Cats and Otters

[The River Rat]

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[The River Rat]

This is part of my land based direction. Called in a couple cats during our short season here in VT, the anomaly here in this picture is all the otters. Where did they come from, the blonde beaver?

[Gecha (Gerry)]

Nice color on the skins.

[Reelax]

So that is what a state record otter harvest looks like? Can’t imagine what that otter population explosion would have done without some population control… Theresa will always cherish the tanned otter hide you gave her last week when you came up to stay and fish… I have never felt such soft plush fur, didn’t otters were so big!

My favorite pic was one of the cat with your winter calling gear on. Amazing how big an adult bobcat can get…. no wonder folks mistake them for a mountain lion in low light…. Thanks for sharing your special skills. Those pics are a couple reasons why we call ya the Wolverine!!!

[The River Rat]

Yeah Matty that was a beast, he was rite at 50#s. The blonde beaver is only the second 1 I've personally seen in my 40+yrs on a trap line. There's 27 otters there putting the old single season harvest record number of 19 down by a good bit. The idea of my season this winter was "how not to catch beavers!" Still ended up with over 40 beavers plus 30 some odd muskrat. Also did over 60 beavers damage trapping. All this minus the damage beavers I did from Valintines day till the last week of March! 6 weeks, the season is 5 months.... image the numbers if I could've trapped the whole season!

[Crayfish]

Hell of a haul there, Andy! Congrats! I wish I still had my traps. I sold them all when I got out of college, because "the writing was on the wall that trapping was going to be banned". Here we are 39yrs later and it is still alive and well!