Keeping a fishing journal

[gim]

I simply write down what lake or river I fished to keep track of how many times I went fishing in a season nowadays.  In 2020, I went 34 times, last year I went 32.

 

One year about a decade ago, I kept track of my entire family's catches.  I kept track of the number of game fish each one of us four caught for an entire season: walleye, largemouth, smallmouth, northern pike, and muskies.

 

Interestingly enough, no one in my family specifically targeted northern pike that season, yet that was the most numerous game fish caught.  Additionally, one particular column had zeroes across the board: not a single muskie.

[TnRiver46]

1 hour ago, gimruis said:

  In 2020, I went 34 times, last year I went 32.

 

 

 

 

just bustin your chops, I know you’ve got a life on the side unlike me 

[gim]

4 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

just bustin your chops, I know you’ve got a life on the side unlike me

Yes, unfortunately that is the path that I chose.  I won't say whether I regret some of those decisions or not, but you can figure that part out yourself.

 

A portion of it I really can't control because the season is closed and/or there's ice.  No, I ain't going ice fishing lol.  We've already been down that road to nowhere.

[TnRiver46]

1 minute ago, gimruis said:

Yes, unfortunately that is the path that I chose.  I won't say whether I regret some of those decisions or not, but you can figure that part out yourself.

 

A portion of it I really can't control because the season is closed and/or there's ice.  No, I ain't going ice fishing lol.  We've already been down that depressing road.

From an outsider prospective, ice fishing seems really cool. Then when it comes to actually walking out on a frozen lake, I believe I would change my mind and stay on dry land 

[fishingram24]

Probably 25 years ago there was a web site, now deceased, that I was on that had a fishing report page so I started posting my trips on that giving just enough info to jog my memory later on about that day on the water. Still do so on another site but I try to put in as much info as I can since my brain needs a lot more jogging now, water and weather conditions, baits used, depth and location of the fish caught such as grass lines,wood etc. and anything else to help me or someone that may read it just not the exact location. Will go back and look from time to time to remind me to try this or that bait under certain conditions and time of year mainly for places that I don't fish on a regular basis. 

[soflabasser]

I have several fishing journals. In these journals I write the place I fished in, what I caught, what I used to catch these fish, time of year, weather, and other important information.

[RDB]

If you’re starting from scratch, you might consider looking at some of the apps.  FishingSmart is free and collects a lot of good information and will auto fill many of the sections.  When you catch a fish, you can hit one button and it will automatically log your GPS location, time, weather, and most of the details from the previous catch.  I’m not super familiar with it but I have heard good reviews from others.

 

http://fishingsmartapp.com

[MIbassyaker]

I have a record of every fish I have caught over the last 10 years or so, its size, location, lure, day and time, some basic weather information, and other environmental details like weed growth, clarity, water temp, and such.

 

It's much easier to do this if, like me, you don't catch very many. ?

 

I use those data, not so much to help me fish better, but to to keep track of differences between the various waters I visit, and track changes in their productivity throughout a season.

 

A few years ago, I started also including a short narrative description of each trip, where I went, what locations and presentations I tried and didn't try -- What I discovered was that this was actually the more insightful information for helping me fish better, because it helped me understand both my successes and failures.

[Aaron_H]

On 4/11/2022 at 10:43 AM, bigspirit said:

Those of you who have one and record trip data, what all do you keep track of?

 

It’s something I’ve thought about, but I feel like there’s 100+ variables or values that you could record and I’m just not going to do that for every trip. 

Not sure I want to even subject myself to having a journal at all so surely don’t want to fill a page for every trip 

 

I start a Word document at the start of each year as my fish log. Keep it broken down by month, with just a simple template of basic information I can record after each trip. Date, location, time, weather, fish caught, lures used, etc. Then a running tally at the end of how many fish I catch per month as well as year-to-date.

 

On 4/12/2022 at 6:38 AM, N Florida Mike said:

I can go back through my bassresource posts in the “latest catch pics thread”. 
Other than that, I don’t keep a written record.

I do keep a top 10 biggest fish record mentally, and my highest numbers day. I also track the number of fish over 4 pounds Ive caught in my home lake since 2007.

 

I also keep a top 10 list, as well as tracking each bass over 3lb I've caught since 2016, and my best numbers day. We should go fishing one of these days ?

[Glenn]

On 4/11/2022 at 7:46 AM, roadwarrior said:

https://www.bassresource.com/fish/fishing_log.html

I made that in the late 80s and still use it to this very day.

[N Florida Mike]

4 hours ago, Aaron_H said:

We should go fishing one of these days

Sounds good to me…