Raymond England Trapping Otters - January 2025

Well to say the least I was very blessed yesterday on my trapline. I caught not one but two otters. I have been wanting to catch an otter for a couple years and it payed off yesterday.

Ok. Let me back up and tell the story right. It all starred with less than a week left of the fur bearer season. A buddy showed me some game cam pics of some critters in a creek he wasn't sure what they were. I told him they were otters. He said come and trap them. There wasn't enough days left in the season so I told him I'd come back next season. Well they had moved on out of the area I had determined the next year while scouting.

In November of 2023 I was hospitalized with an infection in my left lung and had major surgery. I spent 10 days in ICU after surgery. I came home with IV antibiotics for 6 weeks had went from weighing 145 pounds to 127 pounds and weak as a pup. By the second week of December I was about to go stir crazy with cabin fever. I decided to go and set me 3-4 traps and get out of the house or finish going crazy. Those few traps were about all the energy I had to check them. I eventually built my strength back up and ended up running 35 traps.

It was like the first week of February I see otter sign that appeared over night. I scouted up and down the creek for more sign,formed a game plan and set some traps footholds on land in and around one of their toilets and 1 or 2 water sets. Well I caught a couple raccoons a coyote or two and a bobcat in the footholds but no otter. I revised my plan and was fixing to set 6-7 more water set including some pocket sets and conibares in the creek. I knew if I saturated the area I might get lucky and get a catch before season end in 3 weeks. Well my wife went into hospital with 2 weeks left of the 2023-2024 season. I had cut my season short and pull my traps and take care of her. Not catching any of the otters that were there or passing thru. My wife got out of the hospital a couple days later and is well.

Mid way thru 2024-2925 fur bearers season I finally found some faint sign of the ottersusing this creek. I had previously caught 2 beavers on it and thought there were a couple more working and area I had caught them at in previous years. So I set two drowner rigs with castor mound and 3 Belile 330's in dive sets down the creek from the drowners. A two day soak netted me the two beavers I thought were still in there. I reset the 330's hoping that maybe I'd catch an otter. Well almost a week passed and on yesterday's check I walked up to my first dive set and there it was a female otter suitcased. It took me a second or two to realize that it was indeed an otter in my trap. I was excited to say the least. I was actually really excited I had already caught a nice big Tom bobcat and a decent female coyote. I had 8 more traps to check. So I retrieved and secured the otter on my four wheeler and went back to checking. I had nothing in the rest of the traps further down the line. So I had rode by my two drowners on the other side of the creek earlier and could see one trap had not been disturbed,the other I was not sure of so as I was headed back to the truck with my coyote,bobcat and elusive otter. I swung by the drowner I was unsure of to get a closer look. As I walked up and over a sand bar I seen the second otter under the ice with a front foot catch in a TS-85. Man I was really excited ! I knew it was going to take a little bit of work to get it out of the water due to the ice freezing my stake and rod to the ground and ice in the creek. Plus I also knew the water depth there was about 3" deeper than the height of my Muck boots. I didn't want to swamp my boot or boots getting it out. I was doing well keeping my socks dry until I went to pull my stake free of the mud bank and ,yep my footing slipped and sure enough I swamped my boot and filled it with 32° water. Well now I didn't have to worry about keeping my sock dry so I yanked the rod and got the otter and rod up on the bank. I got my boot off dumped the water out and slipped my cold wet foot back in my boot. I released the otter from the jaws of that massive trap secured it in the basket on my 4 wheeler and headed to the truck and heater. I was so blessed and so humbled to catch 2 otter in 1 day. This will be my fourth year trapping. I wish I'd started 20 years ago. I'm sending off the matching set of otters to be tanned and will hang them on the wall.