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photo by Jim Spencer Every trap you come up to is an adventure, and you never know what’s going to be in there with an upland trap line — a possum, a raccoon, a bobcat or a fox.
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Jill Easton Spencer
The Arkansas Trapper of the Year talks about the softer side of trapping.
Jill Easton Spencer’s mom once envisioned her little girl growing up to have lunch with friends at the local country club after a round of golf. Instead, Jill spends time at her own “country club,” checking trap lines for bobcats, foxes or any other upland fur-bearing animal that’s in season.
“I’ve always loved the outdoors,” said Jill, an outdoor freelance writer. “My mother wanted me to grow up to be a perfect housewife — dancing lessons, the debutante, all that kind of stuff. Somehow none of that worked for me.”
Jill fell in love with a trapper first and then came to love the traditional activity. In 1999 she met Jim Spencer, who at the time trapped for government research, which included mostly water trapping for aquatic-oriented furbearers like otters and beaver. That definitely did not appeal to her.
“I don’t like getting my hands wet in the winter,” she said. “It’s really cold!”
Then, Jim took her along to check some land traps.
“Land trapping is fascinating,” she said. “It makes you so much more aware of your world, because everything animals do leaves signs. And the more I watched Jim trap, the more interested I got in it. But, somehow it didn’t seem like a woman’s sport.”
About three years ago, Jill wrote a story about women trappers. As they relayed their adventures to the writer, she thought, I could do this, too.
Jill began setting her own trap lines near their house, located inside a national forest near Calico Rock, Ark. Because the forest has been logged a few times, it contains many old trails, or natural animal “highways.”
“You don’t trap animals when they’re hunting, you trap them on their time off,” Jill said. “It’s just like you or me. Are you going to walk through the brush, or use an easy trail? So you start looking for places where animals go and work from there.”
Trapping is work and can be as physical as you want to make it. Most of the traps Jill uses are smaller, with one-and-a-half coil springs. She sets them within 10 miles of her home.
“Every trap you come up to is an adventure, and you never know what’s going to be in there with an upland trap line — a possum, a raccoon, a bobcat or a fox,” she said. “It’s the most amazing thing. It’s like a little Christmas in each trap.”
State law requires trappers check non-lethal traps every 24 hours.
“Once you’ve caught the animal, it has to be dispatched, skinned, fleshed and stretched,” she said. “If you’re running a trap line with 30 or 40 traps and you’re catching 10 or 15 animals a day, you’re out there checking traps and setting new traps for at least two hours a day, and then there’s several hours of work in the fur shed!”
Jill and Jim sell most of their furs to Canadian representatives from the North American Fur Auctions, but some are sold locally for fur coats and taxidermy mounts.
Through her newfound vocation of trapping, Jill met other trappers at local, state and national trapping associations. She’s presented seminars and has written several articles for newspapers and trapping magazines. In 2008, the Arkansas Trappers Association named her Trapper of the Year. Jim had previously won the award, which makes Jim and Jill the first couple in Arkansas history to receive this award.
Jill understands her role in the wild as a trapper.
“When you’re trapping, you’re an apex predator and that’s pretty exciting,” she said. “You become a part of the animal’s world and you become a part of nature.
“Trapping improves the ecosystem. For example, the raccoon population is exploding in this country, and trappers help keep the numbers in check. Also, Arkansas is known for duck hunting. Raccoons devour more eggs and female ducks in a year than hunters kill in five years.
“One of the things that worries me so much about the world I see now is that we’re so cut off from reality — the reality of the land where we all belong. Kids have no clue that food comes from anywhere but a hamburger package at McDonald’s or a plastic container from the grocery store. Trapping puts you into a reality that you can’t get anywhere else.”
She recommends that women interested in learning to trap join a local or regional trapping association. The groups regularly hold seminars and trapping colleges. Find a mentor there.
— Barbara Baird