Hunting Journals

[Doc]

I was just curious as to how many here actually keep hunting journals.

Those that do:

- How many years have you got documented?

- What level of detail do you record?

- What is the format that you use (spread sheets, hand written notebooks, purchased canned programs, etc.)?

- how useful has the journal been to you?

- Do you use the journal just for historical purposes (diary) or have you tried to build in some analysis features for assisting future hunts?

Doc

[fasteddie]

I don't keep one but it's an excellent idea . We had this forum on another site and several of the members kept the journals up religiously . It's good to keep one and look back on what you did .

[Doewhacker]

I have one year down, I just typed it up on the pc. Nothing fancy more like a story than any thing else. But I did note weather conditions for the kill dates and overall synapsis for the year. My brother does something simular but with more emphasis on the funny stories which is good.

[NYBowhunter]

I have kept a journal for last three years when I bought my land, which includes deer taken, dates and time of harvest , weight of deer, sex of deer, for bucks the # of points etc.... I also keep a food plot journal, from dates of plowing,disking, harrowing, dates of seeding, amounts and types of lime / fertilizer used, what type of crop planted and how well or bad the crop did.

[burmjohn]

I plan on keeping a Journal, but more of a image / video journal along with some notes...

[Frank]

Thats a good idea. I take lots of pictures of everything I kill. I then right a little bit about the hunt. Now I think I will get more in depth about the hunt.

[Doc]

I have a spreadsheet that covers hunting seasons from 1982 to 1995. I have attached (hopefully) some screen shots that show how I used to use this electronic journal. I have never used the photo attachment thing before, so if it all works, I will add another reply to explain all of what is depicted here.

Doc

[Doc]

Ok ...... that worked pretty darn slick!

This Excel spreadsheet was developed way back in the years when I was just learning about spreadsheets. I was playing around with macros and taught myself how to make these things do a bit of analytical work for me.

Most of the above photos are pretty self explanitory.

The first one is my index page. Each of the buttons shown takes you to the page indicated.

The second picture is the stand results which shows the historical deer sighting results of each stand in terms of percentages.

The third picture shows what I call the "Moday" results. Moday is a 4 digit number that indicates the Month and day of that month. I developed that term because it was convenient for sorting on specific dates so that I could identify times of the season where activity changed. Good for rut analysis, and other features such as when activity shifted from primarily valley activity to hilltop activity, and when shifts in food sources occurred, etc.

The fourth picture shows the page where stands are kept track of, identified and numbered. Everytime I created a new stand-site, an entry was added to this sheet. It's amazing how many different stands you can come up with over all those years. The stand numbers exceed 120.

The last picture shows "areas" so I could look at larger more generalized area that I hunt to look for trends and pattern shifts.

The one page that I did not photograph was the main database entry page. As you can imagine, it is huge and didn't lend itself to nicely to putting in one picture. This is where each hunt was recorded in terms of the details of what was seen and what the conditions were for that hunt.

Each hunt received a log number. After that was recorded the date, stand location, number of deer sighted, Time (am/pm), weather (snow, rain, cloudy, sunny), temp, wind direction, wind velocity (general terms), deer entry direction, exit direction, Hunter action (shot, let them pass), results (hit, miss, deer spooked, kill), hunting style (standing, still hunting, scouting, walking to or from stand), Number of bucks, number of does, number of unidentified, location code (area number), stand number, closest stand (for sightings when I wasn't at any particular stand), Moday, uphill, downhill, remarks.

All entries were kept to a specific wording so that results could all be sorted.

The good news was that over all those years, the journal activity recorded every detail of every hunt, and make a great item for reminiscing. The bad news is that over that many years, a whole lot of physical changes take place that influences deer herds and patterns. For example, we had a devastating ice storm that re-routed deer trails significantly and even changed the nature of feeding and bedding areas. Also even over just 13 years, fields that were just scattered brush changed to more mature over-stories which made the deer use those areas in different ways and at different times. Also, land-use changed dramatically. Much of the area was state land which was pretty much vacant during the bow seasons back then. Today there is a thick network mountain bike trails throughout the whole area, and tons of hikers use them as well as the bikers. Also, the number of bowhunters has increased significantly, and through some of the bow season, small game hunters and turkey hunters have put pressure on the deer that have changed their habits and patterns.

So what I'm saying is that as an analytical tool, the journal was only useful for a few years before old info started polluting the results of more current hunting conditions and results. It was all a fun experiment, and it sure did help me learn a lot about Excel. But as a long term hunting analysis tool, it just didn't work out the way I expected. One part of it is still very useful though. The stand identification part of the spreadsheet has preferred wind direction data in it, So on a day when they are predicting a west wind, all I have to do is run a sort of the stands on wind direction, and out pops all the stands (existing or former) that are suitable for that west wind. It also brings back to mind past stands locations and has often lead to resurrecting those sites again.

I do believe that for hunters that own their own land and who manage their own land so that conditions stay pretty stable over time, an analytical spreadsheet might prove useful. The amount of work maintaining this level of detail is not as bad as it might seem. I developed some blank worksheets that I kept in a notebook and manually entered the info after each hunt. Then later in the year (the dead of winter) when I was actually looking for things to do, I would transfer the data over to the spreadsheet. So it all was not really any big deal as far as effort.

Overall, I would classify the whole thing as a lot of fun. I think I did learn a lot about the deer in my hunting area, and I have a journal of memories that already I am beginning to appreciate.

Doc

[Doewhacker]

Man that is indepth, I can see the use in that. That would help the memory, especially when you have more than one spot to hunt. hmmm my interest is building.

[burmjohn]

Doc, wow... Now thats a journal!

[BIGHUNTER2700537]

Wow that looks like a lot of time that I dont have.

[Daveboone]

I keep a running journal of my outdoors trips, and what I did.. Frequently no more than a paragraph or so, unless something memorable happened. I keep a separate journal for my camp. Each visit I document the weather, who was there, what we did and saw, etc.

[First-light]

Keep them every year. Great way to look back and figure out what really went on with the rut. Yes the moon and weather has impact on the rut but I believe it even is more of a localized event. This is where journals are a big help.

[Doc]

One thing that a journal did for me was to substitute fact for vague impressions. I didn't have to sit around and try to recollect a bunch of years worth of observations in order to form opinions. The sum total of all that I had seen for all those years was right there at the push of a button. That makes you a whole lot more confident in your conclusions.

Doc

[JCTheGC]

It's a great idea, so simple too.  Could even be a few words to keep notes.

[Geno C]

i wish i had the time to do so... it is a great idea to compare weather conditions and even wind directions from the prior year and correspond that to stand locations and such. how many deer you saw, which way the wind was blowing, high pressure/low pressure morning / afternoon. i think its a great idea. i just wish i had the time to devote to that.

[Doc]

Actually it takes very little time. What I did was to make up a blank data sheet and ran a whole bunch of copies. I would dash down the stuff when I got home from the day's hunt. Over the winter, I am always looking for things to do anyway, so I just took all the data sheets and entered the stuff into my spreadsheet.

My problem was that I expected to get more out of the spreadsheet over a long period of time than was practical. What I didn't count on was the changes that occur over time that change the way deer move and where. New houses sprang up, logging changed patterns. A huge ice storm buried deer trails and food sources and many of my stands under tons of debris. Open fields on the hilltops and valley bottoms were abandoned and filled in with brush. Many of the brushlots of the early 80s matured to create over-stories that choked out a lot of the browse that deer used to feed on. In some cases, land uses changes which changed deer patterns. Neighboring state lands that used to be completely empty of bow hunters and any other people today have a network of mountain bike trails that are heavily used by bikers and hikers. So those observations that I had 30 years ago are totally invalid today. I thought with the volume of data that I had accumulated over all those years, and the analysis tools that I had developed that I would be able to let history tell me how, when and where to hunt and just what conditions would work with which stands. That turned out to be unrealistic. Times change and so do the deer.

Anyway, all is not lost. The whole thing today provides a journal that is so complete that I can completely recall each and every hunt in detail. There's an awful lot of personal hunting history there and I don't regret one minute of time that I spent on it.

Doc

[Geno C]

No thats great. All of that info i bet comes in very handy plus its nice to be able to go back and read through it and what not. Do you make stand changes and also determine which stands you want to hunt according to previous data from the year b4??

even tho it may vary year to year.

[STEVE ANKER]

Cool stuff....I have always stuffed a small pocket sized notebook in my game pouch, or shell pouch while bird hunting over my pointing dogs. When there is a lull in the action, or when we return to the dog trailer, we'd jott down a few lines on what transpired or just random related thoughts jogged loose while trekking in the Great North Woods. My purpose is a bit selfish though, I'm putting together a book of training and hunting anecdotes we've experienced over the many years working behind bird dogs. Short stories, some serious, some hilarious happening over the years hunting in upland splendor of the NE.

[Doc]

No thats great. All of that info i bet comes in very handy plus its nice to be able to go back and read through it and what not. Do you make stand changes and also determine which stands you want to hunt according to previous data from the year b4??

even tho it may vary year to year.

Yes, I have such an extensive mapping of stands now that I have over 130 stands identified in the database, each with comments, locations and preferred wind directions and harvest data. At any one time, there are only a few of these ground stands that are actually still there and useful, but checking out the database always is like suggesting a good place to re-construct one of them based on predicted wind direction, etc. In fact, I can do a data sort on all 100+ stand locations based on preferred wind direction and get a printout of all stand locations over the past 30 years that are good for North winds for example or whatever the predicted wind direction is. Checking out the details of each of those and coupling it with whatever that year's scouting has turned up allows me to zero in on some of the better  spots for whatever wind direction I am facing. That stand spreadsheet page also indicates what is needed to put the stand back in use again as far as repair, so that I can line up a lot of the stands that my scouting shows to have promise and see to it way in advance that they are serviceable. That way, when the wind is right, I can just pop into them without a whole lot of attention getting messing around.

Yes, there are some of the stands in the database that are totally useless because of changes that have taken place since the time when they were hot. That is usually noted somewhere in the "comments" column so that I can pull them out of the sort.

Yeah, it's a lot of screwing around, but it's also part of the fun, and a way of removing some of the vague opinions, recollections and feelings, about where to go on a particular day and why. When I go to a particular spot it gives me a somewhat educated reason for going there.

I also can look at the harvest and sighting data for each one of the stands and tell what percent of the visits actually had deer show up (bucks, does or unidentified deer), and how many there were, and what conditions and time of the season or time of day they have been the best. But as I explained, all that info is tainted by 30 years worth of physical changes so while that stuff is all kind of interesting, it doesn't really turn out to be as useful or predictive as I had envisioned it would. That stuff is more for historical interest rather than current useful data to base any decisions on. ....... Too bad, it was a good thought that never really panned out.

Probably the best part about the database other than preserving memories is the fact that when you speak about the local herd and changes over the years, you are speaking from recorded facts and not some time warped vague recollections. You don't have to preface everything with, "I seem to recall that ......"......lol. The exact observations are recorded right there just waiting to have exact information extracted.

Doc

[Geno C]

thats awesome. bet it pays off in the long run! i have to admit that is ALOT of data at your finger tips lol. Looks like you really take the time to log down the time you spend in the woods.

thats really cool

[Doc]

thats awesome. bet it pays off in the long run! i have to admit that is ALOT of data at your finger tips lol. Looks like you really take the time to log down the time you spend in the woods.

thats really cool

The best thing is that it is data that is relevant to the exact land that you hunt and not something based on theories and facts from miles away or as average data on average land. And you can customize it to suit whatever information you want to gather and analyse.

The other good thing is that it takes the burden off your memory. Everything is written down and organized. When you talk about hunting conditions in your own hunting area, there is the confidence and credibility that you know exactly what you are talking about. All you have to do is look it up.

Yes it takes a bit of time, but it is time that is spent doing something interesting.

Doc

[Fitzy]

I started a journal last year. I include the weather and any other conditions. I've made crude maps noting stand sites and terrain. Of course a running story of how the day went is the best thing to jog a memory.

[furman_ny]

Have kept a journal for past 8 years, in one of the journal types you get from sporting goods store, wish I had done it since I was 14. I keep, well, kind of detailed records of all hunts and trapping I do, which is many different species and many different locations. Is pretty nice when sitting around with hunting buddies and lookin back at previous hunts, many things that would be gone from memory forever can be re-lived just by looking back through these books. Weapons, weather, locations, all of which change over time can be remembered. I also take down deer wieghts and sizes from all deer taken by group I hunt with, quickly takes away the mine was bigger than yours argument years later. Recommend it to all, I know many dont have the time to hunt as much as they like, but it will still let you go back when you get a bit long in the tooth and recall many days and things you witnessed in the outdoors. I fill a whole book each year with hundreds of different sightings, misses, and harvests I made or was part of, wouldnt be able to remember 99 percent of them even the next season without one.

[bushnell]

The only thing I keep record of is the deer that I have shot at. I write down (# of shots, location, whether i was walking or sitting and the date) Everything is hand written onto a notepad by years. I also have google earth downloaded onto my computer and I pin the locations where I shot my deer.