What is an Otis Fishing Report and Who is Otis Anyway?
OtisFishingReport.com is a collection of Otis Fishing Reports, and the Fishing Reports themselves are an accounting of the fish bear number 480 Otis eats during his summers at Brooks Falls in Katmai National Park. As a matter of routine, the daily report is published in the evening and starts the count at midnight Katmai time; it ends at time of report posting, which is usually between 8:00 and 10:00 p.m. Eastern Time (4:00 and 6:00 Katmai time). In the morning, we count the fish Otis ate overnight (our overnight), and then publish an Update which totals the number of fish Otis ate midnight to midnight.
Who’s Otis, you ask? A world-famous bear who visits Brooks Falls in Katmai National Park in the summer months. You can read the history of Otis in the volunteer-curated Katmai Bear Cams Wiki here. If you’ve read all that and still have questions, check out the volunteer-run Bear Discord Server — there are MANY knowledgeable people there who are happy to answer your questions (about Otis or any other Brooks Falls bear).
From sometime in June or July until September or October, you can watch Otis and other wild bears at Explore.org
Otis’ goal? Get fat! Seriously. He yearns to gain enough weight to get through another year of hibernation. And to that end, Otis loves to eat wild Alaskan sockeye salmon. And THAT is the reason he visits Brooks Falls every summer.
Why’d You Start the Otis Fishing Report?
Historically, Otis had been arriving for his summer salmon feast at Brooks Falls no later than July 17, like so:
- July 26, 2023
- June 29, 2022
- July 26, 2021
- June 23, 2020
- July 1, 2019
- June 29, 2018
- July 5, 2017
- June 30, 2016
- July 10, 2015
- July 2, 2014
- July 10, 2013
- July 17, 2012
In 2021, Otis was late. So late that his loyal followers thought he may not be coming back to Brooks Falls. Ever. When he finally arrived on July 26, he was thin — it was obvious he had not been eating to his heart’s content since coming out of hibernation. When you look at this photo, however, keep in mind that Otis went on to earn his fourth Fat Bear Champ title that year. 😉
Explore.org hosts a bear cam chat board, and many people were posting their concern. One user — me — paid close attention to the fish Otis was eating. I tried to sooth worries by responding to chatters: “Otis has had 5 fish already!” or “I just saw Otis eating!” and “He’s getting lots of fish today!”
And because I also worried, I started keeping count. Sort of. We had sticky notes, multiple monitors, and a variety of pens. We started making picket fences.
Because Otis was late, he was working marathon hours at the Falls. On August 3, 2021, I counted 62 (yes, SIX TWO) fish he caught and either ate fully or high-graded! Someone repeated to another someone saying “someone posted he had 40-somthing fish today,” and a third someone commented “They must be lying.” Now why someone would lie about the number of fish a bear in Alaska was eating is beyond me, but I knew I wasn’t. 🙂
So we started getting snaps every time Otis caught a fish as proof positive, and then we started a rather crude spreadsheet. I work full-time (even though it’s not evident during bear season), and it wasn’t anything fancy, but it could count the number of times the word “fish” appeared on a given day. The Magic Workbook got a lil upgrade in 2022. It keeps cumulative counts, tallies counts by location caught, and it even has a nifty time calculator to convert times which us work through the overnights (when we watch what happened while we slept). It’s still not fancy, but it’s fancier.
We’re still using that workbook, and we’re still counting Otis’ fish. Because no matter how many fish he eats, someone will worry. 🙂
