Keeping a Fishing Log
I opened randomly to a set of pages of my fishing log, and photographed them, so you can get a better idea of how you might do it.
How I Found Out
Another article originally published in New Jersey Federated Sportsmen’s News, the publication of New Jersey Federated Sportsmen’s Clubs.
Between you and your fishing, it might be wise to keep a log. When I review mine, it does more than provide information. It jogs memory, which can be more valuable than checking on listed water temps and the like. The log’s easy to format and takes only a moment to fill out after an outing. I don’t print pages from a computer, though you can do that if you prefer. You can also keep a log on electronic file, but instead of my telling you how to do that, I’ll relate how I do mine on paper after some back story about my habit. There’s a lot you can do by blogging, but it will be more than you can check on in a jiffy.
It began as an open assignment for class in the seventh grade, when I took account of catches at my favorite spot on Little Shabakunk Creek in Lawrence. A year later, I began logging more in earnest, using a pocket notebook. I still have the notebook somewhere, and each page, which lists a single largemouth bass, follows the simple form of date, place, weather and water conditions. And what lure the bass was caught on. I don’t remember what motivated me, but despite feeling contempt for school, I was a studious sort at 13 and 14, taking information seriously. That’s why my patience for school was short; I didn’t need to be told to take a mindful attitude.
I soon realized, just a little reluctantly—because the object of my concern wasn’t my own creation—that I could use being shown better about logging my fish. I had met someone older who showed me how to do it. The first entry in the log I still use now dates back to February 22, 1975, just a couple of days after I met Joe. If I remember rightly, his mentor had showed him how to do it. Joe was 25 when we met; I was 14. His mentor was a much older man Joe had fished with during his teens and who had died by the time Joe met me.
Joe and I meeting was not a random coincidence. We met in what I believe is the same way his mentor had chosen him, by being on the water while doing our best at catching fish. The master watched between casts and judged it worthwhile to come forward. There’s only so much water in Mercer County that offers the best February bass fishing. Where else might a young man and potential mentor meet—both very serious about fishing—but where they expected the best fishing? It certainly narrowed the margin of coincidence.
Organizing Outings in a Log
About organizing outings in a log, I don’t think any of your entries will make half of the difference to you that they will—in the long run—by your understanding something of the personal quality of accepting the commitment. You should also understand something of the milieu you stand in when beginning the log, because you won’t easily keep something so close to you, if your society allows you no personal freedom. What’s the use if you won’t stick to it, and if you do stick to it, it’s because you understood the personal value from the outset. Think about it. To keep a log—in the same format--over the course of more and less five decades, speaks to a profoundly stable life. I did quit keeping it for about 10 years between 1981 and 1992, but I never got rid of it. Since then, I’ve reviewed entries frequently.
Instead of using a spiral-bound notebook, I recommend—with conscious irony—one of the “Schooltime” notebooks with the black-and-white covers, the binding set in the spine. The pages are ruled horizontally, and all you have to do is grab a ruler or even align the spine of a magazine to use as an edge, and beginning at the top edge of the log’s page, draw vertical rows along the edge with a pen. They intersect with the horizontal lines. That will create little box spaces, each where you fill in the numbers, shorthand symbols, and words, but first, you can demarcate the year by using a full horizontal space to mark the four numbers—like 2026--in the center of that space so the number of the year is visible and set off from everything else. Begin the first entry in the horizontal space immediately underneath at the left vertical margin by marking day and month separated by a diagonal slash. The other boxes of my log are: Weather, Time, Time Fished, Wind, Size, Temp, Water Temp, Clarity, Lures/Bait, Place, Bass, Trout, Pickerel, Smallmouth, Other, Notes.
Each of those categories, including that first one, “Date,” I spell out above the first horizontal line at the top of the page. Each those words I’ve listed, which name the categories, fills out lengthier box-spaces created by vertical lines drawn from the top edge of the page. The words are written vertically so narrow margins can be filled, besides “Lures/Bait,” “Place,” and “Notes.” Each of these three headings is written horizontally so the three largest spaces can be filled on each date going down the page.
I try—and I often fail—to fill in all the lures and/or baits I use, but I underline those that caught fish. The log’s not perfect. The “Notes” section, for example, can’t take many words, but regardless of limitations on the account a log amounts to, I can zero in on a day in 1975, and rather than picking out information about the weather or water conditions, perhaps where I fished and the number of my catch is sufficient to jog memory of the outing. Invariably, two or three items of information do it. I remember outings from five decades ago with vivid specificity.
About shorthand symbols, under “Weather,” for example, I use “Pt.S” for “partly sunny,” and under “Time,” I use “E/M” for early morning, but if I fish early and late morning, I just use “M,” and if I fish early morning into early afternoon, I use “M, E/A.” When I fill in “Time Fished,” I put a plus-sign over a numeral designating hours, and a short horizontal line over a numeral designating minutes. It doesn’t have to be perfectly exact. Who can measure time exactly, anyhow? “Wind” is usually “calm” or a numerical range with letters designating direction, like N for north. I divide “Size” (of fish) into S, M, L, or small, medium, and large. When I catch more large than small, I use a capital L and a small s. It’s up to you to set the parameters of what size defines each division, just as your most frequent catches might not match my categories of (largemouth) bass, trout, pickerel, smallmouths, and whatever ‘Other” fish. “Temp” is usually a range divided by a hyphen. “Water Temp” might be a single numeral taken from my sonar graph, a series of two numerals, or a range designated by a hyphen. Under “Clarity,” I use “GC” for gin clear, “C” for clear, “N” for normal, “D” for dingy, “M” for muddy, although, often, I refine the issue by, for example, placing a lowercase n underneath a C, because the clarity is marginal.
Develop a shorthand system that fills each box. You might think of categories I don’t use in my log, or decline on some of my choices. I used to include code for the reels I used, and maybe over the years one or two other categories besides, but now I have more room for notes. All of the categories can be useful. Despite my emphasis on memory, I do on occasion glean specific information, such as the series of Lake Hopatcong water temperatures that support my article “Cold Snaps for Baiting Walleye.“
Memory in Concrete Information
My purpose in writing this article isn’t to give you an exact template or suggestions about interpreting data. (Find plenty of templates online.) I hope, instead, that by keeping a log, you get a sense for how memory is contained in concrete information, rather than using that information for mere abstraction. Years ago, I read an entry from 1975 when I fished pickerel in the stream below Grover’s Mill Pond, and my memory of that morning felt so vivid, it remains vivid to the present. That’s what I mean by memory banked away for the future in concrete information. Any one of the pieces of information I record might jog memory. Or a series of them. Or the Notes.
If my log were just about the likes of calculating the influence of the wind on the numbers of fish caught, it would have no personality behind it. But as absurd as trying to determine the influence of wind on catch numbers will be, if you try it after a few years keeping track, you already know about how wind affects your fishing when you’re standing there doing it. That’s why keeping note of the wind might be important, not as scientific information, but to jog memory so you can access past outings directly.