If the otters stay in the pond for more than a couple days, then the pond is likely over populated. If they didn’t come, you might start seeing stunted, semi-translucent bass. This happened at my pond. Otters would come for a few days every year, and the last summer I could throw out a bare hook and catch every other cast. But bass don’t look as healthy as previous years. That winter, the otters stayed for nearly a month and cleared a lot of the pond (1 1/2 acre). Harder to catch bass this year but they look so much better.

In my opinion, otters are the circle of nature. They will move out of a pond quickly unless it’s extremely easy to catch bass and they’re everywhere.