Outdoor Story: Otter Hissy Fit
Texas River Otter
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Leslie McGaha wanted to try out her new bass kayak on Sam Rayburn Lake. Shortly after she got on the water, she had company–an otter!
So it was about 9:30 in the morning and I paddled across a branch of the lake, and I was hot. And so I saw a shady spot and figured I would go ahead and park there and see what I could see. And it was amazing: I saw a giant black crawdad crawling out of the bank; I was listening to the fish noises and the birds; the gar. Then, all of a sudden there was this bright flash of silver off to my right and I thought it was a gar or a carp. I keep watching, and then I see this head pop up out of the lily pads and look straight at me. And it wasn’t very happy that I was there, and he let me know. He made this sound like [makes hissing sound] And I didn’t know what it was. And he went back down after he told me his displeasure and then he comes back up and he makes this noise at me again [makes noise]. So, I decided I wanted to play the game, too, and I hissed right back at him [hisses]. And then he stopped for a second and looks straight at me and he and he starts hissing, kind of like he’s yelling at me. So I hissed back. So we have a pretty good conversation for a few minutes, and he pops down again, pops back up, and we start the whole thing over again two or three times before he goes on his merry way a little bit farther up the creek channel. It was just the funniest thing that had ever happened to me; it was amazing.
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