Article Body
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Tuesday, March 7, 2006
CONTACT: Chris Hull, 773-2744
A Day in the Life of GFP Trapper Jason Burt
By Chris Hull
When I was a kid, my grandfather trapped during the winter. I remember putting on every warm piece of clothing I had, trying to strap on cross country ski and trying to keep up with his huge strides as he checked his trap lines on several ‘cricks’, coulies, and hollows in northeastern South Dakota. I also remember frozen fingers, frozen traps, and lots of different smells. The smell of skunk, muskrat, and mink for starters. I also remember the smell of spilled bait and fox urine on several occasions. I would imagine my mother remembers those smells as vividly as I do. I surely remember the look on her face and the pain in her voice when she told me, none to gently to “Leave those rotten clothes out in the garage.” Always the obedient boy, I also remember my Dad coming home and asking “Why does the dog smell like skunk pee?” After our lab Missy had happily curled up in my pile of trapping clothes after I had disrobed.
Needless to say, my memories of trapping are much less romantic than that of the fur trappers of yore. Common knowledge is that the ground you are reading this on was explored, map and settled primarily by fur trappers and traders with names like LaVerendre’, Pierre, Jacques, and assorted monickers that midwesterners can’t pronounce correctly. Those trappers of our childhood history books were daring, dashing, almost mythical.
Don’t sell trappers short though. They aren’t cold, heartless, smelly, grizzled, loners living in a lean-to, skinning their critters and coming to town once a year. These guys are skilled woodsmen. They are meticulous in their craft, and employ modern tools such as global positioning systems. Ask anyone who actively pursues coyotes with a rifle. It is tough enough to get a wily coyote (sorry couldn’t resist) into rifle range. So now imagine trying to entice one of these ultra-wary dogs into stepping on the pad of a hidden trap or, even tougher yet, getting one to make its way through a loop on a snare. A good trapper has to be able to read signs, find trails his prey are using, be meticulous with his equipment, and not leave a trace of himself behind. It doesn’t take much of a reason for a coyote, raccoon, fox or any other furbearer for that matter to step around or completely avoid a certain small patch of ground. Good trapping areas are “big country” with plenty of other patches of ground for a critter to use. These guys are outdoorsmen at the highest form. It is impressive to watch a good one work.
Trappers also have a special kinship to the cattleman and sheep ranchers of our Dakota prairies. Sprawling ranches tend to harbor lots of coyotes. Lots of coyotes mean calf and lamb losses for ranchers. That is where professional trappers can be of a great assistance. The South Dakota Game Fish and Parks has an Animal Damage Control Program and a stable of trappers, pilots and damage specialists to respond to ranchers and producers who report losses of cattle and sheep. The trappers in the ADC program use traps, snares, firearms and airplanes to help ranchers control the coyote problems on their ranches.
Game Fish and Parks department trappers each cover a multiple county area. They wear many different hats on a day to day basis. Some days, they are trapping and breaking up beaver dams, some days they might be looking into mountain lion sightings, other days find them flying in a plane, attempting to spot and eradicate coyotes from the air and still others, they are checking trap lines, just like my grandpa used to.
I jumped in trapper Jason Burt’s truck one day when he was going to set and check traps along the Missouri River. Jason is a relative “newbie” as far as trappers go, having came from the Conservation Officer ranks a mere two years ago. As we left the Pierre city limits, we talked about his career change.
“I remember being in college at SDSU, tearing out of class, and driving forty miles so I could check my muskrat traps,” he laughed. “On a good weekend I could get 100 rats trapped, skinned and sold. That was pretty good money for a college kid. Although it was pretty challenging to find a good place to skin muskrats in a college dorm, I guess my love of trapping comes from my dad. He was an ADC (Animal Damage Control) pilot. He would come home with amazing stories and I wanted to be a part of that.”
We stopped along an exposed and dry creek bed to sift some fine black dirt. This dirt, he told me, would be used to cover trap sets. The fine dirt would prevent the trap from getting clogged up when sprung. Next to the creek, Jason had several snares set around a dead deer carcass Although there were trails in the tall switch grass that looked like coyote superhighways (after he pointed them out to me and showed me some fresh tracks), his snares were empty.
“I am kind of in a slump,” he said in frustration as we got back into the pickup. “Seems like nothing wants to come in (to the trap settings) lately, but we are getting close to calving season and the more coyotes I get now, the bigger jump I have once the calving starts.”
We pulled off of a gravel section line south of Pierre and checked a public hunting area. During the months of October, November and December, this patch of ground had pheasant hunters galore. However in a month like February, it is all Burt’s. Immediately, I see his face sag. Something has set off one of his traps, but the trap lies empty.
“Look how tore up the ground is around the trap. Looks like a raccoon,” he said dejectedly as he walked back to the truck to get supplies to reset the trap. As he went back to work, he talked in terms any outdoorsman could appreciate.
“You should have been around last week,” he said with a smile. “I trapped a couple of coyotes in Hand County that were in really good shape. Big ol’ dogs.”
When he finished resetting the trap, we checked a few others he had set up in the area, but to no avail. We pointed the truck east to check an area. He talked about his daily routine.
“I cover Hughes, Hyde and Hand counties so I spend a lot of time on the road. Depending what I have going on as far as complaints, it can make for a lot of time talking to landowners, getting to know their land, and even the surrounding neighbors land,” he explained.
“For a first time coyote complaint I will usually do an on-site meeting. I describe the releases that we use and why we need them. The actual releases are just an explanation of what animals we are controlling, the methods that I can use to control offending animals, and the legal description of their property. I then ask them to invest some time in signing up their neighbors for 3 miles or so each direction. That gives me some flexibility in working on the complaint. Generally the coyotes causing the problems are not on the complainants property. Once the property is signed up then the next time I receive a call I merely need to find out if they had a kill, what day, observations, or direction they are hearing them. Then I can go to work. I like the idea and practice of working with the landowners towards a goal.”
As if on cue, we came upon a rancher working on a fence line that an earlier snow had pushed down. “I shot and trapped twenty-some coyotes down on this guys place last year. He lost something like 7 calves,” he told me as we got out of the pickup. “I was hoping to run into him in the next week or so.”
The rancher had plenty of information to share with Jason. He had just had a cow die and it looked like a pretty good number of coyotes were making quick work of the carcass. Jason asked him if he could set up some traps near the carcass (State law mandates traps must be a minimum of fifty feetfrom any carcass). The rancher was quick to agree and even gave us some information on where he was hearing and seeing coyotes and after looking at a plat map, showed Jason a couple of spots that may be used as good look outs for spotting.
After thanking the rancher, we drove down to where the cow carcass was, and let me tell you, for a fresh carcass, this thing was picked cleaner than a dinner buffet at closing time. Jason was not deterred however. “These coyotes will keep coming back to this spot for quite a while,” he told me while scouting out places to put traps.
After selecting a couple of likely spots he went to work digging, pounding trap stakes, setting traps (traps are opened and a wire mesh is put over the top to keep dirt off of the working parts), burying traps, marking where the trap is within the area and, making the entire scene look as natural and undisturbed as possible. Burt is meticulous at brushing the area with his hand, placing rocks, pebbles, sticks, or grass around the area to make it look like nothing is amiss. Finally, selecting and placing some bait near the trap puts a cap on the set-up. Bait is sort of an innocent term for the things these trappers are dealing with. Fisherman use nightcrawlers and minnows. Catfish anglers use an infamous concoction called stinkbait. Trappers use stuff that would make even a Georgia catfish angler turn up his nose.
“This is called X, (It isn’t actually called X, Jason made me promise not to divulge his secret recipe) and it is basically ground up prairie dog, and a few other things, that have turned (rotten),” he told me as he carefully opened a jar to reveal a thick, dark green, chunky paste. “You don’t want to get any of this on your hands, it will stay with you for a while.”
The understatement of the year, in my opinion, left me thinking back to bait my grandfather used. I don’t recall any pureed prairie dog in his kit. Before I could really remember however, we pulled off a gravel road near West Bend and stopped the truck.
“Well I’ll be,” Jason said as we jumped out of the truck.” Standing near a small cutout bank was a snared coyote. “These snares have only been out a few days. I put this one here and one other one down the line a little further.”
As he was tending to the coyote, I looked down where the other snare was. I could see two lines of tracks, as plain as could be. I was pleased with myself, because I was pretty sure I wouldn’t have seen them at the beginning of the day. Then I laughed when I realized I had overlooked a second snared coyote in plain site.
"That is my first snared double!” Jason hollered, not even trying to hide the smile on his face.
I love my job, but I can’t remember the last time I got that much joy out of my occupation. I took several pictures of him with the two coyotes, he reset the traps and we headed out for the next set of traps and snares.
I looked out at the area he had just taken the two coyotes from, still amazed that two small snares could catch wary coyotes in such an expanse of ground. To true trappers like Jason Burt, they don’t even think twice. It’s second nature. Like ground up prairie dogs, skunk pee and French names that we cant pronounce correctly.
-30-
GFP GET TO KNOW EM
Jason Burt
Hometown: Born in Faith SD, graduated from Cedar Hill, TX.
Position: State trapper
How long you have been doing this: 7 years with the department, 2 years as a state trapper.
Family: Dad, Curtis; Mom, Janice; 2 olders brother Brett and Shane; and 3 dogs Jade, Mia, and Stu.
Favorite part of the job: When you have worked on any kind of a complaint from coyote to skunk and the producer says "Thank You"