Fish.....where do you put them?

stray otters here for sure.
Never see more than a couple at a time, but I watched one land a salmon on a rock and devour it while I clammed 15' away.
  we have river otters as well

Roy, you may have caught a glimpse of a the semi-celebrity sea otter who cruised up to Charleston from CA in 2004.  He packed up and went home shortly thereafter (I'm guessing the lack of lady friends had something to do with it).


 October 18, 2004

By Ruth Lythe

KATU TV

A Sea Otter CHARLESTON, Ore. - A lone sea otter spotted at Simpson Reef on Cape Arago might be a sign that the species is beginning a natural recolonization of the Oregon coast, naturalists say.

"There were thousands of them here once, and I think we've got room for dozens of them today," Wendell Wood, Southern Oregon field representative for the Oregon Natural Resources Council, told The Oregonian.

The last official sighting of the otter, who spent at least six months in the area, came on Labor Day weekend, when the season ended for volunteers who staff the overlook there.

A student at the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology in Charleston looked earlier this month but didn't spot the otter.

The otter could still be there, said Jan Hodder, the institute mammalogist. It will take multiple failed sightings before reaching the conclusion that the animal has left, she said.

In the past decade, confirmed sightings of sea otters along the Oregon coast have noticeably increased, said Roy Lowe, project leader for the Oregon Coast National Wildlife Refuge.

In addition to several sightings near Simpson Reef, sea otters have been spotted at Cape Blanco, Yachats and Yaquina Bay in recent years.

This particular otter is the only one that has stuck around for a while, as far as anyone knows. The only suitable habitat in Oregon for sea otters is on the south coast, near shore reefs where kelp beds attract their favorite food of sea urchins and abalone.

Sea otters are the smallest marine mammals, growing to 4 feet long and ranging from 45 to 65 pounds.

Their fur - 600,000 to 1 million hairs per square inch - is the thickest of any animal and was highly prized by fur hunters. The animal was hunted to extinction in the state in 1906.

Naturalists estimate that as many as a million sea otters once inhabited the Pacific Rim from northern Japan to Mexico's Baja California, but the surviving population in the continental United States had fallen to 300 animals at California's Big Sur by 1911, when they were protected from hunting by the International Fur Seal Treaty.

Federal wildlife managers tried to re-establish sea otters on the southern Oregon coast in 1970 and 1971, releasing 53 near Port Orford and 40 near Cape Arago. But all of those animals disappeared by 1981.

Roseburg retiree Dale Paulson was the first to spot the Oregon sea otter on Feb. 28. Paulson has spent a lot of time in the past six years at Simpson Reef, the state's largest gathering place for sea lions and other pinnipeds.

"When you really watch nature a lot, you pick up on what's not quite normal out there. Then you take a second look, and get your binoculars and then say, 'Wow!,"' he said. "I was just backing out of the parking lot. I looked out, and I saw a circle of sea lions. They had encircled this animal. I noticed that it was floating on its back. I stopped and pulled out my binoculars and could see that it was a sea otter."

Roy, you may have caught a glimpse of a the semi-celebrity sea otter who cruised up to Charleston from CA in 2004.  He packed up and went home shortly thereafter (I'm guessing the lack of lady friends had something to do with it).

Must have been it. I should have got his autograph. Luckily my dogs didn't see it, there not impressed by celebrity...

How about the footwell....

Something tells me a certain bay on the OR coast was fishing well today...  Congrats!

I heard no one else caught anything. I saw one other hooked but lost at the boat.

Nice fishie stealheadr, good job. Damn, i want to catch a fatty like that soon and i will. But so far 0-3 on Salmon trips so far this season.