Otters are very predictable in their travel.
Have to be careful not to over trap a watershed after freeze up.
Not difficult to take them all using the watershed in winter.

I have one setup right now where they have tunnels from under the ice that come up about 40' from the water, scat and tracks everywhere, so I laid a bunch of #220's over the holes with sticks underneath to keep them from freezing down

Pocket sets baited with fish or muskrats are very good otter sets. Despite what some say, otters are highly attracted to baited pocket sets. I can't keep them out of my sets. I am tired of having to release them. Unfortunately our season comes in Dec. 26 and then we are only allowed three.

That's interesting, I've had the opposite experience baiting otter, ours seem to keep themselves pretty happy. Blind sets have always worked the best for me. But I also don't make a lot of baited sets, I'm trapping under ice mostly

Same for me AK. We must have too good of forage in our areas.

It's the hole size and how the bait is presented that attracts them. If they come by they seem to just have to mess with them. If I was targeting them instead of mink, I would have the trap back from the hole a few inches. Thankfully, I miss a lot of them because the trap is tight to the hole. I see their tracks in the mud under the water. I used to only have to worry about them in certain creeks but now they are even showing up in small little feeder creeks.

This is the biggest toilet that I have seen, pile is probably 2 ft diameter at least. Haven't set this pond yet, but while checking a beaver house heard something up in a hole sort of huffing or growling. Would an otter or beaver do that? I haven't heard anything like that before.

I catch a lot of otters, I mean a lot of otters. The #1 rule to trapping otters is time. I have left sets in place over a month before I had a catch. Then its on like DonkeyKong. I try to use a set that will get the otter off the run as when a bevy comes through I want to catch everyone of them. On land for footholds I will use a sliding lock cable, that otter can only only move off the run. He will endup about 10 foot off the run and the others will continue to use the run. I will use cables for my land set bodygrips for the same reason, I want him off the run. Water sets will have sliding locks as I want to drown him off the run. I will use a long cable on my bodygrips as I want him off my water run if he is flipping around. I don't know about up north (anything above the I-10), but down here if a run gets messed up they will start a new run and you will have to start over.

Pocket sets work down here but I staty away from using fresh bait as it will go rancid very quickly. A little bobcat gland lure like Sierra Mist for some reason attracts those little monsters like candy. Mink flags attract loutre and feathers around a pocket/dirt hole will get their attention as they eat a lot of ducks on the crawfish ponds. Another method I was tought years ago by a very old trapper and I think I'm the only one that still uses it, is to use a otter toilet. If you find a toliet mess it up and urinate on it. Otters will get fired up and run oall over the toilet. Like I said what works down here works for us, it may not work for up north.

That's otter for sure. I've had them hiss and growl at me while I was out fishing

Gunny, very informative post for this otter rookie...thank you!

Sound like great ideas when you can set steel however an altogether different story when can only use cages, because the game dept let's the public tree huggers dictate what traps can be used

I have caught them in cage traps as some places at marinas and docks, where they don't want you to use leg holds or bodygrips. Really not that hard as I approach it as a bucket set, and bucket sets are deadly on otters. Otters are just like bobcats when it comes to sticking their head in a bucket or cage trap.

I've used submerged buckets in those situations, I just put a couple salmon heads in a square bucket with a sizeable rock, put a 220 over the opening, and run a rope through a spring, and tied to the bucket and sink it next to the dock, and tie to the dock or put a float on the rope.