My trout cam has caught some interesting visitors near my traps, such as a turkey, raccoons, coyotes and bucks.

Last week was about river otters, how I graduated with a YouTube degree in otter trapping and my pursuit to harvest one. I thought trapping a fisher was hard. Turns out that bagging an otter is a much greater challenge but I have enjoyed learning something new. I now look forward to checking traps as much as any bow hunt or even a walleye outing.

The first few weeks of trapping weren’t very exciting. Not much happened aside from a couple of misfires where my trap was sprung but nothing was caught. My best guess is that a small piece of wood drifted downstream and set the trap off. I was about to take a break from trapping. I decided to pack up my traps and grab my trail camera from alongside the stream, ready to let the cold weather pass before starting up again. That was the plan until I checked the memory card on my old-time trail camera and saw that two otters had been swimming all around my trap. How they got through without getting caught is something only they know. It was then that I realized that I had picked the right place to pursue them. It’s just a matter of time before the otters come back.

So now my traps are all in place. My old-time camera has been replaced by “trout cam:” a cellular camera that can send me pictures almost instantaneously. I positioned it at water level and sandwiched it between two traps that are about 100 yards apart. It’s downstream from a game crossing which has resulted in some pretty interesting night pictures.  

No otter yet, but the trout cam has certainly made the challenge of catching one more interesting. Here is a small sample of some of the great photos. It’s amazing what goes on after the sun goes down. Ironically, the only thing I haven’t gotten a photo of on the trout cam, is a trout.   

Didn’t get enough Dave this week? Visit “Outdoor Trails and Tales with Dave Beck” on Facebook for photos and video of Dave’s adventures. You can share your own photos and video with him there as well, or by emailing him at dave@piercecountyjournal.news Also, check out OTT content on Instagram @thepiercecountyjournal