Otters

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Arkle said:
Watching last night's Natural World about them. They're wonderful, wonderful animals as, to be fair, are most of the mustelids...
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Just catching up with this. Bloody great.
 
Saw my first Thames Otter whilst fishing Saturday evening.
As you can imagine no bites ensued.

Like a labradors head coming out of the water for a few seconds over a gravel bar and streamer weed. I guess we have to accept that they have been reintroduced but fishing catches will continue to fall.
No Barbel or decent Chub thus season.
They are now widespread throughout most U.K. rivers.
When food supply becomes scarce they will look in land and no doubt find their way into commercial fisheries.
Interesting to see if numbers get out of hand and like with Cormorants licences are now provided to keep the numbers down.
 
Arkle said:
Watching last night's Natural World about them. They're wonderful, wonderful animals as, to be fair, are most of the mustelids...
Click to expand...

Can't believe you posted this and I just posted a separate thread :)

Arkle said:
Give over, otters were here before men learned to fish and should be here long after...
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Hang on though the balance of nature is no longer the same.
Add Mink, Cormorants, Signal Crayfish, Eastern Europeans and that's 4 additional pressures on fish stocks.
Two small rivers down here the Cherwell and Windrush are virtually empty of decent fish.
 
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To be fair, you saw actual otters, not TV otters.

One of the highlights of my life was seeing giant otters on the Rio Negre (Amazon tributary). They were the size of labradors, pretty much.
 
Swindon On Tour said:
Hang on though the balance of nature is no longer the same.
Add Mink, Cormorants, Signal Crayfish, Eastern Europeans and that's 4 additional pressures on fish stocks.
Two small rivers down here the Cherwell and Windrush are virtually empty of decent fish.
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That's true but a couple of them especially (probably all four) can't be blamed on otters doing what they normally would do given a healthy river. Otters won't live where there are no fish anyway.
 
Arkle said:
To be fair, you saw actual otters, not TV otters.

One of the highlights of my life was seeing giant otters on the Rio Negre (Amazon tributary). They were the size of labradors, pretty much.
Click to expand...

As a keen fisherman and a member of a fantastic water I was devastated.
3 sessions this season with one fish.
Last season one session I caught 11 Chub all over 5lb with a monster of 7lb 4oz.
Maybe jumping to conclusions but it is not good.
The stretch is perfect for spawning and this could have a disastrous long term effect. Sadly they won't just feed on the crayfish, no natural food which are eels thus my Barbel fishing is not looking good.
 
I'd never seen an Otter until a couple of weeks ago when I saw 3 together at RSPB Leighton Moss in Lancs. A mum and two cubs Amazing :)
 
yorkyexile said:
Oh aye wonderful creatures. When theres no fish left the idiots who thought it was a good idea to release them here there and every where will realise why they were wiped out in the first place
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:) writes a human... many of whom have wiped out entire sea populations of fish (not to mention countless other species of animal and plant onland).
 
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