Do any of yall keep a fishing log or journal? If so what do you keep in it? Time, date, type of bait, area, etc...Do you log each fish you catch or just an overall summary? How do you store it, electronically or in a notebook? I have tried to start/keep one going myself on a few different occasions and can't seem to stick with it. Maybe I am putting too much information in the log so it becomes a tedious chore instead of something I enjoy to do. Just want to hear yalls thoughts and ideas.

I have kept a log since 1995. I had the opportunity to fish with Ralph Manns back then and use some of the same criteria he uses. He writes EVERY fish down. Other informtion included includes: barometerice pressure, moon phase, depth of fish, wind direction, overall weather conditions, water conditions (clarity and temp), and a few others, but I am very anal and keep a lot of stuff. Hope this helps.

Tight lines, keep safe and good luck.

Thad Rains

As an engineer, I love this idea. Give me a big pile of data and I'll be happy mining it for hours. That said, I've struggled mightily with logging fish. I find when I'm actually on the water and faced with the proposition of taking 2 minutes to write down all the information or making another cast I invariably succumb to the temptation of the latter. Over the years I've come across a few really large well maintained data sets. Probably the best I've seen is the muskies inc. data base which has accurately logged over 50,000 musky catches over the past 10 years or so. It includes, date, time, weather, lure, depth, bottom structure, etc... I've made some pretty amazing finds digging through that data. Does anyone know if any similar data base exists in bass fishing world?

I started keeping one a few months ago with the help of everyone on the forum. This is what I came up with:

What I've done is not write every fish down. but logged the trip. When you get home from fishing, write down the conditions for that day and where you caught the fish. Like weather condition, water temp, wind direction, bait used, how deep, and where you were fishing. To me, this is a lot easier. Just my 2 cents.

Thad: Good info thanks, this is the type of data I was trying to keep but much like Jalwine I couldn't/can't make myself slow down long enough to write the fish down.

Bisset: I like that format. Even though we live in an electronic era, I still like my paper.

That's how I started and even when I kept track of everything on the computer I would still write it down. But I've gone completely electronic lately on this. I will be printing out a bunch of these and making a journal for my dad and grandpa for Christmas since I know they'd rather have it on paper. Emailing someone a Christmas gift just doesn;t sound good either lol

Kept logs on Ray Roberts since 1989 it has helped a lot.

this is what I do.

Hmm the idea of putting these all into a spreadsheet such as excel and then searching based on time of year and weather seems pretty cool. Of course you would need a few years of data before making the spreadsheet

I started one but fizzled out after two years of updating it. I seem to remember the important details of really good and really bad trips so recording the information felt redundant. Just personally didn't find it that helpful so I gave it up.

I know BigRed12 keeps one....

UTDmiller: that would be very useful. Just have to keep accurate track of data for that long.

I've gone to keeping my logs electronically with the use of either the iSolunar or Fishing Calendar iPhone app. You can quickly store the data in real time and then transfer to a computer later or just simply leave the data on the phone.

iSolunar log data example



Fishing Calendar log data example



Sometimes I also capture video with a flip or GoPro camera. At the end of the day, I save the clips where fish were caught categorized by date and location. The clips give a visual of location, weather conditions, bait used, etc as well as each video is time stamped.

I like that fishing calendar log app.