Who keeps a hunting journal

I was just wondering who keeps a hunting journal?

 

This is something over the years I keep thinking I should do. It would be nice to be able to look back as you get older and see how you have grown as a hunter and outdoorsman. Plus I think the information could be incredibly useful to come up with any new strategies. I do not know why I havent done it yet, but I think it is time to start.

 

I did for 2 or 3 years and just didn't see the need to do it anymore.

 

I have one. Made an exel sheet. With 3 full years entered, I'm starting to be able to get some pretty interesting statistics.

 

Ive thought about it a lot, and believe im going to start one this year. Fitz i know you do your hunts, but do you journal scouting etc too?

 

I've entered data after every hunt starting in '09. I haven't journaled my scouting, but I have hundreds of waypoints marked on google earth. I've though about journaling my trail cam picture similarly to my hunts, but if I do it would only be for the fall and that would still be a TON of data entry!

 

I've kept a journal for the past three seasons, and I used a modified version of Fitz's last year. Works out nicely.

 

Fitz that is awesome. Any chance you want to share that excel sheet with me? I would love to start doing that.

 

I have kept one for the past 5 years.

 

Fitz that journal that you keep is crazy! Gonna have to try to remember to record all that info. Think I might be screwing up the formulas deleting all your info though!

 

I keep a binder with info in it, my notes on the area, game counts, and so forth, from prior years.

I make a new spiral before the season, sort of like an assassin's notebook.

I also do a lot of research on Google Earth.

It all eventually ends up in a hunt plan, with forest road maps and topo maps.

Sort of like an amphibious warfare plan.

I guess you can take the Marine out of the Corps but you cannot take the Corps out of the Marine.

 

Wow! I thought I was crazy when it comes to hunting! I may be, but there are worse!

I do journal my scouting as well, indeed.

Fitz you look like a damm navy seal.

:D

 

If you go to the same spot every year with equal success every year, then I guess you don't need to.

But where I live, the game moves around all the time between high elevation and low elevation game refuges.

The hunting zones are in between.

So you always need to figure out where they are in their movement, and that depends on weather and climate.

 

i keep one for deer and duck hunting

 

Fitz,

Can you make graphs from that spreadsheet?

I have used a couple of programs to journal data and observations. DEERTRACK and BUCKSPY. I still have them on another PC since they won't load on this one. Both products are now out of business so no more tech support.
Both were great programs. BUCKSPY had the abiltiy to journal and use aerial photos. I made some good graphs with them and they give me some good information. I wish they were still in business.

 

This will be my 4th season doing this as well. Pretty interesting to look back on.

 

Not anymore....just became more than I cared to do.

 

If you are just deleting the boxes with the info in them, you'll be fine. Otherwise let me know and I can fix it for you. I use the NOAA weather site to pull all my weather data from. I also have a hunting calendar to get the moon phase. When I come in for the hunt, I change out of my gear and sit down to enter everything. It helps me review what happened and I start planning my next move.

I just built it in Excel, so you certainly could add graphs, I haven't yet. I do have a stats page that has some info broken down by year and all together.

 

I keep one in a binder, but nothing like what Fitz is doing. Man that is awesome. I would love to have something like that.

 

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