I beaver trapped on a lake a week ago. In 2 checks while just targeting beaver it was easily noticeable that every beaver house I found had tons of otter sign tracks and scat new old and in between. Whats the relation of otter hanging so close to active beaver houses? No ice on the lake, beaver houses are not a high point in these locations either.

Otters go in and out just looking for food, you can catch otter like that, I caught one in a conibear in one of the runs going to the lodge.

Muskrats live in beaver houses.
Otters eat muskrats.

It really looked like they were taking shelter inside what I would call like the upper portion of the beaver house. They had some real slick worn down paths going into holes in the top of the beaver house on 4 of the 6. I feel that otter dont really have a "home" but this lake has a beaver house in about every cove im wondering if they take shelter in them when they come thru that area.

Yes, otter will shelter in beaver houses, especially old abandoned ones where often muskrats also reside.

I once read a study that used telemetry on some collared otter. Over the course of several months an average otter had something like 60-70 different resting places on their circuit which included lodges, log jams, bank dens, overhangs, brush patches, you name it.

Guys I am a rookie otter trapper have only caught two in my life...we just don't have them in numbers here. BUT have caught my share of beaver I see a lot of fish hanging inside these Lodge and bank den holes...big bass especially. Otter food!

Boco X10, we have a lot of otter and no trapping them, they are dangerous to release = becareful!!!. Our rats in the lake near my house has almost no rats anymore. Up in the "muck" where I used to trap a lot of rats I have lost many traps to otter that have taken the rat and the trap, now I have to tie them to something big to not loose the trap. The houses there will have a 6 inch diameter hole through the side where an otter dug into it chasing the rats out to his buddys, they travel in
a group of 6 adult otter there. I have many photo of them. And as to fish it appears to me that they prefer trout or atleast I find a lot of trout half way eaten in trout stocked streams and yes they do hang them up like trophies in selected spots......jk

If you found beavers - you found the otter. I have taken numerous otters in castor mound sets- super inquisitive. Look for dam and check dam crossovers, great places to set if legal in your area.

Oh yes definitely have picked up otter in castor sets. Coincidence or not all of which was caught using Dobbins Backbreaker. I know the fish like to hang in the beaver houses but this season our corps of engineers decided to drop the lake 3ft this fall which made all beaver runs almost too easy theres no fish there or I could literally see them. I dont know thanks for the intel. Thats a pretty bad (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman) picture up there. I cram as many 330s as I can in my otter specific locations hoping one day I can come back to check and have 4 or 5 in one check. But most I ever had was 2 lol

Down Is SC I watched a family of otters kill and eat about 20 some pond sliders. They would dive down catch one then eat off the legs and head and go get some more.
The best I did was 82 otter In a 2 month period.And that's when they were bringing around a average of $100.00.

Kill every otter !

'God's Law' supersedes the DNR