Does anyone keep a fishing journal with notes from their fishing trips to help for future reference? I am thinking about starting one as I am trying to remember conditions from past years to compare to what is going on now. If you keep notes, what tends to be most helpful? Water temp? Depth? Weather? Baits? Hat and sweatshirt combination?
Thanks!
I have been using logs since 2000.
I record the moon relative information
(days before or after full and new moons)
and a record of the size of all fish boated.
(you can estimate growth rates for future harvest
of all those smaller fish)
I just started one this summer so I haven’t been able to see any trends but I keep track of time of day, wind, water temp, moon phase, method of fishing along with numbers and size.
I keep a tab for each lake. Also I’ll add who I fished with so I can look back and remember the times.
I started keeping a journal a few years ago. I have been a little infrequent with it but when i do use it, my notes consist of the date, time of day, time spent on the water, location, weather conditions (sunny/cloudy, wind speed), baits and presentations used, water temp and depth, fish targeted and numbers caught and size, how the fish were caught and their mood that day.
I have been keeping records for the past 3 years. I bought a journal from rite in the rain. It has all the info needed as well as blank back pages for overall notes. Best part is the 4×6 journal has waterproof paper.
I love having it in the boat so I can see water temps and where I caught fish in similar conditions.
Smart post! I just started one this year as well. Presentation, water temp, weather conditions, barometric pressure if I know it, size and species, aggressive/light bite. Basicly as much detail as I can think of.
Anxious for next year to try and reproduce some good days.
Journals take great patience, dedication and time for a journal to pay off, but it will.
Bill Scherk just did a story on Minnesota Bound about a guy who developed a app for smartphones. Automatically links GPS location with photos ect.
I have kept a journal for three years now mostly for ice fishing. I include GPS coordinates, temps, high or low pressure, precipitation, presentation, depths fished, arrival and departure times. I mainly started it to keep track of the vast wealth of knowledge my father and uncle have on fishing the lakes I now fish, I look like a journalist sometimes in the back of the boat or truck while ice fishing scribbling away in my notebook. I intend to keep it and develop it and hopefully pass it on to my kids some day down the road.
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Journals take great patience, dedication and time for a journal to pay off, but it will.
That’s just it, I tend to come out of the gates strongwith some things and then taper off. But so far I’m enjoying this.
Started mine last year too, someone mentioned to me if fishing the river extremely important the flow that day. 
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Started mine last year too, someone mentioned to me if fishing the river extremely important the flow that day.
never ending on the river. what stinks is when you have em pinned by the flow and then you get there and clarity is poop in that area on that day. 
gotta love it. never ending.
I would add some good pics and a little hooptedoodle about how the day went (emotional kind of crap or whatever) and not just make it cold data. Even if you only keep it going for a season or two, it might be a nice read for your kids when your gone, or when you’re too old to remember what life was like when you could still fish.
Since 2004.
Water temp
water elevation
locations
presentations
weather
I feel it has helped me.
AND
how I use mine is:
I take the historical data for the moon relative successful days.
I create a composite calendar with all the data since 2000
I enter those days and the lake in next years fishing calendar
using the same moon relative day.
for example if 2 days before the full moon last year
I use that for next year.
One interesting thing I have seen is that the successful days for a given month are consistent year to year.
But that the moon relative day for a specific month is not
the same for other months of the year.
Some months it is 2 days before the full moon
some months it is right on the full moon
and the best fishing day of the year happens to fall on a new moon so consistently
that when I figure that out
I schedule vacation from work on that day ASAP.
Then once that is figured out,
you can take the date and lake
and using the DNR lake type classification
reproduce results on another lake with the same classification.
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Then once that is figured out,
you can take the date and lake
and using the DNR lake type classification
reproduce results on another lake with the same classification.
Tracking the weather leading up the day is important. You most likely won’t find fish in the same spot reacting the same on a 80 day in July when the previous days were in the 90s and a front passed compared to a previous days in the 70s and a front approaching.
I like the idea of incorporating the lake classification. Good idea!
A few years ago, my journal (ring binder with view-all pages)was stolen out of my truck. Started in 1982 and had photo-copies of lake maps, couple highlights of an outing, and all the weather conditions available to me. By late 90’s, I really didn’t add much more to it. It was just more of a reference manual that I could see distinct patterns developed like ice-out on the Fox River and first walleye caught, peak up run and down run, & panfish migrations. The SOB that took it has no idea of how many trips, days, $$$, and everything else involved to have compiled all that info. Since then, I quit logging everything except walleye info in the spring
Ouch! I didn’t need to tell you that sucks. What an a-hole.
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I would add some good pics and a little hooptedoodle about how the day went (emotional kind of crap or whatever) and not just make it cold data. Even if you only keep it going for a season or two, it might be a nice read for your kids when your gone, or when you’re too old to remember what life was like when you could still fish.
I do that as well for just that reason, my kids might get a kick out of it.
My grand kids would wonder why grampa has a big book of fishing without any pictures of fish.
I thought this was pretty cool idea of a journal – or “The Book” as we refer to it. My brother-nlaws’ family started building a few cabins back in the early 40’s up near Boulder Junction, WI. I’ve been going there for the last 25 or so years. But Mr. Wilson started a journal when he bought the land and included everyone thsat ever stayed there. So there is documentation from buying the land, clearing roads, building cabins, all the fishing on that lake as well as all the surrounding lakes. Plus the entries into it from EVERYONE that stays up there – regardless if 1 night or a couple weeks. It is fascinating to read all the fishing reports, weather, lures/bait used….and a lot of things that should have been just kept private 
dating all the way back into the 40’s. 72 years worth of journals have a lot of information a guy can read on a crappy stormy day. I know this isn’t specificly a “fishing journal” but where else does someone have that much info compiled 
There’s where the payoff comes a little sooner. If you have a cabin on a lake or you fish the same lake. Then your data is specific to a body of water. Now if you get a group of people to do the same thing and share the info amongst each other, now you data grows exponentially faster.
Magazines, websites and fishing shows are great for gaining knowledge of general seasonal and daily patterns, but a journal will help you key in on specific and sometimes unique patterns for a lake.
Thanks for all the suggestions! I have a feeling that I’m not the only one who is going to be starting a fishing log because of this post. At first I was thinking of using a good old fashion notebook but I really like the binder idea to be able to add maps and thing. Nice to have all that info in one place. Sucks that it was stolen though 
!
Paul, for me, it worked best to have it separated by body of water. I used hard paper as dividing pages and picked up the view all pages in a camera store. A benefit to the View-All pages is the plastic is archival, so it doesn’t discolor or re-act with the maps I put in there.
Another thing I had added was a print out of all my GPS cords. Back in the LMS-350 days, I had to write them down. But either way, in the event of catastrophic failure, you don’t loose everything
The main reason I posted this is because of my last musky trip. Last year we had some good luck in early-mid October but this year it seems a bit slower on the body of water we were fishing. I looked back at a picture of a musky I caught on oct 10th last year and the water temp was 47 degrees. The same spot this year on oct 13th was about 57-58. This really sparked my interest in logging my trips!
The app referenced by Bill Scherk is “FishMobi” and the inventor is from here in the Twin Cities. Records not only photos, but dates, notes, water temp, lure, etc…all on your smart phone..
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