My Mainely Girl Adventures is a blog about my life as the woman who married an outdoors man and discovered later in life that I too could be a great outdoors woman. I had never hunted, and rarely fished, or camped. I had spent the better part of my life watching my family camp, fish and hunt; however, I took pictures but looking back through boxes of photos, I discovered I’m not in most of them prior to 2004.

The Game Changer
In my twenties, I had always purchased my fishing/hunting license to go with my husband, but never actually hunted. Then babies came along and I was grounded. When the turkey lottery was announced in 2004, my husband asked me to put in for the lottery to increase our odds. I told him that if I got picked, I’d let him be my sub-permittee, but he’d only get to shoot it if I couldn’t handle his shotgun. As luck would have it, I got drawn. We went to turkey school. I shot his gun, and I bagged a 24.5 pound turkey that spring. I still hold the record for biggest turkey in the family. That fall, I decided to try deer hunting, and after three weekends of hunting, I shot a 5-point buck. I was hooked.

Since then, I’ve hunted every year…I even scored two moose permits. I bagged a cow moose in 2011 and got my bull in 2016. That year, I also shot my first bear and completed my grand slam with a turkey, bear, moose and deer harvested in one season.

And as they say, the rest is history. I am on a mission to not only enjoy every minute of my life, but to record my adventures for my kids and grandchildren to read. By the time I die, they’ll think I was the crazy Momi who liked to have her picture taken, and I’m okay with that.

Why I Love the Outdoors
Learning to hunt has been empowering for me as well as rewarding. I came from a non-hunting family and was taught that only men hunt. I was dreadfully afraid of the woods and the darkness even as an adult. The first time I heard a partridge take off it nearly scared me out of my wits. Now I can walk in to my stand in the dark, and walk out after dark and feel completely confident and unafraid. My biggest challenge has been walking out of my bear stand at dark and hiking down the mountain to my waiting four-wheeler, which I never imagined I’d ever be that comfortable in the woods.

I love watching sunrises and wildlife and listening to nature as it wakes up. I always tell my friends, it’s not about killing a deer or catching lots of fish, it’s about the adventures you have in the process. I find fishing and hunting personally challenging, yet relaxing for me. In 2015, I was selected as a finalist for Miss Maine Sportsman. I am also one of the founding members of the Women of the Maine Outdoors, a non-profit whose mission is to expand outdoor opportunities for Maine women and girls. I am a member of the New England Outdoor Writer’s Association, Maine Trappers Association, the NWTF Women in the Outdoors and the Maine Bowhunter Association. I hold a Maine Concealed Weapons Permit, and love shooting guns with our youngest son. I’m an aspiring guide and I had the pleasure of mentoring a good friend and introducing her to bear trapping.

I hope women (and men) who read this blog come away with a desire to want to learn to hunt, fish, trap or forage, and enjoy the outdoors as much as we do.
Come along for some adventure!