otter on the ouse

[rapes]

fished the last yorkshire winter league on sunday at hunters/linton/widdy/thorpe. bit of a dour affair but in deffence river slightly out of sorts a foot of snowy water and freezing cold. one bream 1st one bream 2nd 4lb of roach third a few bites for the lucky ones and quite a lot of blanks. but more worrying was our new resident fish eating machine (or two?) an otter. this was spotted all the way from the willowgarth down to 240s at linton and seen eating fish on at least 3 different occasions and at one point had a go at a fish in dave pollits keepnet. and whatever fish we didnt see it eat all in a short space of time. now u dont have to be genius to work out how many this is in a week/month/year? (im sure somebody will) but the question is can an already hard fishery handle this sort of pressure on top of mink/cormorants/gooseanders e.t.c
or is this the last straw

[d crockett]

hi steve tony duvet told me theres plenty off fish in the ouse so one otter shouldnt make alot of difference its the cormorants that do all the damage ps a otter was spotted on the selby canal last week

[frim]

Crocket, Its all been said before by people like Duvet, what chance do we have when anglers like him only see the fluffy side.
We have had more than half a doz reports this week about a couple of otters feeding through hunters to linton, yet no reports in the months before so it would be a good guess that we have had them given by someone wanting to save the earth, maybe not but read anything about otter movements and territoriality would suggest they have not just moved house! particularly the point of one of them being a large dog. The horror stories from places like the Gt Ouse, Wensum and Kennet shouldn't be swept under the carpet, we might not have record size barbel to lose but any fish eaten is one less to be caught by the angler.
Imagine if otters ate swans and they turned up at Fairburn Ings, the rspb would have them in bin bags without a second thought,
if they colonise naturally we have to live with it, but if they come in a taxi then we should be able to protect what we have from them.
The post was started by Rapes, someone i know has fished the river for 40yrs and if he has a concern then i would listen to him in front of Duvet.

[chubman]

There is mating pair living around the weir at Linton. I have seen them downstream over the past two or three years. Their offspring have even been fed by the people living on the boats upstream of Linton lock. They may well have ventured upstream.

[kite]

They've been there for a number of seasons and are mainly nocturnal, which is why few ever see them. Probably the case that the harsh weather has made them show themselves in daylight. Should be far more worried about the seals that follow the salmon runs.

[kpkh]

Fished selby canal about a month ago and saw what I thaught was a light coloured mink! Haven't seen an otter in the wild but thaught they wer larger than a mink.
Kites right about the seals but anything eating large numbers of fish is bad news

[banjoman]

A pal of mine was certain he had seen one below Willowgarth about 18 months ago but it was a quiet day.They've probably been around for a while now and as has been said they are now having to feed during day due to weather conditions.

[Dee]

WHY WORRY MORE ABOUT SEALS

[kpkh]

They eat more fish!

[sceptic angler]

not sure about that one kpkh
1 seal couple of months= ?
family of otters 12months= ?

[kpkh]

All I'm saying is seals seem to do more damage quicker! They stay in the river system for longer now but they will do when Thera hardly any fish left In the sea. Like I said before it's more bad news for our rivers

[glynnjenno]

I agree with kpkh, there have been five or six seals on the river Hull for most of the past year killing any fishing there was, just as the Hull, was showing signs of becoming a good running water fishery.
check out the river hull forum on yorkshirefishing.net for more info.
thanks,
Glynn

[stanfish]

hi guys,i spent a day in the willow garth on sunday,the highlight of which was the otter coming to see me,it sat in the willow diving among the branches and caught the same as me,nowt.
it was a big animal 3ft long at a guess,how long its been around i do not know but it was not there last year and it not get to 3ft overnight,but we can live with a otter that uses 3 miles of river,its a predator just like a big pike,top of the food chain,it will soon starve to death if it stays round the willow garth though,the biggest problem is the cormorants,because the lakes are all frozen they are all on the rivers,it may well take some time for them to recover from the onslaught they are now receiving,the bad weather keeps the anglers off and the birds, many of which come over from Scandinavia during the winter rape and pillage our waters befor returning home in the spring,it needs all anglers ,not just me to harp on about this,so lets get on to the powers that be .natural england. go on their web site and tell them whats happening,dont just leave it to me.stan..

[mr knowbody]

Feb 3, 2010 10:42:45 GMT stanfish said:

hi guys,i spent a day in the willow garth on sunday,the highlight of which was the otter coming to see me,it sat in the willow diving among the branches and caught the same as me,nowt.
it was a big animal 3ft long at a guess,how long its been around i do not know but it was not there last year and it not get to 3ft overnight,but we can live with a otter that uses 3 miles of river,its a predator just like a big pike,top of the food chain,it will soon starve to death if it stays round the willow garth though,the [glow=red,2,300]biggest problem is the cormorants,[/glow]because the lakes are all frozen they are all on the rivers,it may well take some time for them to recover from the onslaught they are now receiving,the bad weather keeps the anglers off and the birds, many of which come over from Scandinavia during the winter rape and pillage our waters befor returning home in the spring,it needs all anglers ,not just me to harp on about this,so lets get on to the powers that be .natural england. go on their web site and tell them whats happening,dont just leave it to me.stan..

Nail on head.

Think of them as a flying otter, but they like there own company and have the power to move on mass (over vast distance) to the best feeding holes. They probably follow the most well fed colony members out on a day's fishing, (just guesing on that one, but they are social? ) once the fishing gets difficult after a water is striped, they move on. A bit like a good pike angler........ They are far cleverer than fish, thats why they win.

They also have the backing off the RSPB and the fluffy stuff lovers.

I don't recon we can win unless we start to love the native birds that are losing out because of them. The greeb will be first.