I would think that otters might target large or intermediate size fish specifically. That must mean war!

That paper on female only had some interesting statistics on fishing effort required to catch a 4.5# LMB:

In Georgia, it required a tournament angler an average of 305 hours to catch a bass 2.27 kg or larger (Quertermus 2013). Anglers were most successful at catching fish of this size in Lake Seminole, needing only 78 h to accomplish. In comparison, our angler survey on Ocmulgee PFA showed that anglers caught a 2.27-kg largemouth bass in 3.76 h. (Ocmulgee PFA is one the BOWs of the female only study).

The biomass of fish in the Female only BOW is skewed in favor of large fish. It is the number of large fish that makes it far easier to catch one. I am not sure what standard should be applied to define "trophy water" but perhaps fishing effort to catch a trophy might be a good start. The day I caught my best LMB with my friend in his BOW it took about 5 hours effort to catch a bass over 4.50 #. Only one was caught. I remember at the time I was thinking "I'd caught 10 or more fish by now in the ponds I fish". Even so, after catching that fish I gained a deeper appreciation for his passion of large LMB.

To be sure, it is certainly possible to have cake and eat it but to have vanilla cake and chocolate cake in the same BOW at the same time isn't sustainable.


Last edited by jpsdad; 05/30/18 02:43 PM.
It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so - Will Rogers