Hunting Journal

[Ansel]

Just seeing how many of you keep a hunting journal. I started a couple years ago. I use a small, hand sized notebook and right some notes. I don’t always use it but more often than not I do. I put down the typical stuff, i.e. Winds, Weather, Location, etc. but I also include general observations and thoughts, leaf peak percent, animals I saw, those kind of things. Last night I was looking back at some of the entries and I was surprised on just how much detail I forgot and how much I was able to relive the hunt by reading my notes. I’ve enjoyed it and come to value my little notebook. Just seeing if you are doing anything like this?

[GWPguy]

I don't keep a daily journal. BUt I do keep a log book of every years hunt. ANyone who gets a deer in camp has to submit a picture and a story and I put it in the book. It is only about 5 years old right now, but I am sure in 15 years or so it will be really fun to go over the good times.

[Munsterlndr]

I've been keeping a hunting journal since 1994. Every time I go hunting I record weather conditions, time started & ended, game seen, game harvested and any other events that happen during the hunt. I'm hoping that someday my kids & grandkids will enjoy reading it. I just took a look at it and it's up to 220 pages long. Here is an excerpt from the first year I started keeping the journal. It was also the first year that I bow hunted, although I had been hunting with a rifle since 1978.


October 15, 1994
Bow Hunting for deer at the farm on a Saturday afternoon. Got out to my treestand about 5:00 on a beautiful fall day. Sunny and warm, temperature around 55' . I had put out a small amount of apples and corn during the previous several days. I had hunted maybe 3 or 4 days of the bow season which started on Oct. 1st, but had yet to see any deer. Around 6:15 I saw two doe about 40 yds to the west of my treestand in thick cover. They were slowly moving in towards my blind. The sun had just set and it was starting towards dusk. There was absolutely no wind and it was dead quite in the woods. It was amazing how quietly the deer could move through the leaves without making much noise. It took the two does about twenty minutes to meander through the brush up to the bait pile. Both deer seemed very skittish and were constantly sniffing the air and looking in my direction. I thought for sure that they could either smell me or had seen me move. They stayed on the perimeter of the clearing around the bait pile and did not give me a good target. After ten minutes or so they started to slowly circle the clearing towards the south. At the same time I heard another deer coming through the woods to the east of my blind. It turns out that it was a medium sized four point buck and he was the reason the does had been so skittish. The buck walked in towards the bait pile and the two does fell into line behind him and also started coming in. I had real difficulty moving to set up a shot since all of the deer were so close and if I moved it would spook them. As the buck came into the clearing I took aim but he sensed my draw and jumped before I could release. The buck and both does took off at a run. By then it was almost dark so I called it a day. Still in my book it was a successful hunt. All in all it was a very thrilling evening.

[Pinefarm]

QDMA has a great one that we use...
https://www.qdma.com/store/details.asp?id=21&catid=4&catname=Management%20Tools

[One Eye]

Yes, I have been keeping a journal since the early 1908s. I started out using those small ledge notebooks you buy at the stationary stores. I now use MD Word. I cut and paste the weather almanac and moon information for each day from a weather website. I am currently looking for a more powerful, database driven log to use.

Dan

[smallies and bucks]

One Eye you sure have hunted along time LOL

[fish patroll]

one eye, how was the deer hunting back then ? :D i have been keeping a log since 1993, very similar to munsterlnder's.

[safetreehunt]

We keep log books in some of our blinds. They get used only during rifle season. We do keep a log of kills at the camp though. This has been going on since the early 80s. It's a lot of fun to go back and talk about the deer we've taken over the years.

The book also shows how well our own version of QDM has been helping our bucks. We hadn't taken more than a few deer that you could consider mounting in the first 20 years of owning the property. We started the let em go, let em grow program 7 years ago and have taken 8 deer that ended up as mounts since then.

[Bomba]

I also have kept one since 1996, every time I go out hunting, whether it be
Pheasant, squirrell or deer, I record weather conditions, time hunted
game seen, game taken, and any other observations I've made, and it seems I
use it for reference more and more every year. an example of when I started seeing scrapes around my stands...now that my 6yr old has taken to the bow stand with me, I like to comment on what he thought and questions he had
and how he acted when he saw the deer. That in itself its pretty entertaining.
I also keep one for every fishing trip doing the exact same..
Hopefully someday both of my boys will read them, learn something and have a good laugh at "good old dad...."

[JAHUNTER]

I don't know what gave me the idea to start, but I have been keeping a log of every hunt since my first squirrel hunt as a kid of 14, in 1976. I started with notebook paper and now use a form I created that records Date, Companions, Place, Hunting, Trophies, Weather, Notes. It is interesting to look back and bring back memories and I also refer to it for movement, time heading out to blind on certain dates etc to help plan a new hunt. I am on my third binder, but have not counted them. Some hunts do not have all info recorded, but there is at least an entry for every hunt. Will be fun to pass on to my son someday. Still have the original cover page I made at with title surrounded by drawings of various animals. When each of my nephews have started hunting, I have bought them a binder and filled with journal pages. They seem to have fun with it.

[wecker20]

I used to but it became a p.i.m.a. and I have a hard time reading my scribble anyways. :lol:

[DuckMan]

I just started keeping one this year. My buddy called it "caving in to my anal tendencies" so I wrote something bad about him on the first hunt in the journal. :lol:

I think my two boys will get some enjoyment out of it years from now. Wish I had started it a long time ago. I remember some hunts but being able to see patterns of things and relive the moments would be pretty cool right now.

[jme]

I write a story of every deer taken but not every hunt. Looking back over the stories I'm amazed how much I've forgotten, and how helpful they are. In another thread someone asked if morning or evening is more productive for bow hunting. I was about to say morning, thinking a vast majority of bow kills were at that time. Then I reviewed my stories (I also keep a running stat sheet of kills.) Man, was I wrong. if I've forgotten this much about kills, maybe I should start a log of every hunt, it would be invalluable. Ok, I'll start right now. It's also just a lot of fun to read over past hunting experiences.

John-Ypsi.

[grand river cat addict]

I've kept a Hunting Journal since my 1st year of deer hunting 1987. Here is one of my favorites


Friday December 1 2000, last day of 6 day Saskatchewan deer hunt

Cold as hell this morning. Temp was -22 degrees. At 8:30 am 1 big buck and a smaller one appeared at the bait. I got the big one in the scope and waited for him to stop. He looked like a 10 pt with long main beams out past his nose. When he stopped I pulled the trigger. The rifle did'nt even make so much as a click. I ejected the shell and tried again. Still nothing. I watched as the buck of my dreams walked off into the wilderness from wich he came. After 5 minutes of wiping frozen tears from my cheeks I took the shell out and examined it. No dent in the primer. I put in a new shell and tried to cheer up. All of a sudden I saw another deer approaching the bait. It was another buck, not as big as the 1st one but he would do.When he was in the clear I put the crosshairs on him and I swear, I squeezed that trigger for all I was worth. He dropped in his tracks.I ran so fast to the deer that I noticed half way That I was tangled in the white sheet material my makeshift blind was made of. I had ran right through my blind rather than step out of it. The bullet struck him behind the ear!! Guess I flinched a little. HUGE bodied deer. 8pt with 5 in bases only 15 in wide but lots of mass. 300 lbs on the hoof probably. 32 inch neck!! My guide saw my footprints in the snow going to the deer. All he said was "In a hurry were ya?"