# Fishing Journals?



## RiparianRanger (Nov 18, 2015)

Over the years I've kept a scattered assortment of notes on what works, where, when, and thoughts on why, however, the fishing logs are inconsistent in both frequency and form. Starting this year I intend to formalize the process and I've setup a template of sorts on my PC. I am curious if any of you keep a journal and what you consider the essentials. The current template includes a place for the date, the time (duration fished i.e. 1:00-3:00 PM), water color, level, and temperature, lure(s) used and a comment section for generic notes on the outing. This comment section would be where I'd record if I fished pools or riffles, any unique structure, what was caught, if anything, and what they were taken on, etc. Anything I'm missing?


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## partlyable (Mar 2, 2005)

From your comments it sounds like your fishing rivers. I might at barometric pressure and if it’s rising or falling. If you fish lakes I would add wind direction and speed. 


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## Bleeding Minnow (Feb 22, 2012)

I have 7 years and ~150 reports on boat trips for Alum Creek Reservoir. My hard copy log is a word doc (can't seem to upload it here) that I keep in a 3-ring binder. I then move the information into a spreadsheet so I can sort and identify trends. I find myself sorting by water temp, water clarity, weather and wind. The moon phase trends are harder for me to decipher but I have tracked them using the moon app. In addition I am tracking time of day, locations fished, boat pressure, number of fish, lures used and any pertinent notes about the trip. The log generally gives me a good idea where I should launch from while giving me a few good starting spots and techniques for each boat trip. It also can be an enjoyable read when the boat is tucked away in the winter. In addition I have logged the last 5 years of my trips during the fall/winter night bite in a spreadsheet. I sort on wind, moon, time and lure selection more than anything for that deal. I have fished Central Ohio rivers for 20+ years and never kept a log.


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## RiparianRanger (Nov 18, 2015)

^Bleeding Minnow, that sounds pretty slick. The sorting element sounds particularly useful in planning trips. Might you comment a little further how you transpose from word to excel and how you have excel structured (column headers)?


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## Bleeding Minnow (Feb 22, 2012)

RiparianRanger said:


> ^Bleeding Minnow, that sounds pretty slick. The sorting element sounds particularly useful in planning trips. Might you comment a little further how you transpose from word to excel and how you have excel structured (column headers)?


For my lake log i just manually type the data points into excel. My column headers are date, time, location, anglers, air temp, water temp, clarity, weather, wind, moon, fish, best lure. My hard copies contain additional information on anything from specific techniques to notable fish to comments on how my boat ran.


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## ristorap (Mar 6, 2013)

I put what lures I used, had bites or none on them. I will write down any baits that I lost. I put down how many days before or after the full moon and new moon.


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## FlyFishRich (Feb 3, 2016)

I kinda do the same thing but for bow hunting.....Rich
...


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## Jose' (Aug 31, 2013)

Curious as to if any of you who keep a journal include the barometer in your findings. And if so, how it correlates to your fishing?


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## ristorap (Mar 6, 2013)

Jose' said:


> Curious as to if any of you who keep a journal include the barometer in your findings. And if so, how it correlates to your fishing?


 Yes I put down what the reading is. I put down wind speed and direction, air temp, water temp if I know what it is, sunny or cloudy. I put down if it is raining or storm moving in.

I seem to do better when the barometer is falling. I have had days where wind direction on spots made it better.


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## Tomr (Oct 14, 2016)

Spread sheet sounds like a nice way to finalize and organize everything. I’ve used my iphones “notepad” app to document on the fly while out there. But my best source of documenting I would say is using the phone to snap a pic which saves a ton of info just by looking at it (weather, location, water, lures) the photo also saves the lat/long location. 
Funny story my budy thought I was just snapping pics of the good day out fishing when I told him about the info the picture saved it was almost as if you saw the gears turning in his head as he was putting two and two together.


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