Fishing logs

[12poundbass]

I just started making a “bass book” as I call it. I have it broke down into pre-spawn, spawn, post spawn, and have sections for the lakes I fish. I’m thinking about just jotting down notes for each trip, what lures worked, weather conditions, etc. 

Do you keep one or have you over the years? Any suggestions on things you’d add? I’ve thought about this the past couple years, just never got around to it, hoping this will add a few more pieces to the puzzle. 

[Glenn]

This is what I've been using for over 3 decades: https://www.bassresource.com/fish/fishing_log.html

 

[Fishes in trees]

Over the years, I've had that notion several times.  I'll do it for several trips, and then there will be that one trip, normally in the middle of the summer, you've fished til past dark thirty, it is hot & you are sweaty and because of that it takes longer than it should to load all the stuff back into the truck and get on the road.  OK, you're all loaded up and the last thing you want to do is to take 10 minutes and jot down different things that happened that day.  Next trip, the journal ends up on the floorboard, with mounds of stuff piled on top of it, then several trips later, you've forgotten about it til you clean out the truck, which might not happen til fall.   Now, all of a sudden another year has gone by and you've made notes about maybe 2 or 3 trips.

 

Maybe you can be more dedicated to this project than I ever could be.  One season I tried using a small voice recorder, the idea being to keep it in the zippered chest pocket of my fishing shirt, dictate notes as necessary and translate them later.   I filled up the recorder with notes, it was the "translate & write down later" part that was my downfall with that. plan.

 

Again, I see the virtues of having a fishing log, I've just never been able to maintain the inertia to keep doing it for very long.  If you can - great for you.

[A-Jay]

A-Jay

 

[22RangerZ520R]

I wish I would have kept one over the years!

[12poundbass]

1 hour ago, 18RangerZ520L said:

I wish I would have kept one over the years!

It’s never too late Brad. Start now and hand it down to your son, that’s what I plan on doing. My son is 9 so he’s already learning, but he’ll get it eventually. 

[MGF]

Me too, I wish I had and I may start. 

[clh121787]

I love fishing logs. Usually with a lizard. Or a frog parallel to the floaters. 

[MassYak85]

I've tracked the past few seasons in an Excel spreadsheet. I note the date, body of water, water and air temps, wind direction and speed, a brief description of weather, a screenshot of the barometric pressure graph for that month (to see overall trends that may have coincided with major weather patterns), any noteworthy environmental changes, a brief description of my strategy that day and what worked/didn't, my best lure that day, and the number of fish and rough weights. 

 

It doesn't take long but I will say it can be a chore to do it after a long day on the water....especially if I got skunked. 

 

Has it helped? Not sure, but it is nice to be able to go back and see an overview of every trip in a season. I can also see differences between seasons. We're about a full month ahead of schedule where I am compared to some seasons cause of how mild the winter was. Last year I was standing on solid water two weeks from now, meanwhile we're approaching 50 degrees in some of the smaller ponds right now. 

[GreenPig]

I use my phone to log my catches. Pic of the truck dash for air temp when I arrive at the lake, pic of the FF for water temp, pic of every fish with lure hanging from mouth. My phone tags the time, date, and location so I can easily swipe thru my pics at my previous years and come up with a pretty good plan. 

[MIbassyaker]

I have been keeping a detailed log for a number of years on everything I catch. However, I think it's important to have a clear understanding what this information is more likely to be good for and what it's less likely to be good for.

 

Humans are natural experts at pattern recognition. We detect patterns from limited data quickly and intuitively. This permits us to make generalizations, theorize, and make predictions about future circumstances. But we are so good at this that it comes at a cost: we also readily see patterns that aren't actually there, especially when we don't have very many data points.

 

And herein lies the trap of the detailed fishing log - the more information you record, the more patterns you will think you see, regardless of whether they are real. You will "discover" all sorts of regularities about the bass in your waters that are not actually true, and do not generalize. You will discover, for instance, that red plastics work best between 9am and 10am, but only around the south lily pads, and only on Wednesdays in June during a new moon. With some creativity, you will come up with a plausible theory of why this is the case and you will pat yourself on the back for mastering the bass in your lake....and then that "pattern" will never re-occur, leaving you frustrated and confused.

 

The challenge is to be realistic about what the log will be able to tell you. I find the most useful information is about two kinds:

 

(1) my own performance, in terms of: what decisions did I make, where did I go, what did I try, how did I adjust, did I go shallow, go deep, downsize, upsize, speed up, slow down, etc.  Importantly, my failures are just as important as my catches. From this information I can re-evaluate offline what I should have done and spend some time thinking about how I would do it better next time. you can use catch rates and sizes to track improvement over time. For instance, I know from my log how my average number of bass caught per hour, as well as average size, has increased over the last few years. I also know which waterbodies in my area are better for numbers, better for sizes, good for both, or bad for both....and it turns out some of the better places are not common knowledge.

 

(2) observations about the environmental and ecological conditions, and floral and faunal activity, of the waterbody itself  -- what kinds of bait and forage do I see in evidence at various places, times of day, and times of year? Where and when do I catch competitor species like Pike and Bowfin? How fast does the water clear after a good rain?  How does clarity change generally throughout the year? Which places get algae blooms, and how severe? Where do the herons and otters tend to hang out?  What species of vegetation do I find in various places, how deep does it grow, and how does weedgrowth progress throughout the season? How does water temp vary in the spring from place to place? And of course: when are the times of greater vs. least fishing pressure. This information is as predictive of success, or more so, than many of the more obvious things people like to keep track of.

[Bankbeater]

I have been keeping a log for each trip for the past 15 or 16 years now. I added a note section because there is always that one item that never quite fits anywhere else. 

[.ghoti.]

I set up a fairly elaborate spreadsheet, about 25 years ago, and used it to log every outing for a couple years. Then I got busier. I had limited free time. Had to make a decision. Casting or accounting? Was not a hard decision. 

[detroit1]

I just write 1 line for each trip. Lake and fish caught. In the spring and late fall, i'll add water temp. Sometimes weather, (windy! or rain) or a bait that did the damage. So not much, but enough for me. I aint writin a book...

[Bluebasser86]

Videoing my trips does a pretty good job keeping a log for me and is less time consuming.

[A-Jay]

3 minutes ago, Bluebasser86 said:

Videoing my trips does a pretty good job keeping a log for me and is less time consuming.

YUP !

A-Jay