Hunting/ Fishing Journal?

[Yelper Guy]

I haven't posted anything in quite a while, but I have been lurking quite a bit - I like to watch!
Talking with my brother yesterday, I mentioned how I wish I would have started a hunting/ fishing journal.
All of my turkey hunts, steelheading, deer & elk hunting... I've forgotten half of what went on.
I could have over 20 years worth of memories written down, but I never started one because it sounded corny at the time.
Now I would love to have a journal with past adventures - I'm sure it would have been a good read.
I think the younger sportsmen & women should start a journal, before you regret not starting one - like me.

[7mmfan]

My Dad kept a steelhead fishing journal when I was young. I stumbled across it a year or two back and really got a kick out of reading his reports. It brought back some really good memories.

I've started doing some short write ups of my hunts recently. It's interesting to try and put experiences like those into words, can be very difficult.

Thanks for bringing this up, gives me something to think about with my son coming up in the ranks in a few years.

[Yelper Guy]

Too many vague memories - like the time I was turkey hunting and a chickadee landed on my barrel.
Or when we called in a bobcat, or saw a cow moose...

[gaddy]

Wish I had done this some 40 years ago. Good idea !

[Special T]

The most sucessful hunters and fishermen I know have kept a detailed journal/notebook. It has made the trends clearer to pick out and be very sucessful.

Even Boneaddict has stated on here that he finds deer in specific places at certain times and is able to find them year after year because he keeps track.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[JimmyHoffa]

I was keeping a ton of notes when first starting for steelhead.  The plan was to organize in some form similar to a journal.  But so many rivers were open and for so long, and usually so busy with fish or making jigs and spinners that I didn't get to it.  Eventually just so much info it would've been hard to go back and organize it.

Now there have been so many changes--closed rivers, no plants, new rules etc that not much would help today anyways. Probably be super depressing to read about steelhead from back then vs now.

[fish vacuum]

I kept a fishing journal for several years. I still reference it from time to time, mostly to see where I have been at certain river flows, how long it takes to float different stretches, and when The fish start showing up in different places. The information comes in handy.

[NRA4LIFE]

I swear at myself all the time for not doing that.  I would love to know how many critters I've killed but after 40+ years of hunting, there's no way I could remember them all.  I'm guessing I've killed 100 or more big game animals, but I don't know for sure. 

If you are young, do this.  Some day you will be happy you did.

[gaddy]

I would also recommend a camera. I never carried one or had one in camp. My brother got into photography and went nuts. He would put together an album or send pictures to me after hunts. It was the only time we got together each year and it is nice to look at the picts now and then to remember years past. 

[Skyvalhunter]

Lets see some of the pics

[gaddy]

I can't do picts on the puter. He sent me prints. One year he bought a thing you put the memory card in and loaded them on my old computer, but I couldn't get to them. I was always one of those guys that believed " What happens in Elk camp stays in elk camp ". One year he sent me an album that was only 3/4 full. Took it to work and was showing the gals (non hunters) in the office and telling them about the trip. Well, one of them happened to leaf all the way to the back and got a shocked look on her face and started laughing. My brother had secreted away a picture of me, with the woods in the back ground, stark naked, with a pail of water on a stump as I was bathing. I never knew it was in there, or that he had even taken it. I thought I was alone in camp at that time. Well, she found it. Then the saying wasn't do bears go in the woods, It was, does Gaddy go naked in the woods.