Thread: otter competing for crappie

A friend of mine has a couple of small ponds (1-2 acres in size) near the La Moine river in Schuyler county and started seeing otters in the ponds a couple of years ago. He has seen as many as 5 otters at one time in one pond. It didn't take but about from spring to fall for them to totally clean out the two ponds. The first fish carcases they started finding on the pond banks were catfish, then the bass, bluegills and crappie. He had the state come and electroshock the ponds and they had no fish rise in either of them. When he heard of the open trapping season for otter, he immediately lined up a guy to start trapping them. I haven't heard if he has caught any yet. Another friend with ground a few miles away from that area was turkey hunting a couple of years ago, and had a large otter,(he said about 5 feet long) come loping through the woods and almost ran over his legs while sitting at the base of a tree. The otter must of been on the move because he said the closest water source was probably a 1/4 mile away. They must be really getting thick.

caught a 14 1/4" crappie on the otter brush pile today. he didn't eat them all. biggest crappie i have caught on this lake.