Got issued a permit to remove a few problem otters. Going to be focusing on bodygrippers and blind sets. They really do a number on our fish. Valsdad knows all about it I am sure.

This for yourself or a paid job? Are you experienced dealing with otters?

I have always trapped them with blind sets. Just picked up a few here and there. The first one I trapped was in a foothold set for beaver on a long chain. He was huge, I didn't weigh him but must have been approaching 30#. It was on a beaver crawl out where there was not enough water to drown. It was literally the strangest trapping scenario I've ever seen. It was a small creek turned into a swamp by the beavers clogging a cluvert. very Shallow in most places around the edge. They a bank den about 20 yards from this crawl out which led to a massive pile of mud about 10-15' out of the water. It was 15' or so across and 6-7' high. I figured they had no place to get rid of the debris from excavating the den, and so hauled it up on the bank into this massive pile. Never heard of anything like that though. I set a 750 out a couple feet and used sticks to make him put his feet down. expected a beaver but caught the otter. I've caught them on pull outs and bottom edge sets. They respond to shellfish oil trails if you need to go baited.

Here’s a link to a thread on the subject. The dock set is one I’ve used a number of times. Very effective.

Otter

Yeah I have caught quite a few of them. This is for work, we'll have to surrender them to fish and game. Was hoping they would leave our fish alone until the regular season opened up but they have been hammering our fish in the raceways. We put up an electric fence to help deter them but that only works so well. Crafty buggers. Lots of bear movement in the area we have the sets so we are especially cautious about how we set them.

I'm certainly no expert on catching otters, but I have caught a few. When I was helping a friend on predator control around his crawfish ponds, I just made blind sets in their trails where they were coming over the dams from one pond to another. #3 4 coil Bridger with crossed stakes driven in the ground held them or beavers without any problem. Ponds were not deep enough for drowning sets.

So, basically, that trap design drowns the otter?

Got 3 so far

Can't use footholds, too many bears around. we put sticks over the bodygrippers so they will step over them

You don't need a big foothold to trap otters though, right? How about a 1 3/4 or 2, 4-coiled, no offset?

The set design drowns the otter. There is enough weight on the trap chain to take the otter under water without enough chain to reach the bottom. Once they are in the trap they and they dive, the chain and weight come off the finishing nail. The weight does the rest. The guy who showed me the set said he has used five pound weights but that 10 worked better especially with a big otter. The idea is to get them under water without being able to get to the bottom where they could get traction or back to the dock for the same reason.

When we trapped them at the hatchery all we used was conibears on their travel trails between the river and the ponds. We were typically about 50/50 otter / beaver. Biggest otter was a big female that went 6’3” nose to tail (!!!).

Don’t know if it is legal where you are, but on my hatchery they typically swam up the tail race into the hatchery proper. I built a home made under water trap out of metal fence panels in a basic hoop net design. That put an end to it rather quickly.

I find they drown rather quickly when weighed down with an 180 gr .308 bullet.

Shoot at a family group once and they’ll go nocturnal, leaving you with the mess to clean up in the morning.

Not that I would know about such things.

We took a few of them out on our permit. Fish and game was happy to have them for their skinning class. Our trapping season opens up soon so we are trying to hold off until then to take any more.

Every year I usually get a pair move in in early November. I have a ladder stand on the upper end of my lake that overlooks the same den they all use. Otters and beavers are easy to hit when you shoot down on them. Not so easy at water level. Sometimes I get a lone mail in the spring or summer. They come to the dock to see what the commotion is when I feed my bluegills in the late afternoon. In Mississippi beavers and otters are considered nuisance and may be terminated with extreme prejudice.

Our deer season starts the Saturday before Thanksgiving which means it can be as early as the 17th or as late as the 25th. One of the late years I did not see the otters until the start of deer season. They had been having a feast. I found a pile of scales on the bank that I don't think would have fit in a 5 gallon bucket.

Our deer open Saturday, but it is going to be 72°, too hot to kill a deer, but not to hot for varmints.

pre-paid postage?

you really should edit for spelling, along with the 'grammer'.

It was late.

Ben Franklin said he did not trust a man who only knows one way to "speel" a word.

Trapped a lot of them around Kodiak and some years there were unreal numbers of them. Found a 220 far more effective than a 330. They could get out of the bigger traps! Mostly in trail sets between salt and lagoons, but many on slides. Easier to catch them on slides but the birds get them fast if they are out of water.

Today was one of those beautiful sunny days we sometimes get in Mississippi in the winter. 62° first day of winter so the dogs and I went down to the dock to feed the bluegills. The fish are not real active this time of the year but after a few minutes they came a running and began to splash around fighting over the stale bread. I looked up when one of the dogs growled only to see an otter swimming down the lake to join the party. Curiosity killed the cat and the did the otter no good, that and a Hornady .224 50 grain spire point. And all this time I thought it took 180 grains of lead to drown a no good fish eating otter.

Afternoon guys, gals. Looks like everyone has ya covered for ideas. Up here in Canada we have so many ponds and such that the otter only stay in one spot for a good feed and then move on. We usually only catch them as there moving through. Kind of funny, we had a drowning set on a dam once, mr otter must of had some speed up when he crossed over the trap, we caught him by his nuts!!! What a way to go A?? Bill out. 🐾👣🐾👣🇨🇦

"Synonym" The word one uses when he can't spell the other one.

Have a good one,