Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Otters

I need an expert. Is there a consultant close to Springfield Mo that can help me. After three years of Otter destruction and the aftermath of pond weed invasion I need to be rescued. About to give up.

An expert at what, catching otters?

A 12 gauge would work wonders lol

You don't need a consultant, you need a trapper. Shucks otter season just ended here Mar 15. Your season probably just ended also. You could have easily got a trapper to trap your otters for free because believe it or not, their fur is worth over $100 a pop.

Careful, otters are a federally protected species. Lawfully you can only trap them, you can not shoot them.

Now the season is over (its only a winter season), you can possibly get a nuisance trapper to come and do it, but he will want to charge maybe $100 each to trap them. You may very well have more than one. They almost always travel in pairs or even groups. Bad news for your pond.

Otters can take anything they want out of a pond. Well, other than alligators.

I have trapped lots of otters and I am hunting/fishing all the time, but have very rarely seen one in the wild except in my traps. They mostly move at night.

I would say getting otters out is of the utmost importance.



Here I am relocating otters.

I have some very good pics of deadly otter sets I use. They are easy to trap. I can also walk you through trapping them.

Otters are gone for now. I took care of that. In MO if you are a landowner and Otters are a problem you can "Shoot to kill" They have a real mess with the over population of Otters right now. There are representatives at the Capital trying to put a annual bounty on them as we speak. What I don't know is what fish I have left. Three years ago I could catch 13-20 bass (14") in a morning and now I am lucky to catch 3 or 4 small ones. MDC no longer will electroshock. It's very expensive to have someone drive in to do it. I need to restock but not sure what to bring in. The other problem is timing. My 4 acre pond is full of pond weeds of various types. MDC says there is nothing I don't have as far as aquatic plants. A local expert wants to treat it with Sonarone. ($1800) Can I do this and re-stock at the same time this Spring?

Are grass Carp an option? They have worked very well for me controlling weeds, but I am in North Florida?

Funny those Otters. Some folks thought it was a great idea to reintroduce them here. For a species that was unheard of a few years ago they apparently became a nuisance in a big hurry as you can get permits to take them out now.

If one showed up in one of my ponds I would not hesitate to take it out STAT and then send in for the permit. By the time I got the permit it would be too late. My fish are part of my living. I'll be damned if I's wait for some bureaucrat to send me a piece of paper.

So far no sign of otters. So far...

Just purchased 35 grass carp (5 per acre) and 50 2-3lb LMB. Maybe this will jump start my problems. Just hope the Otters were not watching as we off loaded the bass. I had know idea how expensive 3lb bass were to purchase.

Had a river otter in one of my ponds last spring. When I approached the pond , I saw a half eaten large catfish on the bank, and the otter swimming out in the pond. I couldn't believe how big the thing was. They move in the spring, looking for mates, and I never saw the otter again. I did see a dead one on the highway this weekend, so they must be on the move. Have a friend who has raised Coy for over 20 years and he said that last year he lost 20 years of breeding stock in one night, thanks to otters. They are being released into the wild and their numbers are increasing rapidly. This is not good news for pond owners.

I don't really know exactly what they were thinking, but the otter relocation program was very successful.

It started in Louisiana years ago, and they paid trappers to catch otters alive with no damage, to be relocated to other states.

It worked great and they reintroduced otters into areas that they had been extirpated from.

Otters were reintroduced into pats of PA a few years ago. Our hunting cabin in PA has a creek behind it that we stock with trout. The otters found our creek and the trout. I don't think those were reintroduced otters though. They were otters from the Chesapeake Bay area where they never were extirpated naturally spreading north and west up the Potomac River watershed as our cabin is right on the PA/MD line. I was amazed at how effective the otters were at catching the trout which were lethargic from border line warm summertime water temps.