I'm pretty much like Nor Cal Drifter. Too much work...too little memory. But I have chronicled every fish my son and I have caught (we are lifelong fishin' and huntin' buddies) over the past 15 years with photo's. We photo every fish and I have an entire wall of my den covered with them. And much to my surprise, especially at my age, I can still remember the vivid details of every trip. As I've told people who are amazed at my wall..."There's a story behind every picture". Works for me.

The pics and the journal go hand in hand. Sometimes I get negligent with the journal and have to use the pics as a reference weeks or months later.

Would love to read some journals from some of the pioneers. Would any of you have a $ value on them. I think some of them would be priceless.

I kept tide charts, rain amounts, moon cycles, gauge height, barometric pressure, and all encounters with anything swimming, or walking, that wasn't human. For like 3 years. it got me dialed in on what days to expect a fish and what days to expect a hike.
It amazed me the number of deer and elk sightings, that I caught fish around... and I was able to dial in a few lower holes on some small rivers that I could go "x" amount of time from low tide early in the season and encounter fish that came in with the tide. I also found that if the animals were up late the fish seemed to eat at night also, so the best bites were later in the am after they got hungry again.

I stopped keeping track after I started noticing that more people on the river or bay reduced the number of fish I caught. it made me want to only fish midweek. and the Job didn't like that....

My dad started keeping a journal around 1990 on a calendar. It was basic, keeping stats on water flows, color, techniques used, etc. Starting around 1996 he started a journal on the computer and it reads as a true fish story. It has reports written by me starting around the age 11 and is priceless as far as I'm concerned. All told I believe he's over a 1,000 pages and it chronicles not only us but our fishing network out here on the OP. As a result, patterns have emerged for both fresh and saltwater. Sooner or later he's going to turn the document into an actual bound book.

It might be nerdy, but they are usefull, and like doc I have pictures,

Doc, when I look back over the last ten years, on 2/8 when I saw you last year, give or take a day on either side. Last year I was 8 for 13. And the ten year average for that water, during the three day window, similar flows is 9 for 12 with the low point being 6 landed, So I know where I will be this year.

Your point is?

I used to keep a journal back in the day. Salmon Trout Steelheader had an excellent journal they used to sell. Don't use it anymore, but do look at it every once in awhile to remember the good old days.

If you're tech savvy, create a free blog on Tumblr, Blogspot, Wordpress and make it "private" so that only you can login and view it. That way you can upload pics as well as jot down important info. Info & pics at the same place.

Think of it as a more professional approach to the sport.
I wish that I had done it.


One of the great, traditional fisheries down here is trolling for Spring Chinook on the Willamette.
I knew a guy who had a Springer journal that dated back to the late 40's.
His favorite section was the Oak Grove Reach.
This "paperwork" is now a historical document, IMO.

What are skunk days?

Might have a few skunk days in the pile.

Na, no way!
fp

Somebody has a Fishing Journal App. for your smart phone... Just gotta find it.

+1 for the online blogs. Easy free and you don't have to worry about losing it. I've kept a log starting in 1995 with the hopes of one day maybe writing a book. Not gonna happen until my kids are out of the house because I'm too busy fishing or taking care of them.

I also used it as practice for coding HTML. What PITA but it was fun to look back at our adventures. www.alaskafishinglogs.com

Now I use the blog system. Unlike the technical detail blogs mine are more stories. But with the ability to upload pictures and video the conditions can be memorialized. I have no idea if it's the best one but I use the google combo of blogspot, Picasa, and YouTube and it's pretty easy. It does take time but I personally think it's worth it.
http://guidesak.blogspot.com

Its a really good idea if you are not too busy to do it. When I was younger (aka during college, and before kids) I kept up a really good log.

I just got a daily planner, and filled out what happened on each day, flows, weather, technique or anything else I thought was important. Even more, I filled it out if my network had success and I used the internet to verify flows, weather, etc to figure out what was happening.

I superimposed the net-days over all of that as well. Sometimes I looked on the internet and would write down information I gleaned from it, when people who fish the same places I do would post reports.

Then in the margins I would write down hypotheses, and opinions on what was happening with the fish. I would write anything I thought would give me an edge if the same conditions presented themselves. Sometimes I pasted pictures of the color of certain rivers in there as well. I would just stop by on my way by and take a picture of the water for future reference. This started when we still took pictures with film.

How much would someone pay for that? It basically covers about 5 rivers within an hour of me here, you can all probably guess them.

Eventually, I got to where I knew what was going on enough that I didn't have to do it so I quit. Now I just go back through the pictures on my phone, I really should send all the texts from my fish network to the cloud somewhere to remember that as well.

See you on the river 2/8 MetlheadMatt!

It also makes me wistful whenever I read it. Because for a couple of years I filled out 3-5 days a week!

I don't record in journals the fish I caught...I don't take pictures of the fish I caught...

I suck. I like to just go out and fish. The lasting memories stick. The others don't . I figure, fish for the moment and let the moment go.

I don't have a journal but I just go fishing with Rocket Red which is basically the same thing.

I used to keep one so I wouldn't forget the details from previous years but I kept forgetting to use it!

Read The Western Angler by Roderick Haig-Brown. It kind of reads like a journal - of a master angler, fishing Vancouver Island before the runs crashed.

I keep a log in Word. The best thing about it, besides being archival, is the search function. If I want to remember where a certain hole is, what river level I caught those fish at, which color worked that one time, etc, all I need to do is search a couple key words and it's there!

It's also a hoot to read about trips you've forgotten about...........