Trapper, Mentor, Advisor - Linda White
“The happiest people don’t have the best of everything, they just make the best of everything they have.”
Linda White – Trapper, Teacher, Business Owner, and Advocate for Women and Kids in All Forms of Take. (President of Trapping Girl, Co-Owner of Sawmill Creek Baits and Lures and Founder of Kids for Catches)
Linda developed a love for nature fishing and camping with her father. She, like Toni, has a passion for getting kids and women to not only have the same experiences they did growing up but giving them opportunities to experience hunting and trapping. She works to help them to remove any roadblocks they might have, be it physical, mental, or logistical. Linda has the grit to work through the harsh cold winters of the Upstate New York’s trapping season, and more importantly the grit to hold her own against harsh cold anti-trapping and anti-hunting activists. She has built respect withing the traditionally male-dominated trapping community. She, like Toni, is a model for the girls in our programs, to look up to and say, “If she can do it, I can do it.”
She created Trapper Girl a business that designs, develops, and markets trapping gear, equipment, and apparel that is more appropriate for the size, strength, and taste of women and kids. She also developed Kids for Catches, an organization that connects trapping mentors and their wisdom to kids, collects trapping gear donations, and distributes them directly to kids. We met because she wanted to donate traps, trapping tools, and educational materials to our NOLI Summer camps and the kids’ program that our NOLI teen campers worked and organized at the United Trappers of Idaho Rendezvous.
Linda didn’t trap with her father, it was not until the fall of 2014 that she was exposed to trapping when she meet her husband to be, Michael. He had been trapping since the age of 9. He shared his skills, wisdom, and passion for trapping with her as she joined him riding along as he checked his trap line. Slowly her passion for trapping grew and decided to get her license so she could be fully involved.
In 2016 when Sawmill Creek Baits and Lures was born (you can jump over to their website for more details) and Linda started attended conventions she started attending demo’s and speaking to other vendors. After picking Michael’s brain with all she was learning/ learned, Linda felt it was time to run her own trap line. So in fall of 2018, she did just that, and thank god she did because that season is what gave her the idea for Trapping Girl
Running her own line changed so much for Linda and opened her eyes to things she never encountered before trapping with Michael. Like the importance of gloves that fit, lighter tools, less weigh and strength of or lack thereof in her hands. With each challenge and struggle she would face, she was determined to find a better way! A way that would not only make trapping more enjoyable for her but a way that would turn her weaknesses around.
One very cold day in December a thought popped into Linda’s head (in the middle of checking her line) she called Trevor and said, “How do you feel about trying to find a way to make trapping more enjoyable for women and most likely kids too?” Without hesitation, he said “I AM IN!”