Fishing log - worth the effort? Pics speak a 1000 words

[deathb4disco]

I have been threatening to do this myself. Any chance you could paste in your headers? Curious what all information you keep.

I track the following:

Year
Month
Day of the week
Date
Method used (fly, spin, etc.)
Number of fish caught
Species caught
Weather (general conditions, like sunny, overcast, etc.)
Wind conditions
Start time
End time
Duration
Bait used
Bait color
Location
Comments (can be anything that doesn't fit into other categories)

I'm a "numbers guy", and I stare at Excel all day, so this really works for me. As I said before, the power of using a spreadsheet is that you are creating a database that can be searched and sorted in any way.

If I want to know what's my most productive jig color on Lake X ... in May ... on Tuesday ... when it's overcast ... I can have the answer in seconds with just a few keystrokes.

I used to keep a "diary" type of log. It was enjoyable to go back through them, but the spreadsheet if much more informative.

[huntinslabs]

Excel is an invaluable tool, I use it daily as well. Wish I knew how to run excel better than I do, but great tool no less.

[gatoloco]

I agree I do the same. tale a pic with phone and use notes section to document what I used.

great method!

[Cane Pole]

After over 60 years of fishing the same area, I don't to keep records anymore. However, I was here on Earth way before spreadsheets and computers, so I used a graphite pencil and wrote myself notes in a spiral steno notebook.

Several years ago (or more), I took the collected info (over 20 years) and created a general graph of the Paris, Tn area. This graph gives anyone a fairly good starting point which is the intent of the graph.

If you are lucky, you will find the fish. If you are good, the you will catch the fish. If you are both good and lucky, you will fill your buckets.

[skeetbum]

Spoon, that's a great system. Much easier than the old school method.

If you wouldn't mind, please send me the fillets from about a dozen of those 13" yellow perch. It would make me so happy. LOL

[Cane Pole]

I wanna see the picture of the 37 fish, not 2. Anybody can catch 2, even my fat neighbor Max.

[Tony the Tiger]

My log is old school, Date, times, location, tides, weather conditions, pressure, river stage, water temp, species of fish, fishing technique, special notes of interest, all entered on a spread sheet in a folder in the magazine rack by my easy chair/recliner. Been keeping one since I commercial fished 40+ years ago. Just habit but kinda fun to look back 30 years ago and see where I caught a thousand pounds of speckeled trout or ten thousand pounds of roe mullet and remember all the details. Now its 15 or 20 Sac au lait and an odd fish or two.

[Spoonminnow]

If you wouldn't mind, please send me the fillets from about a dozen of those 13" yellow perch. It would make me so happy. LOL

Be glad to if I knew they would keep en route. LOL

I wanna see the picture of the 37 fish, not 2. Anybody can catch 2, even my fat neighbor Max.

LOL
Seriously though, that was a slow day. Two days before, I clicked on the counter over 110 fish - five species. No way did I take shots of anything but lunkers and the lures they were caught on. For ha ha's maybe a few midgets caught on lures half their size. But here are a few more:

[Spoonminnow]

Legal size bass and crappie are scarce due to illegal harvest during past winters and summers. No law and property enforcement invited trespassers over the years to rape the lake. At least now a caretaker lives on the lake and won't hesitate to call the local police. Lunker perch and sunfish are what's left along with big channel cats (I caught four on lures earlier this year (one was over seven pounds).

[Spoonminnow]

It does have its advantages checking the log before going out on a particular water. Wouldn't it be nice if we could ask a higher authority information that would save time finding fish, knowing what not to use to catch them and how to use the right lures for each situation?

Granted, much of my search is broad-area casting over large flats that aren't really flat and along weed lines/ in weed pockets, but I always wished I knew where an underwater wall was, where a point extends and ends, where and what direction a narrow hump is, how steep and deep a vertical drop, submerged trees that could snag my lures, etc.

The whole point of a log and a detailed depth map, is being able to cast to something knowing beforehand what I'm casting to so as to not kill the spot with the trolling motor and boat shadow. So many times I float over fish seen on the sonar that are on a stump or at the end of a point, knowing that it's very unlikely those fish can be coaxed into giving me a second chance.

The other importance of keeping a photo log is keeping up on which lures work best, when and where to use them, therefore being able to offer a variety. So many times (strange as it is), if I switch to another lure design in another color and fish respond immediately! Yesterday I switched from my usual catch-all-species & sizes to a medium size, bright white Kalin grub (a wide curl-tail, thick body grub). 5-6" bass were all over it; even a small crappie had the 3" bait all the way in its mouth!! Plus I learned that bright white under an overcast sky can be dynamite! (Haven't used that lure in over a decade.)

Another lesson learned in the last few outings recorded on my PC is that 8# test mono can be tied directly to a 1/16 or 1/8 oz jig with no negative effect. Of course I'll still use 4-6# test leaders for 1/32 oz for best lure action.

So now I know that curl tail grubs have potential and will expand to other rarely used lures collecting dust, though some lures I won't try again after they fail on different waters.

Here is what the written log looked like before personal computers: