Okay in my limited experience, otter seem to be way easier than beaver to catch. Is this just a luck thing on my part, or does this jive with y'alls experience?

I'd argue the opposite unless you are really lucky and are in an area with a dense population of otters. I haven't found otters to be overly skeptical of a set necessarily. It seems to me like a gambling game. Will they be in the area you have your sets and will they move while there in the path of your traps while they are there? If you can control those two factors I'd say they become potentially easier than beaver to catch.

Certainly not my experience. Otters are quick learners and are experts at avoiding above water conibears. But if you got good crossovers or other good pinch points they can be fairly easy to catch.

On the other hand, for many many years I was convinced that there was no such thing as a trap shy beaver. I hadn't met one yet anyway.

Trap shy seems to be beaver's middle names on my line! Seems as if I'd have better luck with dynamite, but I'm not one to give up easily!

I dont find one any harder to trap than the other.
Once you learn their habits its pretty straightforward.
Biggest difference between catching beaver and catching otter is there are more beaver out there than there are otter,and beaver are basically a captive audience so to speak compared to otter.
One aspect of otter trapping that makes them easier to catch than beaver is once you identify key locations on your trapline they will produce otter year after year pretty much guaranteed.

For me beaver are easier to trap as they are right there.Otter travel and might be gone for weeks at a time.

To catch either of them in blind sets, it is location, location, location. If you have the good location, they can be caught as a general rule. But if you do not have the good pinch point location, beaver can generally be lured to a location and be caught.

Otter travel as stated above and IMO, are not lured as easily as beaver even it they stay in an area for a while. Otter are far less predictable than beaver IMO.

Beaver , more prevalent here.
I get my otter tags filled but it takes time

Boco is spot-on, in my experience.

Mine also.

I don't believe animals are TRAP SHY. I believe they are SET SHY.

2X

Me too.

I'll add that many times I've said the best otter set is a good beaver set. Not a castor mound, but any blind set for a beaver, spillway set in a dam, 330 in a channel, etc. will catch every otter that passes through. I also love setting otter toilets, but a spillway set on a dam (whether currently active or an old abandoned beaver dam) is as good as it gets for otter if there are any traveling the stream.

Thanks all great info! I set a gauntlet up today for beaver, if I don't catch at least one then I'm gonna have to disagree with all of ya!

Don't forget to look for dam cross overs either side of the main spilway, towards the shore, often used by otter.

Yes, where I grew up any crossover with even the slightest trickle at high water times was termed a spillway. I tend to forget that others call that a crossover, which is a term I never used. If I'm setting for otter I will set every crossover/spillway on a dam that I can put a drowning set on. Usually will also for beaver, unless I am dealing with a trapwise beaver and don't want to make much disturbance.

Actually here we are limited to three otter, so I don't always gang set as heavily as I do other places, because I've overcaught my limit in one check before.

In my area otter are not over abundant...well nothing is really. However, that being said, once the beaver are thinned down in and area you can start picking the otter up. If I'm just straight otter trapping, I tend to set different locations than if I'm beaver trapping. For instance the corners of beaver dams, the smaller trickles of water coming into a bigger creek, bottom edges, and off course their toilets. Beaver can be caught in a number of different sets regularly. From blind sets to castor mounds and other lured sets. Otter....not so much. For me to be consistent with otter it's straight blind setting 330's. To some degree I really think it's an equal race here. It's all in what you're going after and how you approach it.

Beaver trapping(all in 330's)....





Otter trapping (again all 330's).....