and the floats.  I managed to chase him off and thought we were safe for the rest of the morning and preceded to caught a couple of nice channel cats.  We kept on an eye on the basket and I had a couple of 4 lb cats but when I went to clean them one of the big ones were gone.  The Sneaky B@^#$$&#!!!

I have never had a problem with them in the past.  Are they becoming a problem on other parts of the lake?  Something needs to be done.  I did see where some people had a fish box that they could lower deeper in the lake and now I know why.

[fishinwrench]

29 minutes ago, lobina grande said:

Something needs to be done. 

Quit leaving your food set out.   

 

When I'm catfishing I clean them and put on ice while waiting for another bite.  

[snagged in outlet 3]

I get cats from the seafood counter.  I've never seen an otter there and they leave it out.

[Gavin]

Cut their gills, let them bleed out, then toss on ice...They taste better that way.

[Flysmallie]

10 minutes ago, Gavin said:

Cut their gills, let them bleed out, then toss on ice...They taste better that way.

The otters???

[tjm]

Any meat is better if bled out, otter might not taste good either way ; most carnivores aren't especially tasty-that is why they invented BBQ sauce. Use enough BBQ sauce and any meat will taste like BBQ.

[shrapnel]

Our HOA has hired a trapper he is supposed to start in September.  He has agreed to release all otters unharmed in the Gravois arm.

[fishinwrench]

1 hour ago, shrapnel said:

Our HOA has hired a trapper he is supposed to start in September.  He has agreed to release all otters unharmed in the Gravois arm.

Why not just relocate them to PB2 like they do everything else?  😂

[shrapnel]

29 minutes ago, fishinwrench said:

Why not just relocate them to PB2 like they do everything else?  😂

Otter's don't like water patrol.  Duh.

[fishinwrench]

Speaking of PB2.....Do the Bass World Sports organizers (and participants) know that there's a No Wake in effect that weekend, for the Shootout ?  

No running upstream from the Glaize. 🤔

Maybe if you dump all the otters just below Hurricane deck you can petition to have the Shootout cancelled.