OK, I have been kicking myself in the ass for a couple years 'cause I have'nt been keeping up on my fishing journal.That is going to change!!!I have made it my fishing resolution. So having said all this,I thought I'd post a few important elements of my journal and if anyone has more suggestions please chime in. Date, location,weather/water conditions&temps,lure/bait/fly used,riffle,run,pool,etc., type of fish caught,weight, or length/girth if released, native,hatchery,etc.,etc. Also be interested in knowing about some of you and the number of years you've been logging fishing adventures. Thanks in advance.

Sid, thanks for reminding me of how important a fish journal is. I kept one for several years and it was a great resource, especially when I went back to a body of water under unusual conditions. What worked before, usually worked again.

My fishing partner, Surecatch, keeps one and it has been great to look back at for information.

I plan on re-starting my journal. Thanks!

While I no longer journel, I did for a couple of years, with some very pointed reasons. I wanted to find out whether two hooks were better than one. If you are one to experiment, you may choose to enter that info....you may find it enlightening...as I did.
Nothing quite like a good "Write in the Rain".

My dad and I have kept one for 10 years now. In the past 6 years we've racked up 48 pages that has proved to be very helpful for all fishing seasons.

I've kept one and maintained it since 1990.
It's one of the first things I do when I get home.

Snakepliskin,my pleasure. As a flyfisherman I kept one religiously for 15 plus years but, when I went back to using bait,spinners,plugs,etc. regretably I stopped. Some of those years I would put in 150-200 days on the water(at least a couple hrs.) and not possible to remember everything without a journal. It was always an excellent tool to refer back to when fishing water not often visited or seasonable water.

I find it essential and a great source of previous year's runs and effective techniques. Of course, my journal is all online. It's cool to look back and find a post from 5-6 years ago. It brings back lots of pleasant memories.

I've kept one since 1996 for only one river and for only one species of fish. Care to take a guess?

I track everything Sid Fishious does but I also add a few things. I track every strike, when and where it happened and its eventual outcome... miss, hookup, unbuttoned, landed. I track streamflow in CFS and inches viz. I also track total rod hours invested by the boat each day.

If I kept one of these for every river, I'd be spending a lot more hours on this keyboard than I already do.

I also track the number of other fishermen in a particular drift and how they did. I try to find out what they were using as well.

I've been keeping a pretty extensive one since 1995, just on Steelhead. They are a great reference. The most important thing I find that doesn't stick in my memory very well is water levels. I can go back and find which holes fished best at certain water levels and be sure and fish those when the water is right. There's a hole on the Green that's only wadeable when it's down to a certain level........check the water level on the computer and cross reference it with the fishing log and I know when to hit it............

Thanks Jigman, Good tip on waterlevels being one of the regular entries to the journal. P.S.- I'm still waiting for a call to go fishing with you on the sticks.

I just recently found a journal I kept in 1993 and was that ever interesting still cant believe Ltlcleo and I took our wives to the Cowlitz in the snow on Valentines Day. My bride must really love me because she is still with me.

Mine dates back to 1987. I don't enter every trip but I try. I also keep track of how much a trip cost me, and I have a shocking running total of how much I have spent on fishing gear. I enter who I was with also.

B-RUN, Right now it appears that you have been keeping a journal longer than anyone. Congrats on your persistence. Another entry that was brought to my attention by a friend of mine should be line weight and leader length. Back to B-RUN, if you read this post again later maybe you could respond to a question. Have you noticed any significant differences in new baits, lures,etc. that have been introduced over the last 17years that you use now that you didn't use back then?

Not really, the same stuff works now like it did then. I suppose that new colors get tried and work. When we pull plugs, it seems like metalic green or blue or purple works best, but we fish them the most. When it comes to flys, I pretty much use dark colored Mariboo ties because they are easy to tie and work great and if your fishing correctly you lose a lot of them. Presentation seems to be more key than color etc.

Looking at the records , the purple S.E 35 hotshot has produced the most fish ( AKA purple Jesus) My dad says " If I ever fall out of an airplane I hope to God I have one of these in my pocket because it will catch on something before I hit the ground !!)

I also have photos of a lot ( not all ) of the fish that were good sized we have caught over the years. For Christmas I will take one of the photos of the buddies with a exceptional fish, blow it up 8x10 and frame and give it to them as a present, cheap and cool. Funny thing is, the fish still look the same but we seem to be changing over the years ..

The other thing that really stands out is a three day trip with guys who drink alot costs twice as much as a trip with guys who don't, and you hit the water a lot sooner in the A.M

I keep a journal/diary that is very unstructured. It contains all the usual stuff about conditions and often has a few editorial comments about the guys I fished with. I is too much fun to read back about trips from 7-8 years ago. I often am surprised to read things that are at variance with how I remembered them.

Mt resolution for this year is to do a better job of keeping the journal up and to make more complete entries when I do post them.

I find that the details of who I fished, the fun anecdotes and the unusual happening are of more interest to me then a lot of the pure fishing details.

I think I will spend part of this COLD Sunday reading some old journal entries.

I've kept one since 1992 that logs all steelhead, salmon, and sturgeon trips. As it fills up, it is becoming increasingly valuable as I can now mentally map run timings and stretches of river that produce consistently at certain times of the year.....you do notice trends.

I'm not one given to lengthy, wordy entries but I do always note fish caught, how many, where, water quality (vis and height) and what they were caught on. In the case of saltwater salmon and sturgeon, I also include what part of the tide the action occurred.

I should also note I only record trips where I had action or got some vital info. from a reliable source.

I started keeping my fishing journal in 1983 and have kept it religiously ever since. At first it was just the place fished, # of fish caught etc. It's advanced quite a bit over the years into a logbook that I take with me everywhere I fish. It has columns for date/time/water conditions/air and sea temp/weather conditon/stage of tide and if ebb or flood/GPS coordinates for place of catch/lure and color/species of fish and weight or if boated or released/lost etc. and then a summary column of my overall impression of the day. I frequently refer back to a log for and area when I haven't been there for awhile to refresh myself on GPS coordinates and gear used. I always complete my log as we fish during the day. I have found this very helpful over the years. Plus it's fun from time to time as other's have said to read back and remember events from a trip.