Ever hear of otters eating all the bass in a pond?

[wasabi_VA]

About 4 years ago I gained access to a sweet little 3 to 4 acre pond that had some real nice bass. In fact I caught more quality bass than dinks. The pond received very little pressure, just a couple times a year maybe a couple kids bank fishing. I was catching some quality fish. The pond had been stocked properly at one point - just bass and bluegill, no crappie or other species. It has water to 15' as well as several beaver huts, points and coves. A real honey hole.

 

About 2 years ago I saw an otter swimming. And since then the fishing has declined to the point I'm about to give up going there. I'm just getting skunked over and over and haven't caught much of anything. A friend suggested an otter can clean out a pond. Is that possible?

[GreenPig]

Yes. Otters are very efficient hunters. I've removed several from my beaver pond.

[NYWayfarer]

Otters eat anything and everything, fish, frogs, crayfish, etc.

 

Even if they are not eating the Bass, which they will, they are eating the Bass food sources.

[Bird]

I would say that Otters could be detrimental to the fish population in small bodies of water as they are voracious predators and intelligent. 

 

They are claimed to be nocturnal but not always. 

We were trout fishing on the Williams river in WV and watched a group of Otters herd trout into the shallows and devour them. 

 

I doubt that they would delete the pond of every fish but they most certainly will have an effect. 

[ironbjorn]

Pew pew pew

 

 

 

[the reel ess]

A family friend told me otters cleaned his pond out. It's a pretty large pond. I guess if your pond is hopelessly overpopulated with small bass you could just let them finish they're work. I guess they'll move along when the fish dry up.

[Bubba 460]

Well speaking of otters, let me tell you about a sea otter. When I lived in Alaska I would often go to the Anchor River and fish for the big king salmon that made their run in the spring. One day I had hooked one that weighed about 30 pounds. I had been fighting him for a few minutes when all of a sudden he got real heavy. He came to the the surface and there on his back with all four legs wrapped around the fish was a 3 foot sea otter! The otter was viciously chewing on the salmon head. Well, the extra weight was too much and the line parted, and I lost both of them.    

[scaleface]

I've caught a couple of smallmouths from a river that had chunks missing from them from what I assume were otter bites .

[Fishes in trees]

The Missouri conservation department is more often than not an extremely capable and competent conservation department.   However, once upon a time, several years ago, they decided to re-introduce otters to Ozark streams & other streams & rivers in the state.  Several prime small mouth streams in the Ozark were promptly decimated.   Turns out that otters like to bass fish too.  What makes me hat them is that they don't recognize bag limits or size limits, stuff like that, they never take a day off.   A similar thing happened in some of the lakes that I fish, when the otters, released in streams, followed the water upstream to reservoirs and you can figure out the rest of the story.  One year , in a 300 acre lake that I often fish, the lake has 4 smaller and 3 larger coves and ups couldn't go into any of them without seeing 1 or 2 groups of otters, doing their otter thing, swimming around and eating.

 

Over time, the conservation department tried to mitigate this by encouraging trapping and greatly expanded the limits & seasons for trapping otters and right now it doesn't seem as bad as it did 8 or 9 years ago.   Still I wish they'd thought it out better prior to releasing a bunch of otters in the waters of the state.

[MGF]

They reintroduced otters here and a lot of people were angry. My wife and I enjoyed seeing them until it started to seem like the fishing was suffering. Now they opened a trapping season but I don't know if many are being trapped. 

[gim]

Otters can be legally trapped in most states. If you think they are causing an issue, then trap them. You might even be able to shoot one if you can get a nuisance permit. While it may be difficult to find someone that still practices the art of trapping, it’s very effective. My Grandpa used to do a lot of trapping at the peak of the fur trade. He always said that otter and beaver had the highest value. A prime otter pelt may still have some decent value now.

[MGF]

I don't really trap. I have a few conibear traps that I use to keep ground hogs from tearing everything up but that's about it.

 

Trapping the rivers here would be tough. The bank is all private so you need permission from every property owner (good luck with that). Then a trip down the river is a one way trip for most of the year. That means several hours devoted to the trap line every day and you need two vehicles. Put in upriver and float down. I think DNR properties are off limits for trapping...but I'm not really sure about that.

 

I think the otters are pretty safe unless there are property owners on the river who are trappers and I'll bet money against that.

[N Florida Mike]

I was about to post about the exact same topic. As many of you know, I live on a small lake. The fishing has been outstanding for many years and I have managed the lake for bass fishing, which essentially means I let every fish over 17 inches go, and I occasionally keep some of the small fish to thin the herd. An average day I usually catch around 3-5 bass an hour. The last few months the fishing has really declined to being the worst fishing in the last 10 years. The last 9 hours I fished, I only caught 6. Nothing over 2 pounds. I have a friend from work who was over and said he saw some otters. I know we have nutrias which arent fish eaters so Im hoping they weren’t otters but... there’s no other way to account for the drastic decline of fishing.

We had 2 get in around 13 years ago that I saw but the bass fishing remained good , even though they ate most if not all the catfish. So it’s contradictory evidence at this point.

Im looking at getting some traps.      ( and prayer ) . Hoping against hope that maybe its the less clear water this time of year or the colder than normal winter we had thats causing the slow fishing...Im also 100% sure its not from people keeping the fish because I do easily 95% of the fishing and very rarely see anyone else fishing, and when I do its obvious they arent going to dent the population the way they fish!

? . 

So at any rate, I hope our lakes will recover. 

[Team9nine]

Several studies suggesting bass are usually a very small part of an otters diet. In fact, I was just at a fisheries conference (virtual) two weeks ago and this exact subject came up by one of the presentees. It was a study done here in my home state, and again, results showed a few bass eaten, but more bluegill than bass, and as a group, sunfish were only about 20% or less of the otter diet versus 80% other miscellaneous fish species, so that result seems to be consistent. I'm sure if options are llimited, you could see a result where bass fared worse, but in general, that doesn't seem to be the norm.

[Fred Allen]

I have a spot where I catch nice bass actually my biggest bass ever (4-5 pound SM) and I often see the otter there swimming. Its a 5 mile long reservoir though so pretty big place but I see not otters elsewhere on the water. 

[N Florida Mike]

6 minutes ago, Team9nine said:

Several studies suggesting bass are usually a very small part of an otters diet. In fact, I was just at a fisheries conference (virtual) two weeks ago and this exact subject came up by one of the presentees. It was a study done here in my home state, and again, results showed a few bass eaten, but more bluegill than bass, and as a group, sunfish were only about 20% or less of the otter diet versus 80% other miscellaneous fish species, so that result seems to be consistent. I'm sure if options are llimited, you could see a result where bass fared worse, but in general, that doesn't seem to be the norm.

Im hoping you’re right. In my lake the bluegill population is the best it's been in years so... 

[Bird]

It's the Loons in our local lake.......they catch more and better quality fish then I do, I've witnessed it.

Never saw a Loon throw a fish back either. 

[Bluebasser86]

A pond I use to fish got wiped out by a family of 6 otters. They showed up one night (the owner assumes by a creek that runs into the pond), and wiped the pond out in 1 summer. The banks were littered with chewed fish carcasses and scales. The bass that were left were much skinnier than normal, I assume because their prey was scarce. Thankfully, the otters left as suddenly as they appeared and hopefully the pond will come back. In a big body of water, there's no way they're hurting anything though. I do avoid areas I see them in though as I'm sure the bass don't try to hang around where they're actively hunting at.

[the reel ess]

11 hours ago, Bird said:

It's the Loons in our local lake.......they catch more and better quality fish then I do, I've witnessed it.

Never saw a Loon throw a fish back either. 

We have cormorants in our local watershed. There are 2 residents, maybe mates, and 3 others that come and go. One of the two residents has suffered some kind of injury where it can't fly. It still tries, but fails. The other stays with it. But when the other 3 are present the healthy resident flies around the lake with them. Interesting little social network they have. They're usually sitting in a pine laydown and as I approach, they hop into the water like a bowling ball. A cormorant doesn't need to fly to eat, so it seems to be doing fine. And I haven't noticed any differences in fish populations.

[TnRiver46]

I’m suffering from severe deja vu reading this 

 

the best fishing spot near my house is loaded with otters, usually 8 of them 

[bulldog1935]

then there's feral nutria, imported from South America - they have no natural predators here, and can severely deplete fish populations. 

[the reel ess]

1 hour ago, TnRiver46 said:

I’m suffering from severe deja vu reading this 

 

the best fishing spot near my house is loaded with otters, usually 8 of them 

See what you can do to get them removed.

[Bankc]

I'd just move on.  Otters usually have strict laws regarding hunting and trapping.  And even if you do get a permit, they often have very small limits, which means you probably won't be able to solve your problem.  Plus, on top of that, the damage appears to be already done.  I'd move on, wait for the otters to clear it out and move on too, and then wait for the pond to recover.  

 

You might be able to call the state and see if they have an otter relocation program.  A lot of states do, where they'll send someone out to trap and relocate them.  Or if you're dead set on doing it yourself, be sure to check out the local laws and get all of necessary permits first.  You can get into a LOT of trouble if you're not careful.  

[TnRiver46]

2 minutes ago, the reel ess said:

See what you can do to get them removed.

Well it’s on the French broad river so they don’t hurt anything. I’m extensively trained in removing them haha, they’ve been there since the late 90s. And before white people, they were there for a few thousand years I reckon 

[N Florida Mike]

15 hours ago, Bluebasser86 said:

The banks were littered with chewed fish carcasses and scales.

I haven’t seen one dead fish in a long time...