North Fork issue

[liphunter]

Well, Mitch. If I make a comment, you can pretty much bet there is no clue involved. lol

[Devan S.]

I guess I don't see as many otter signs as everyone else. Lots of beaver sign but I suppose without inspecting closer maybe I don't really know the difference. 

I've always wanted to trap one. Maybe I otter come to where you all fish?

 

[Mitch f]

Just now, Devan S. said:

I've always wanted to trap one. Maybe I otter come to where you all fish?

 

😂

[Mitch f]

1 hour ago, Quillback said:

So.....does this make it OK to shoot kayaks?  

 

Just kidding of course (trying to head off someone losing it over this comment made in jest).

 

[Flysmallie]

One of the best smallmouth runs on the entire James River had a family of otters living on it. Seen them dozens of times over a couple of years and the fishing was always good. The only thing that ruined the spot was a flood that filled it in. Both the fish and otters left. 

[Al Agnew]

Ah, yes, the otter argument...

First of all, I knew both the biologist in charge of the otter reintroduction and the guy (Glen Chambers) from MDC who went around the state for years with "tame" otters drumming up support for reintroducing them.  Back then people loved otters.  There had been books written about how cool otters were.  By the time MDC started the reintroduction, I doubt if you could have found a hundred people in the whole state that WEREN'T all for otter reintroduction.  (Glen, however, grew to hate the ones he carried around all the time, because they were like some male cats...just as friendly as could be until something tripped a trigger with them and then they'd gnaw your arm off.  He had scars everywhere from his otters.)

The biologist in charge told me, a few years after it was apparent that the otter population was exploding, that otters in Missouri were reproducing at a rate 9 times faster than all the studies and all the literature had said they would.  Missouri was probably the first state to reintroduce them, and so they found out too late that when you reintroduce a critter that has no natural enemies and a prey base that has had many years to unlearn how to deal with that critter, the critter will REALLY do well.  And...they also didn't take into account that the Ozark creeks of 1990 were far different than the creeks had been 150 years earlier, with fewer big, deep pools for fish to have room to escape otters.  Plus, 150 years ago there weren't any farm ponds, which turned out to be ready-made otter buffets.  The otters found an unlimited supply of easy food, and so they thrived.

My own experience with otters...I know of stream sections that have plenty of otters and plenty of fish.  I also know of a few small streams where I've encountered otters, where SOMETHING really did a number on the fish population, and otters are probably the culprit.  I floated a somewhat remote, little floated creek one time, and the fishing was simply awful; I maybe caught a half dozen little smallmouth all day long in really good habitat.  There were, however, crawdads everywhere, crawling on the bottom out in the open in the middle of the day.  I also saw one otter.  If the otters were eating all the fish, why were there so many crawdads, since otters love them?  When I got to the take-out, I ran into a family of local people minnow fishing, had a couple little sub-legal smallmouth and some goggle-eye on a stringer.  They asked me about how the fishing was, and I told them it was really slow.  "It's them danged otters.  They eat all the smallmouth.  Heck, used to be we'd come here a couple times a week and take home a limit of smallmouth for everybody in the family every time, before the otters showed up."

Point is, I think otters get blamed for poor fishing in some places where they aren't really a problem, while in other places, especially small streams with poor habitat, they really do nearly wipe out the population of larger fish.  But I don't think things are as bad as they were for a while.  I doubt if trapping does much to control the population of otters; there just aren't enough people doing it.  But I think that the surviving fish have "evolved", for lack of a better word because it's not really classic evolution, a bit and aren't quite as susceptible to otter predation as they were 15-20 years ago.  Eventually, the otters will get into some kind of equilibrium with their prey base.  Might be permanently fewer fish in some streams because of them, though.

[Mitch f]

15 minutes ago, Al Agnew said:

 But I don't think things are as bad as they were for a while.  I doubt if trapping does much to control the population of otters; there just aren't enough people doing it. 

Thanks for your extremely well though out response. Do you remember the trapper that spoke at the MSA meeting? I got him off to the side and talked for a while after the meeting. If memory serves it was a couple of years after the otter controversy started. He said the where getting $80 per pelt, which was more than any other animal so they were going crazy trapping them and selling them to China. 

[tjm]

Because of CITES we have good data on numbers of otter and bobcats taken in any year and where they were harvested. Between 1400-2000 otter taken per year the last few years state wide and average prices of $23-31. Peak harvest years would have been ~2012-2014 and about 4000 statewide, with prices ~$120. Going by reports on trapping forums not many target otters except in  nuisance trapping.  I've only seen otter sign locally in about three of the last twenty  years, a few came through and stayed a while and seem to have moved on. Two were killed in my county in the  '18-'19 season. There were a few locals that were concerned that the otters would wipe out all the suckers, funny they weren't concerned about the giggers wiping out the suckers.