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fishing a central illinois lake sunday and catching a crappie every few minutes in a brush pipe near the surface,when up pops a otter with a crappie in his mouth. he was about 2 feet from the side of my boat ,i dont know who was the most surprised but that was the last crappie i saw caught in that spot.first otter i have seen in central il.
Very cool, nature is allways full of suprises. And that otter has good taste in fish.:fingerdance
Monday marks the opening of river otter trapping season in Illinois. For the first time since 1929, trappers will be allowed to trade otter pelts, the most valuable of any animal in Illinois. I read where the state estimates there are between 15,000 to 20,000 otters living in Illinois lakes, ponds, rivers, and streams.
I have seen otters in Evergreen Lake this time of year for the past 4 years. It only seems to be around this time of year for some reason.
I saw one two evenings ago at Bo Wood. I'd never seen one around here. Maybe I'm just not as observant as I thought.
I see them on a regular basis. Behind my house on the Kaskaskia River.
Ive been ice fishing a tree coming off the bank once a few years back when all of the sudden the crappie stopped biting completely after i had been catching the heck out of them. A little while later you could hear something under the bank that turned out to be an otter. Never did catch any crappie out of that spot the rest of the ice season!
Neat Stories! :)
Dan
Fifteen or so years ago I was fishing a laydown on the Kaskaskia River. It was a large tree with a huge rootwad about half submerged below the surface. I had been standing on top of the wad for a short time when I heard what I thought were puppies whimpering. After several minutes I discovered I was standing on the roof of a beaver's home and what I heard was some beaver kits protected by a very agitated mama. Needless to say, I quickly departed my perch and put some distance between me and mama.
We have them at highland, on both lakes. Did a lot of damage on the old lake.
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.
Good stories. Had a big OLe Beaver hiss at me once.
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.