Maine is known for its wealth of outdoor activities, so it can be intimidating when you grew up sort of an “indoor” person and then begin spending time in Maine. I was never a camper and didn’t have a lot of family hiking experience as a kid. I don’t know how to sail and never had friends with boats. You know what else I’d never done?

Fishing.

When our 8-year-old son began asking about learning to fish, we balked. My husband had never fished, either, and we started off by buying him a silly fishing rod Dan saw on the internet and going down to our neighborhood lake in Virginia. The rod became hopelessly tangled after five minutes and no fish were caught.

I started thinking how there must be so many places near our home in Maine to do just this, but I didn’t know who could help us. Putting aside the obvious problem that we don’t know how to fish, we also had no boat, no fishing licenses, no gear…and no idea how to obtain some of these things. Sure, we could have done lots of internet research and gone to sporting goods stores. Still smarting from the last fishing rod failure, however, I knew that was not going to work out. Having a solo successful midcoast Maine fishing trip seemed pretty unlikely.

Maine Outdoors Saves the Day

Luckily, I stumbled upon Maine Outdoors on Twitter and followed the links back to Don Kleiner’s site. Lo and behold, while Don takes out very experienced fishing enthusiasts and is a Master Maine Guide, he also helps inexperienced novices like us, via his fantastic offering of a half-day family fishing trip.

Contacting him through his site was a piece of cake, and I was able to easily reserve our trip on the day of my choice through his online reservation system. Shortly thereafter, he was in touch via e-mail with all the preliminary details. Namely, all my husband, father-in-law, and two boys would need to do was show up at the appointed location at Megunticook Lake at the reserved time. They didn’t need gear, licenses, or even bottled water for staying hydrated!

This Was Our Kind of Midcoast Maine Fishing Trip

In fact, the day was fantastic. I know that my husband was at ease because he wasn’t responsible for teaching his kids a sport he didn’t understand, and Don was reportedly amazing with the boys and fun to hang out with all afternoon. Among the guys, over ten fish were caught (and released) with the most catches going to our 8-year-old! The entire day was just the sort of kid-friendly, fun activity that makes a vacation successful and creates great memories.

 

 

Midcoast Maine Fishing Trips and More

Whether you’re experienced at fishing or not, Maine Outdoors offers an extremely stress-free way to organize a really fun family trip at nearly zero effort to

yourselves and with no lugging of gear or searching for boats or locations. My guys gave this fun experience five out of five stars.

 

Plus, we think our youngest son may be a fisherman in the making.

Regardless of your outdoor aspirations, check out the full offerings at Maine Outdoors, which range from canoe and nature exploration trips to bass fishing.

Thanks, Don!

To find out more about Maine Outdoors and their offerings, visit their website or call them at call them at (207) 785-4496.

Find them on Facebook or Twitter.

Photos: John Steffann