I’ve been looking around a while for a good, simple format to keep some basic details about my fly fishing trips. What I used, what the weather was like, etc. Most of the templates I’ve found, however, seem to have very much a professional air about them. They use space for things like tracking the weight of fish to the ounce, or calculating your fish per hour.
I put together a journal form to use myself, based on a bit here and there from three or four others, that’s also designed to remind me why I’m out there in the first place: to observe and enjoy nature; to share time with my friends and family out there on the water; keep track of the techniques and patterns I tried as well as what worked well; and how much fun the trip was overall.
Good idea, Jeff. i like the document because it allows a lot of room for writing. i have a hard back book i journal in after each trip. it is also a nice book and very sturdy. i may also use your sheet and a ring binder.
thanks,
bruce
The more I look at your format, the more I like it. I don’t use a journal now, but I’ve been considering starting one. Silly me, I would probably include “$ Cost of Trip $”.
I use one, occasionaly. I bought it at the Cracker Barrel Restaurant and it is from Jounals Unlimited, Inc., Bay City, MI. The “Write It Down” series. It is 9" tall and about 8" wide, including the spiral binder.
Wow, folks, thanks for the nice words! I just hope it’s useful to you all.
@Gemrod - I thought about cross-posting it once I saw my mistake, but that sort of thing irks the moderators of most of the boards I frequent. If it’s cool here, I’ll go ahead and do it. Or the mods could move it. Whichever’s best.
As for the fly tying worksheet, I haven’t even thought about it to tell you the truth. I only just started tying a couple of months ago (of course, I only started fly fishing in June, but hey) and I’m just working the fundamentals and basic patterns at the moment.
I just downloaded it as a PDF…I’m a little long in the tooth to start the journal stuff…but if I was going to this would be hard to improve on…good work:cool:.
If I get enough of these forms filled out, I’ll probably just roll my own database to track everything in, but that site is definitely interesting! I’m actually surprised it even exists, because I wouldn’t right away associate fishing logs with a need for multi-user, password-protected web application.
This is my 3rd season of keeping a journal. While it has little hard, required entries, I usually put something about weather, water temps, what worked for the day and any moments of enlightenment unlocking the fishing puzzle, who I shared the day on the water with etc.
I just keep it in a Word document and it is backed up on an external hard drive in addition to my main hard drive. What I like about Word is that I can insert digital photos from the day’s events and can search the document easily that I would not be allowed to with a hard copy.
This also helps me track days on the water instead of from memory or I think that I fished so many days, it is easy to see. Besides the day of the week and the date I actually make an entry number so I have a running total of days on the water.
When Mike Connor was last here, he sugested TreeDBNotes http://www.mytreedb.com/treedbnotes_free.html It is free, you can saves pictures and modify the database to suit your needs.
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