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Otters again

Declan Doherty said:
They eat everything, then move on in search of food to gravel pits, farm ponds etc., until they range so far and wide they get run over crossing the road. ..
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Should sort itself out soon then. :)


Otters are terretorial, you make it sound as if there are herds of them ravaging the countryside Declan.

As for raiding the commercials, good luck to them, we shouldnt have created such overstocked holes in the ground in the first place.


Colin,
The only river I have direct experience of decline is the H Avon, for 20 odd years I ventured down to Christchurch and sampled the joys of it and the Stour. The floods of 2000 saw a massive change down there I think and today they are different rivers to what they once were, though getting better again I understand.
All, and I mean all, my local rivers are better today than they ever were in my lifetime.
 
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Tony Rocca said:
Sounds terrible Colin.

To my mind it has nowt to do with Otters though.
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I agree otters are not the main factor but what sort of half witted imbecilic buffoon would consider a re-introduction of an apex predator into such an environment, errrrm, EUREKA an EA/NE executive attempting to justify their waste of public funding salary!!
 
Im sure there were some stupid introductions Colin, dont despair though, the rivers will come back........ maybe.

Im more worried about the effects of crayfish to be honest. Saw one on the Trent about 5 years ago but never another...... yet.
 
Probably posted this before but, 3 dead otter were found on one section of my clubs water on the river Wear recently and I've also had reports of them being seen on the A1(M) road side sneer to the Wear. Nothumbria now has more road kill otters than it does dogs or rabbits.

A few years back now FOUR pairs (otters not rabbits) were introduced onto the banks of the Wear between Durham City and Chester le Street. Check the distance out on Google, if thats not insane I'll win the 100 mtrs in London Olympics 2012.

Apparently the number of otter reflects the health of our rivers; problem is the big specimen fish now being lost to these 'cute' animals take many many years to reach their current size/weights, very very soon at the rate the otters breed and mature they will eat themselves out of 'natural' food. No eels to rely on and the cormorants are taking much of the small stock fish.
 
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Tony Rocca said:
Im sure there were some stupid introductions Colin, dont despair though, the rivers will come back........ maybe.

Im more worried about the effects of crayfish to be honest. Saw one on the Trent about 5 years ago but never another...... yet.
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Ditto, they're far more of a long term issue than otters, interestingly I am reliably informed that yanky crays have been in the Soar for over 15 years, it could be that the soil type of the Trent doesn't suit their need to make burrows?
Because this can be seen around here, a pit next to the river has no crays, yet the river is plagued and the next pit further from the river is equally infested as the river.
 
I fish the tees where its been hamered on a free streach for 30 years for barbel and they were always there, up untill six years ago when we started seeing otters, the barbel catches got less and less, and now you carn't even catch one, it has got to have something to do with otters. Six years ago I had fifty barbel off the tees, and now I only caught five this season off the hole of the river, I fished lots of different stretches to get them most lads who fish the tees have only had one or none . danny
 
Colin Gordon said:
Barbel nearly all gone, roach, dace, gudgeon, minnows in serious decline, on a plus (ecologically speaking, cos I detest the little buggers) perch seem as numerous as ever and chub though very much less abundant are bigger than they've probably ever been or ever will be.
Admittedly bream are in some areas making a bit of a boom, sadly other areas they're also in decline.

This picture is repeated on the Evenlode and Thames, if it wasn't for the carp I'd never go near the Thames and they shouldn't even be in the river, invasive alien species that somehow the EA now accept as being 'almost' indigenous, why, well stick a couple 20lb+ carp in a stretch of river and hey presto the bio-mass is sky high and probably for a sustained period due to the longevity of carp.
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Hmm... And I thought otters 'ravaged' rivers of all its fish, turning them into barren wastelands!
Turns out they're just picky about what they eat, barbel, roach, dace, gudgeon and..... minnows!? are they like otter 'chips'? Which leaves the perch, bream, carp and big chub to thrive, seemingly.

Did someone mention evolution earlier?: 'There is a reason why these creatures died out, it is called evolution'
As horribly misguided as this statement is, its not far from the truth. The evolution of human society, population growth, greed, selfish 'wants' etc etc, is why they 'died out', its also why certain rivers can no longer support eels, otters, barbel anglers, canoeists, do-gooders, evil shrimp, bloody foreigners..wah wah wah

I wonder how long it'll be before evolution does us all a favour and lets us all 'die out'!

Well I went fishing today and the only thing that got me 'hopping mad' was the presence of other human idiots:)
 
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although i 'think' i understand the otter problem, i am one of those who sit there whilst waiting for a bite scanning the river for wildlife. i even carry a small set of bins. to help me spot them, & when i do see (albeit not very often) do get to see an otter i enjoy it for i feel lucky enough to be able to do so. there are many a person never even seen a buzzard, dipper, kingfisher etc.
i will even ask visiting anglers to the area if they have seen an otter.
just to finish quickly, isn't an otter a sign of a clean & healthy river...(genuine question not sarcastic)
 
random otter thoughts

I don't really have a point or argument to put across here, just a few observations . I have just googled , '' what do river otters eat '' . Answer :, eels , slow moving fish , crabs and other crustaceans , wildfowl , rodents , voles , rabbits ... Clearly the otter has catholic tastes . Slowest fish in the river ? It's got to be the bream , abramis abramis in terminal decline? nope .The otter could also be our saviour and rid us of all those nasty signal cray fish and mitten crabs . I remember reading somewhere that the barbel was the 2nd most rapid swimming UK fish only dogged by the salmon , and yet the Otters seem to have a taste for them , perhaps they like a challenge ?

To an extent we anglers see what we want to see , what is perceived to threaten our own niche interest .Otters are here to stay , full stop, there is nothing we can do about it , Pest or not we will just have to wait and hope things will balance out. All this huff and puff about doing something about them is pointless , NEVER will we see the sanctioning of otter culls .
 
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I see where you are coming from Neil and i also do the same as you with the bins and yes its a sign of our cleaner rivers but sadly they eat all the fish stocks within the rivers:mad:
 
Rhys Perry said:
Hmm... And I thought otters 'ravaged' rivers of all its fish, turning them into barren wastelands!
Turns out they're just picky about what they eat, barbel, roach, dace, gudgeon and..... minnows!? are they like otter 'chips'? Which leaves the perch, bream, carp and big chub to thrive, seemingly.

Did someone mention evolution earlier?: 'There is a reason why these creatures died out, it is called evolution'
As horribly misguided as this statement is, its not far from the truth. The evolution of human society, population growth, greed, selfish 'wants' etc etc, is why they 'died out', its also why certain rivers can no longer support eels, otters, barbel anglers, canoeists, do-gooders, evil shrimp, bloody foreigners..wah wah wah

I wonder how long it'll be before evolution does us all a favour and lets us all 'die out'!

Well I went fishing today and the only thing that got me 'hopping mad' was the presence of other human idiots:)
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Before you start spouting on using quotes taken from my post, have the decency not to deliberately mis-quote me.
Did I suggest otters had predated all the silver fish from local rivers, errr, NO!
 
Colin Gordon said:
Tony, at the risk of being accused of scare mongering or romancing over former glory days.

As a teenager (20+ years ago), if I were to go on the Cherwell with half a pint of maggots and trot a float along any glide, I'd expect to catch roach and/or dace, once a few were caught move on and in a few hours have accumulated 10 - 15lb of fish.
Now the first big challenge would be to find a dace, any dace, Christ even the adjacent Oxford canal had huge shoals of roach and dace, albeit they were small fish, now all gone!

Barbel were never really that widespread or numerous even in their perceived hey day, now I doubt there are even 30 adults in the whole river.

Barbel nearly all gone, roach, dace, gudgeon, minnows in serious decline, on a plus (ecologically speaking, cos I detest the little buggers) perch seem as numerous as ever and chub though very much less abundant are bigger than they've probably ever been or ever will be.
Admittedly bream are in some areas making a bit of a boom, sadly other areas they're also in decline.

This picture is repeated on the Evenlode and Thames, if it wasn't for the carp I'd never go near the Thames and they shouldn't even be in the river, invasive alien species that somehow the EA now accept as being 'almost' indigenous, why, well stick a couple 20lb+ carp in a stretch of river and hey presto the bio-mass is sky high and probably for a sustained period due to the longevity of carp.

The thing I just continually fail to fathom out is why on earth do the EA year after year carry out bloody fish censuses, blatant waste of time money and effort, when clearly the info is unused.... No habitat improvements, no top-up stockings, no action what-so-ever and certainly the powers that decided upon the Thames valley's suitability for otter re-introductions never read through the census reports, either that or they are just simpletons!!


Oh well my preferred quarry is chub and I like em big, so......
Failing that catching tench and carp is enjoyable enough, I spose.
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Here you go Rhys, try reading it all instead of taking partial quotes to suit your arguement.
 
Re barbel being swift, yes they are, when they want to be. But when they are large, they have had no natural apex predators hunting them down, not lately anyway.
I have waded in shallows on the rivers Ouse and B. Avon, gently walking in the shallows with barbel at my feet and bent down to tickle these fish, they were not spooked at all, unless I made a sudden movement. An adult otter when hunting will use stealth and the element of surprise. It won't dash around mindlessly hoping to grab a quick meal. It'll drift along like a lump of drift wood, spy it's next meal and slink alongside it's prey and then strike.
There does seem to be a north-south divide here with this problem though.
 
Colin Gordon said:
Before you start spouting on using quotes taken from my post, have the decency not to deliberately mis-quote me.
Did I suggest otters had predated all the silver fish from local rivers, errr, NO!
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No Colin, you didn't, my apologies. Though it was a general spout at all of the otter bandwagon brigade, as I was just trying to highlight, that where as certain species had declined, others had increased, this is called, I believe, population cycle. Another 20 years and your teenage days could be back again! My other point, is where it may be true that some of those declining fish may have been taken by otters, I can't really see them taking minnows!
 
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Neil Partridge said:
although i 'think' i understand the otter problem, i am one of those who sit there whilst waiting for a bite scanning the river for wildlife. i even carry a small set of bins. to help me spot them, & when i do see (albeit not very often) do get to see an otter i enjoy it for i feel lucky enough to be able to do so. there are many a person never even seen a buzzard, dipper, kingfisher etc.
i will even ask visiting anglers to the area if they have seen an otter.
just to finish quickly, isn't an otter a sign of a clean & healthy river...(genuine question not sarcastic)
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Possible future post on Otter World; " lovely walk along the Thames today, saw 2 of these magnificent creatures and lucky enough to see a peregrine falcon and a pintail duck. Highlight of the day though, a huge swirl that somebody said was a barbel. How many people can claim to have seen one of those?"
I say this tounge in cheek as I agree otters are not the only problem facing our rivers, but as a barbel angler I lament their decline and don not find solace or compensation in the rest of nature around me. I enjoy it, but it's not why I go fishing.
 
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