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Posts: 1316
Location: Madison, WI | How often do you run into them?
We ran into a whole family up north a few weeks back. They were checking us out for about 5 minutes before they went back in the woods. It was pretty cool.
You can see a few swimming and a couple more on the fallen tree. Just wish I had a better camera on me, they never did let us get very close.
Edited by Magruter 10/2/2008 9:29 AM
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 otter family.jpg (112KB - 149 downloads)
otters.jpg (107KB - 148 downloads)
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Posts: 2082
| see them quite often on LOTW |
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Posts: 355
Location: Wausau, Wisconsin | The first morning of the WMT Championship there were five of them going between Malyuk and Bain growling at us, very entertaining. We them on the river every couple years. |
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Posts: 2515
Location: Waukesha & Land O Lakes, WI | I snagged or one swiped at a topwater about 6 years ago. It was hooked in the paw and was literally screaming, alot like a baby. I had people looking at my boat like I was beating a child or something. One guy came over and held the rod while I netted it. Once in the net, there was no way it was going to let me touch it. So I took the rod back, my helper held the net while I shook him off. Thing bled all over the inside and outside of the boat, but we got him/her free.
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Posts: 134
Location: (South of the 218) | Funny this was brought up - I just ran into a "swarm" of them here the other day. (Sunday morning) They were kicking out some serious wake and heading right for the boat on a very foggy morning. It took me a minute to register what was happening. Honestly - just cruising right for us and then I had to go and screw it all up by throwing a TopRaider after an active fish. The fish never came back and neither did the otters.
Haven't seen many in Central MN - but we've got them.
Out |
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Posts: 280
Location: McFarland | Seen them up on the Turtle Flowage a couple of times a few years back. |
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Posts: 153
Location: Storm Lake, IA | This didn't happen to have occured on the Chip? |
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Posts: 785
| I see them a few times a year while out duck hunting in Iowa. They used to be extremely rare around here but are becoming more common all the time. Seen them in North and South Iowa last year. |
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Posts: 3918
| There's a family that lives on upper Paint Pond in the Yoop. I would hit the water real early, 4:30am or so, and they would almost always either be there or show up. Great fun to watch them play; the young ones had a mud slide down a small bluff into the water. True scamps, those young ones. The parents would sit nearby on timber in the water, crunching on fish while keeping one eye on me and the other on the kids. I always fished alone so my boat was quiet. It seemed that the parents decided I was safe because, after many encounters, they let me get pretty close to them. But if a new boat showed up, or if I had someone with me, the otters moved away immediatly and were gone for the rest of the day. |
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Posts: 1184
Location: Iowa Great Lakes | Seen my first one this spring on Clear Lake (Iowa) of all places. Knew we had them just never had a chance to see one. |
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Posts: 4266
| Used to see them up on Long Lake in Vilas County.
They are not very shy, in fact, they followed us around. All the while they were diving down and coming up crunching nice juicy crawfish. You could hear the crunching and their lips smacking. It was cool.
Beav |
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Posts: 2515
Location: Waukesha & Land O Lakes, WI | Otters and Loons are two very curious creatures. Loons are a very very good indicator of where baitfish are, especially on shallow lakes.
Edited by Gander Mt Guide 10/2/2008 2:41 PM
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Posts: 36
Location: Blaine, MN | Just got back from Lac Seul and saw on otter. Snorted at us for awhile. We kept our distance and he/she kept theirs long enough to get some good close-ups. I see them at our cabin, just outside of Garrison, always in the fall. Don't know why. Maybe 'cause of the low boat traffic. Very fun to watch.
[IMG]http://i534.photobucket.com/albums/ee348/larepie/Resizedotter.jpg[/IMG]
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Posts: 36
Location: Blaine, MN | Oops, here is the pic
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Posts: 1530
| while moose hunting up north . on my stand i watched an otter and a beaver battle. till this day i have never heard those curdling scvreams from those 2 again. otters are easy to find on ontario lakes. look for slides and clam shells in a pile. |
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Posts: 743
| Ah by far my favorite animal. If there is such a thing as reincarnation,I want to come back as an otter. They really enjoy life. Pretty much see them every year someplace or another. A few years back we were sitting in a duck blind on Shawano and several of them were fishing in front of us. They would dive down and come up with a bluegill. They'd eat it right in front of us, crunch ,crunch ,crunch. A couple of years ago I was up in Minaki with my daughter and a family was hanging around the dock. The dock was on large styrofoam blocks. They would dive down ,get whatever they were eating and climb on the blocks to dine. We were on our hands and knees looking between the dock planks watching them eat. Literally just a few inches away. |
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Posts: 906
Location: Warroad, Mn | Cool cridders! Saw a group of seven today! Fairly common on the LOTWs, but always a treat! Doug Johnson |
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Posts: 2865
Location: Brookfield, WI | Otter.
Kevin
Toga, toga, toga.
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Posts: 1291
Location: Stevens Point, Wi. | Had this guy swim around the boat several times, begging for food.
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| Otters are cool. |
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Posts: 2515
Location: Waukesha & Land O Lakes, WI | +1 to the Guest
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otter.jpg (45KB - 142 downloads)
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| Cool but dumb? |
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| my wife and i watched a small family swimming around near us in the Presque Isle area this weekend. it's ironic because i'd only seen otters a few times before in the wild, and the weekend after this thread started we saw some.
our wildlife list on Saturday alone included: muskies, otters, eagles, loons, deer (incl. a nice buck), a fox, and a kingfisher. can we count "wild river suckers"? and does Howie Meyer count as wildlife? 
the northwoods is cool.
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Posts: 3518
Location: north central wisconsin | The coolest River Otter story though was when my buddy clark had one nail his shiner on Nepco lake here about 10 years ago while ice fishing. We thought he had Piketh Goliatha on for sure. Heck he got tired of the thing screaming line through his hands so I even fought the thing for awhile. We started to wonder just what we had on, till it came up for air a few times, and pushed itself back down just to take another big run. They just don't tire. Luckily it was just barely hooked on the side of the mouth and was easily freed. She was pretty big and wasn't going to fit up through the hole anyhow.
Growing up, we'd see them frequently on Pioneer lake/Pioneer creek when up at my parents trailer in the waste of real estate that is Maple View Resort. They were always fun to watch. Definately see them more often in some type of situation with flow or flow nearby(hence the name River Otter I suppose ehh?). One cool thing was seeing the sea Otters in AK a number times, chasing fish into the tribs with the tides. They were very neat, though looked like they could get nasty too.
Edited by Reef Hawg 10/5/2008 7:58 PM
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Location: 31 | I used to like otters a lot more before they attacked a couple of releases. I'm assuming that most of these otter encounters are coming while you're muskie fishing. FYI, be warned that they will try to kill and eat fish that linger on the surface.
I had two encounters with otters trying to kill them on Lake of the Woods back in the 1980s. One was a 48 inch that was released in a shallow bay in 1988, so even a larger size doesn't seem to matter... at least with this otter it didn't. I'm pretty sure both muskies managed to get away, it would've been hard to watch an otter eat a near 30 pounder that was just-released.
Otherwise I think they're pretty cool too. |
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Posts: 1906
Location: Oconto Falls, WI | I see a group of three quite a bit on a lake I fish. Sure they are cool to see, but I’d rather not. Fishing usually sucks when they are around, and they sure make a racket! It sucks because I usually find them in one of the best spots of the lake. Not only a good area for muskies I guess! Another interesting note is I really don’t see them much in the summer, but more in the fall. I also usually see them along shorelines like Magruter showed in his picture. In fact it almost looks like the same lake! I’m sure it’s not though. |
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| Ran into a couple of them last year up in Mercer WI. Put 3 suckers in a wire fish basket off the pier and when I came down in the morning 2 were gone and 1/2 of one floating in the basket. Up pops 2 otter heads about 30 ft off the pier---They were watching me because I obviously spoiled the meal of the last sucker. $3.00 or so per sucker I was mad --but had to laugh-- they saw an easy meal and took it--- Rest of the trip the suckers spent the night in the boat livewell.. |
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