after talking with Ron W and Adirondackman (John) i realized what a wealth of information keeping a journal is and started one this year. how many keep a journal. how many hours and what have ya saw this year. my tally is
52 hours, give or take 5, can't remember the first couple days before i started writing it down!
Deer-21
turkeys-3
fisher-3
porkys-1
fox-1
grouse-6
treerats-1 million or so!
What'cha doing, bust'n my butt...lol!!!
Back of my eyelids-Often!
Deer a few (6)
Racoon-one
limbrats-same million as ken!
8 days on stand
Deer- 5
Fisher- 1
Porcupine- 1
Rabbit- 1
Gray Squirrels- Countless
Chipmunks & Red Squirrels- Countless
thats pretty darn good for 8 days bro!
I'll say! Without mentioning names some go on a whole season without seeing anything except a Fisher! ;)
Charlie
I keep a journal and amazing how it helps. Like reading my old ones to help plan hunts and "remember" what stage of the season we are in... for instance, from 2002 Oct 31: "some chasing going on today. Dark to dark sit 14 bucks total. Missed a giant 8 at 17 yards"....come to think of it maybe living in the present is a good idea :)
I keep a jornal now that a treasured pal on the other coast sent me one.
I save it for hunting days and good days in the hills with a colt. I'll be chasing cats again this winter and will fill many pages I hope. One thing I plan to do is add a few pictures to it as well.
I've been wanting too but never seem to do it.
Mine for this year would go something like this-
23 days on stand(Give or take a few days for rain or letting my spot calm down after the kill)-
Deer while on stand(Some were the same deer,just different sightings)-10
Deer while walking out from stand in hayfield behind me-5 million
Owls that tried to nab my matte silver coffee cup-1 :scared:
Hawks that tried to nab my matte siver coffee cup-1 :scared:
Coyotes-2
gray squirrels-3
Red squirrels-6.5 billion (Need to THIN those things seriously.. :readit: )
Chippys-300
Needless to say I had to start using my other travel coffee mug.The camo one.. :rolleyes:
I keep a hunting journal. Had and eight point buck at 16 yards, but quartering to me and never gave up a good shot angle, a small forky that bedded about 50 yards away and the neatest in a while, a pilated woodpecker flew over me and landed in a tree a short distance away.
I haven't counted everything up yet, but there is a very long entry about my daughter shooting her first squirrel this year. It was very cool and one day she can read about how I remembered it.
I just started this year, and am glad I started! A lot of the same deer sightings, but still great memories
BEEN OUT 6 TIMES, AVERAGE OF 3HRS PER HUNT. JUMPED 2 BIG DOES, AND WATCHED A 325LB BLACK BEAR EAT ACORNS FOR 20 MINUTES. THAT WAS SO COOL !
I do but mine is narrative and not as ... arithmetic. Looks like this season I have 28 entries so far ( including spring turkey hunts and a couple of anti-groundhog expeditions this summer ). The bulk of those entries are squirrel / deer season ones though.
How many animals? Dunno - lots.
I'm in my 4th season keeping a journal for deer hunting. I've been out, this year....61 sits. I've seen (from stand) 105 deer.....countless turkeys (no season on them here in the fall); 1 coyote (yesterday AM) and lots of small game (I don't really keep track of anything other than deer). I've only seen 11 racked bucks; but 59 does and 35 fawns. I've had 36 of these deer in bow range.
Understand also that many of these deer are deer I'm seeing repeatedly. I have one doe group of 8 deer and another with 6. I've seen them a few times, which drives up my overall sightings #. I've been blanked on over half my sits, though (no sightings of deer). Of the 11 racked bucks sightings....8 of them are different bucks.
My buck sightings typically go up exponentially in the next month. I'm hoping that holds true!
Just a tip, put your name and contact info on those journals in an obvious place, like dark black marker on the front cover. I recently left mine on an airplane never to be seen again. At least for now I still have the memories, but will I in 30 years?
This Just in!!!
Ron W. 1 Deer.
Now that the curse is broken I think we will be joining in on a trad gang tracking job.
Great Hunting with you today Ron, Ken, and Chris. We'll do it again soon.
Charlie
I keep logs on everything. flyfishing. grouse hunting, turkey hunting, pheasant, and of course deer.so far this season. i've put in 57 hours. no racks yet. but my log notes show i usually get my buck between oct 31 and nov.7th...ed
I've been keeping one for the last few years. I enjoy looking back and reading my entries.
I like keeping a log for my fishing and hunting adventures. My son reads it the first thing when he comes to visit to see if there is anything new.
I have kept track of everything now for 29 seasons. So far this season I've got in 52 hunts and seen 474 deer from stand and have passed up shots at 40 bucks, including two that would've grossed 130 maybe last night at 10 yards that were inspecting the decoy. I may regret that here in 8 days when our rifle season intervenes.
My logs are very important to me and were helpful in putting together my book in 2008, My Neck of the Woods, as well as my next one that I'm working on now. More importantly, it provides a nice record of where I've been and what I've seen, and helps keep the memories alive. While I've put in over 2000 bowhunts for deer, usually reading a couple lines of my log entries can bring back the recall of the especially memorable hunts instantly.
I keep track of dates, days, time in and out, AM/PM, temp, sky, wind, other weather details, stand used, modes of hunting used, scent, other wildlife seen, and on each group of deer seen I record, time, sex/age, where, action, distance, direction moving, * (whether I could've shot them or not), and buck size and description. And then I keep a running total in the bottom right corner of hrs. on stand, bucks/does/fawns/unknown seen, total, (*) and * (bucks/does-fawns I passed up). And I break this down AM v. PM, and by property, and before rifle season v. after rifle season.
I also usually keep track in my log book of all my buddies and when they kill their animals. That's a fun one, although I've got some catching up to do right now because they are falling every day here in NE as things get fired up. And for each of my successes I record hunt #, date, date, Am/PM, size, property, stand, shot distance, hit, recovery distance, method, permit number, and equipment used.
Sounds like a lot of work and it is. But I don't regret one bit of it. It's never too late to start.
What do you guys use?
I used to for years write it out long hand and it got to where I couln't hardly read it after a couple of years... My handwriting has gotten really sloppy...
Are there any computer programs, etc available? I like Bryce kept track of weather, moon, times, and all...
Jonathan