Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Otter Not Eat My Fish!

I've been waiting for pictures in order to post this great story. Around the time that my daughter was born...mid-October, our tigre bass fingerlings started dying in the vat. They were scraped up and were getting bacterial infections to boot. We hadn't seen this before.

So while we were at the hospital to have our baby, my biologist Clint was here watching things and he walked out one morning to see an otter bail out of the bass vat and head for a pond. He got off a shot but must have missed.

My parents were here to help when we returned from the hospital and my dad was determined to kill that otter. So we left the facility lights on. That otter showed at about 10:45pm to eat some more of those delicous tigre bass. So dad grabbed the shotgun and snuck out of the house. The otter caught wind of him and bolted. Dad, being the experienced marksman that he is, led that otter about 1 ft and fired.....well....he missed the otter but led him just enough to bust a main fish facility water line. He probably would have shot himself after that one, so it's a good thing he had a rifle and not a pistol. He felt terrible about it. Had to chip out some of the slab to fix the water line the following day.

Well, you would figure that otters are probably quite intelligent, or at least that they have the ability to learn from near misses..........

The next day the parents had gone home and I left the lights on again. I made my routine evening check of the fish facility, gun in hand....nothing. Went on in the house and not more than 10 minutes went by before I glanced out the window to see that gleaming mini-seal out on the vat eating my bass again. I watched for a moment, even opened the door and aimed with a 22-cal rifle in hand, but it wasn't a good shot with the 400 gal. aquarium positioned behind the otter. Just then I noticed my Australian Shepard Dixie. She ran circles around that vat, preventing the otter's escape. Not that he really cared...he kept on eating fish but looked slightly bothered.

So he made another dive and I hauled butt to the facility with the shotgun and stood behind a tree. The otter emerged with a fish and ate it quickly. Dixie was attentive and ready and really just watching at this point caus when I've got the gun she knows what's about to happen.

The otter dove for another fish. I strolled up to the vat and aimed and waited. The rest is history.

No telling how many fish that otter ate and how many collateral fish we lost. We were very glad to have killed this one. Dixie is a hero.

I'm glad to have a good place to tell this story.

Good for you! I like how Dixie drags it off. Hillarious.

My state is patting itself on the back for reintroducing these things. :rolleyes: I have a pair with a half a mile of my ponds. I'm sure I'll see one eventually.

Todd just when I was getting over the nightmare of seeing commorants on my pond you have to show me something else to have nightmares about. I only wish I was as good a shot as you are I'm more like your dad. Congratulations Todd on the new baby!

she's a good dog awlright, the best kind IMHO .....had one just like her (only a he) lived to be 15.

Ohhh, I just read the recent otter thread. Sometimes a man had only one choice in dealing with problems and this one had to go....right then and there.

But they are beautiful creatures when they aren't eating the results of my own blood, sweat, and tears.

Thanks for the comments. My dog is now officially a tax write-off.

boo hoo. I can't see the pics....the dreaded red "x" box.

Geocities getting on my nerves. We'll just have to wait to see the pics I guess.

Here is the otter that visited earlier this fall. It would not leave after encouragement. No longer a problem (SSS).

ewest, the brutality!!

There's always a Silver Lining.

Sunil you are right. That otter was brutal. Everywhere I looked there were large piles of undigested LMB and BG scales. If that was not enough he was rude in that he would not leave after a week when encouraged. To top it off he liked to lay on the bank eating and making loud crunching noises on formerly healthy BG so I could hear the brutality while I was working or fishing.

I didn't even know we had otters in Texas. I do know kinds of animals change as you go east to west.

Todd, Hoped you buried it so Dixie and I don't have to play fetch with the stinking thing come spring. For those that have never been to Todd's, Dixie is one retrieving fool and has never met a stranger. :p

I didnt know we had beavers in Giddings,Tx until I saw one last year. I'm sure there are Otters too. I've seen a few Beavers&Otters on Toledo Bend though.

I have seen them in mineral well at my old friends pond, Him didnt believe me but i saw the dang thing

They're in Florida. I've seen them in the Daytona area.