Last weekend while out on Clear Lake we saw a group of 4 or 5 large otters crossing the lake. My buddy then showed my a video of the otters messing around on the dock by his house. That's the first time I've seen otters on that lake.

My question is are otters common down on brackish water lakes down in the south? I thought otters were cold water animals ?

There are plenty of otters along the coast of Louisiana and Texas, as well as far inland. There numbers have increased since the heyday of trapping (fur sales) of the 1960s - 1980s) has all but ceased.

River otters. *******s came in and absolutely wrecked my fish in my pond in lumberton north of Beaumont.

Mine too. I also noticed a big decrease in the number of bullfrogs. Trapping has helped a lot. Luckily, there was only a small group of otters in the big bass pond and I think we've gotten most of them.

Yeah I should have put traps out. By the time I realized it was already to late. They had an absolute buffet. Pond full of 4-9 pound fish absolutely empty. They disappeared

RM76 said:

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There are plenty of otters along the coast of Louisiana and Texas, as well as far inland. There numbers have increased since the heyday of trapping (fur sales) of the 1960s - 1980s) has all but ceased.

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I've always heard this is the origin of cajuns. French trappers going after otters that lived in the bayous of LA and SE Texas.

So what do y'all do with the trapped kills, genuinely interested…

I did some work along the Neches River near Beaumont in the mid 90s and we regularly saw otters in the water right around the plant outfalls.

Saw one in Clear Lake Shores yesterday. They will flat rob your crab trap blind.

Stat Monitor Repairman said:

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RM76 said:

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There are plenty of otters along the coast of Louisiana and Texas, as well as far inland. There numbers have increased since the heyday of trapping (fur sales) of the 1960s - 1980s) has all but ceased.

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I've always heard this is the origin of cajuns. French trappers going after otters that lived in the bayous of LA and SE Texas.

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Long ago, the target for Louisiana trappers was muskrat, not enough otter to make a living from. SE Texas had places with lots of muskrats but nutria took over. I'd guess 'coon became the go to fur. You can catch muskrat by the dozens every day and skin one in only a couple of minutes. Otter are much harder to skin and far fewer in numbers and harder to catch. The money was in the numbers. Plus a lot of muskrats got eaten.

The origin of cajuns was the marshes and swamps of Louisiana afforded them a places to live in places which were remote, to exist more or less in isolation, to live off the land (and water), just like they were used to before they got kicked out of Arcadia (Nova Scotia, et al)

The Last Cobra Commander said:

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So what do y'all do with the trapped kills, genuinely interested…

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Most of the otters trapped now are caught because they are a nuisance, as most of the posters have alluded to. Furs from most furbearers are generally of no value now, particularly in southern states, or are of so little value it doesn't pay to skin them, so they are not trapped. I got a price list from a fur buyer this year and many of the species he had labeled "do not trap" because there was no market and he wasn't going to buy any of them. Quite a few coyote are still being trapped, not for the fur but for the deer.

In the 70s, I quit a job with a Big 8 accounting firm making a whopping $15,500 a year and trapped that winter and was making around $1,000 a week. Be hard pressed to make $1,000 now in the entire season!