gas sample is drawn up the standpipe 70 in order to overcome the problems of past systems the auger bit is preferably constructed of hardened and tempered steel and or other harder materials to reduce wear from abrasive cuttings the auger bit can be of any suitable diameter relative to the inside diameter of the trap to effectively allow for the agitation of the drilling fluid to release the entrained gases and allow for an appropriate flow of liquids and gases through the system generally a smaller sized trap is more beneficial to reduce overall gas trap volume and dilution of liberated gas importantly this design also reduces eliminates trap flooding and the resultant sample line plugging by controlling mud intake to the trap from the standpipe 70 the air gas sample enters the inertial bypass filter 64 where solid contaminants and fluid are separated from the air gas sample the inertial bypass filter is a tube 64 d having an axis generally parallel to gas flow the use of a bypass filter system reduces associated maintenance time and costs as the need to replace disposable filters that would otherwise plug off and affect data accuracy as is common in the prior art is significantly reduced importantly unlike conventional units which can take 1 to 5 minutes to read the gas levels in the drilling mud the use of the subject bypass filter systems allows gas sampling times to be less than 30 seconds that is in the subject system relatively larger volumes of particulate laden gas pass straight through the filter element as shown.