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How to spot an otter?

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  • How to spot an otter?

    Anybody know much about Adirondack otters?

    I always have my eyes open for those little stinkers but I've never seen one in the fur. I suspect I'm looking in the wrong areas. I know they're out there...

    Any tips for finding them?

    PS I don't want to trap them, just see them.

  • #2
    In the Adirondacks, I've seen most of them on lakes and big ponds that have a good variety of fish species like perch, sunfish, bullhead, bass, etc.

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    • #3
      I've had much better luck during winter, where you may be able to find their breathe holes in the ice with their scat nearby. I have also seen them swimming with pups in late fall...barking and yelling at my dog & I as we watched from shore.

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      • #4
        I have seen otters several times when I looked behind me while canoeing. Almost never in front. They wait until I pass to pop up, and have even followed me for a ways, keeping their distance while poking heads up to watch me as if they are curious of me. If I didn't happen to look behind I would never have seen them. No telling how many times I missed them laughing at me.

        In the winter I often see their telling tracks along frozen creek beds, where they will run and then slide along in the snow, run and slide. Looks like fun.
        "Now I see the secret of making the best person, it is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth." -Walt Whitman

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        • #5
          I've seen river otters twice in my entire life.
          The first time on a backwater creek that empties into the Ohio River from my home county (Boone County, KY). We'd see them alot during the summer, but they were shy, so never up close or for extended periods of time.

          The second time was paddling/floating the Russian River in California's Sonoma Valley about 12 years ago. Those curious little guys followed us for a long time and reminded me of those video clips you see of dolphins chasing and playing with boats. Really cool to see. Sadly that was before we all had smartphones with cameras, so I never got a picture of them.

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          • #6
            I saw a group of them on the little unnamed pond due N of Pink Pond (off of Long Pond)...one of them was floating on his (her?) back, cracking open mussel shells. Went back the next year and they were gone!! Several years later, saw a group on Ledge Pond.

            And MDB and I watched 3 of the little guys in Otter Pond (aptly named, huh?) outlet, not more than 1/4 mile from Little Tupper Lake. These guys grunted and moaned and looked like a synchronized swim team as they watched us watching them...for 45 minutes!!

            Those are the only times I've seen them...many more mink sightings, but that's it for river otters. I guess they move around...

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            • #7
              I have only seen otters in the wild once , last november I watched four of them fishing for over an hour at " A Sandy Lake " in the Ferris Lake area. I have been back twice since and have not seen them again.
              The right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.

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              • #8
                Sounds like my odds are not great and possibly they have been near and I have not noticed them. I rarely look behind in my boat (it is actually quite tricky and being in the stern I'm often concerned where the bow is going.)

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                • #9
                  Speaking of mink, I'm pretty sure I saw one of those at my uncle's farm in central KY back when I was a kid, maybe 30 years ago or so. I was staking-out a den of groundhogs (they caused all sorts of trouble on his dairy farm) - sitting on one end of large tree that had fallen partially across a creek. I was being very still, and very quiet, hoping to get a shot at these varmints, when a caught movement out of the corner of my eye all the way down at the opposite end of "my" fallen tree. A long, slender creature - I described it to my uncle at the time as "a shiny black weasel" - was shuffling along the length of "my" tree, totally unaware of my presence. I had no idea what the hell this thing was, and I must've flinched or something, because it suddenly stopped, reared-up on its hind legs sniffing at the air in my direction, then leapt down into the creek, never to be seen again. Since this was LONG before the internet and Google, I went to my little branch of the local Florence library a few days later and scanned through one of those Guild to Mammals in North America guidebooks and "mink" was the only thing that came anywhere close to what I'd seen. Hell, until then I didn't even know central KY was in their range. Pretty cool. Another one of those times I wish I'd had a camera. I roamed all over that farm back in those days, but that was the first and last time I saw that critter, and my uncle NEVER saw it.

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                  • #10
                    Oh, and keeping on-topic with the ADKs, I would LOVE to see a fisher/marten sometime.

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                    • #11
                      Originally posted by oruacat2 View Post
                      Oh, and keeping on-topic with the ADKs, I would LOVE to see a fisher/marten sometime.
                      I saw one once! Like you and the mink, I didn't know what the hell it was at first... or even until I got home actually and looked it up.

                      Wolverine kept going though my mind at the time but I knew they weren't in this area anymore, and of course the Fisher is the less well advertised of the mustelids.

                      I kept thinking what looks like a little fuzzy bear and bounds through the woods. It was truly BOUNDING (it moved like a slinky) along right at me until it noticed me. It then just bounded away in a different direction at the same pace. I was stiff as a board and not even breathing but it saw me and didn't want to come any closer.
                      Last edited by l'oiseau; 08-21-2013, 09:17 PM.

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                      • #12
                        Oh and even if I had a camera I was 1) too surprised at what I saw to grab it and
                        2) it was too fast for me to grab it out of my pocket and push a couple fiddly buttons.

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                        • #13
                          Saw a pair of playful otters while canoeing the meandering, lazy West Branch Sacandaga south of Good Luck Lake.
                          Ahh............Wilderness.......

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                          • #14
                            I've been fascinated by pine martens specifically since I read, probably long ago in that same "North American mammals" guidebook, about their skill at catching and eating squirrels. Paraphrased, it said "if the pine marten sees the squirrel, the pine marten eats the squirrel, because acrobatically anything the squirrel can do, the marten can do better". How cool is that?

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                            • #15
                              We (my son and I) were stalked...OK, not stalked, but carefully watched, as we paddled Henderson Lake when it first opened to the public. It was early November, and there was a snow/heavy drizzle mix...we saw movement along the E shore, N or the put in/take out bay. We paddled a little closer to shore to see what it was, and here's this adorable looking creature, hopping from deadfall to deadfall to keep up with us as we drifted by. He followed us for a minute or two at most, and then disappeared from sight. We had no idea what it was, didn't figure it out until we got home. This was still my film camera days, and because of the rain/snow, no photos...but it was tres cool to see him or her!!

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