Thinking about the year about to end

Yesterday I got up on the roof and cleaned the chimney; the firewood is in the garage with a little snow this morning. Between trips to the woodstove I have been thinking about the past year and what was different at Maine Outdoors.

Last fall I became an Orvis endorsed Fly-fishing Guide. The biggest change here was all the fly fishing equipment that I provide became Orvis. I am very pleased with the quality and impressed by their customer service.

In January my role as Executive Director at the Maine Professional Guides Association was expanded to include lobbying in Augusta. Because that demanded a lot more of my time Brynna come in to help get the office stuff done. Lucky for me she had taken a semester off from Bowdoin College. She was in the office a couple of days a week until August and even now is doing some office work remotely. A huge help that made many of the e-newsletters happen along with the brochure and print newsletter last spring.

The increased responsibility also meant that Maine Outdoors was no longer offering winter snowshoe trips, just in time for a winter without much snow. So little in fact that when we went for a visit to a bears den I was able to go without boots, snowshoes or even much in the way of warm clothing.

The summer season was busy as usual but something was very striking. Many clients book multiple trips every year but this year it was a lot of fun to see folks on 2, 3 or as many as 6 times while they were in the area. Also new this summer was a good number of mackerel fishing trips. I switched to lighter gear which made these willing (most of the time) fish into great sport on the Maine coast. I also saw an increase in the number of Maine Coast Boat trips always a nice way to spend part of a sunny day.

Using a Square credit card reader was a great improvement that made handling credit card transactions simply for both of me and my clients every time.

Fall was busy as usual with most of October spent at Libby Camps after a short vacation with Argy I am back at my desk looking forward to starting another year.