Otter Articles

[smelly tencher]

Hi guys has anyone checked out this months Coarse angling today some very sad pictures of half eaten Barbel. Not good for the future of angling!!!

[sid77]

the damage caused by otters is devastating,ive come across remains of big carp on the banks many times but its a site that greets us more regulary as time goes on thanks to the sudden growth of the otter.

i do like otters,they are a very friendly and playfull animal but something has to be done about the demise of our valuable fish such as carp and barbel,it's causing havok.
the thing with otters is,they generally chase small fish for food but in winter months when carp are inactive they find it easy to take a carp of 30 lbs no problem.
and otters need to eat approximately 8 0z of fish per hour and you will normally find them in pairs,thats alot of fish per day and if you work it out thats around 70 lbs of fish a pair need to survive a month,but they kill alot more in weight than that,you can probably at least double or even treble the amount easily,even more during winter when they take bigger carp.

this cant go on for the sake of our sport,something needs to be done.

[smelly tencher]

In the article Barbel of 18-19lb have been ripped apart or have just had one bite taken out. You can just about fence off a stillwater fishery but a whole river?

[paddy2k7_red4life]

it is a shame to hear about such big fish being ripped apart

[sid77]

Originally Posted by smelly tencher

In the article Barbel of 18-19lb have been ripped apart or have just had one bite taken out. You can just about fence off a stillwater fishery but a whole river?

thats the problem,and the river is the otters habitat so i dont think theres much that can be done,they were on the brink of extinction in the 60s but now they are thriving on our rivers but the argument is that otters are native to this country and carp are not(thats an article i read once,what a joke).

with no natural predator to the otter,they are at the very top of the food chain and there numbers will increase!

[sid77]

After doing some research on otters over the last couple of days ive become very concerned about the future of angling,they are doing alot more damage than i at first thought.

they are being released into the wild left,right and center and the people responsible for the reintroduction of otters have done no research at all on the consequences of reintroduction,they dont even know how many are out there.

i havent seen many down my way,one or two but that number will drastically increase.
i think the authorities should allow captures on otters to control the numbers,the cormorant and mink do enough damage as it is but nothing like the damage otters can do,imagine paying over a grand to fish a syndicate water only to find that the 55lb mirror you wanted to catch was dead!

the future of specimen angling looks very bleak indeed and what has the younger generation got to look forward to?

if we dont act now it will be too late and all that will be left is commercial fisheries,i for one never fish at these places,prefering rivers,canals and pits.

its taken many,many years for our fish to reach the weights that they are these days,and these weights may never be seen again by us or the future generation of anglers!

[Banana Steve]

We have an otter near our lake at crockerton, at the moment its staying in the river, and hopefully wont go near our lake, we will have to keep an eye open.

[geejayy]

Originally Posted by sid77

this cant go on for the sake of our sport,something needs to be done.

sorry m9 but i can't agree fully with that, if for our own purposes we artificially increase availiable prey by rearing and stocking watercourses & lakes obviously mother nature will try to redress the balence and an increase of predators is a natural consiquence.
i'd love to see a wild otter here in the uk, they're an indiginous specie but in 30 years of living and working on the river test i never saw a one.
despite makeing it my personal misson to try and eradicate the mink explosions when the damned anti fur brigade released them from the last of the fur farms.

[sid77]

geedavy,time will tell.

as much as i like to see an otter,i cant stand the thought of them eating big valuable fish,theres an article in the angling times i brought today about the subject,some very cheesed off anglers talking about it.

[smelly tencher]

The most alarming thing is that no warning, help, addvice or conciliation was given to the fisheries in the area. The clubs in charge have no doute spent money improving the fish stocks and the habitats that the fish require and therefore what the otters require. But they have been left out of the loop. If it wasn't for the clubs the fish stocks would be far lower not enough to support the otters. T