I’ve journalized the results of my hunting and fishing trips in one form or another most of the time since I was in high school. The format of those early journals included a fill-in-the-blank section for date, location, weather conditions, the number of fish caught or game bagged and, in the case of hunting trips, the number of shells expended. This section was followed by a narrative that provided a detailed description of the outing.
From a pragmatic standpoint, as the number of these journals grew over time, they became an increasingly valuable resource for predicting the relative likelihood of success under various weather and environmental conditions. Far more important, they were guideposts for journeys down memory lane.
Unfortunately, for the first few years after I graduated from college, I wasn’t able to spend enough time outdoors to keep my journal-writing fire burning. Several years later my family and I fled the city in favor of the wilds of southern Benton County. I made a fitful attempt to keep the same type of journal I used to, but in the end, did little more than maintain an accurate record of the deer and turkeys I tagged.
Then late in 1989, as my son put it, “I finally joined the 20th century” and bought a computer. By 1991, I’d become so fascinated by the analytical power of spreadsheets that I developed a way to use them to record my fishing and hunting trips. My new method is very results oriented to be sure, but the most thorough look at them I’ve taken in years has revealed some surprises and reawakened some pleasant memories.
For example, certain unnamed people think I spend a “lot” of time fishing and hunting, and to be honest I thought so to. Au contraire. Over the past 26 years, I’ve averaged 58 days–or far more often, small parts of days–fishing or hunting. Furthermore, over the past five years–when I’ve supposedly been working my way toward semi-retirement–I’ve only managed to fish or hunt parts of 40 days. If that’s not grounds for a New Year’s Resolution, I don’t know what would be.
Very slightly more than half of the fish I’ve caught since 1991 — 2,432 out of 4,793 — were crappie. I found this fact quite surprising, since with the exception of 2011–which was my best crappie year since the early 1980’s — crappie fishing hasn’t been worth the effort from 2005 to the present.
Admittedly, “effort” might be a key word. During my personal crappie boom from 1994-2004, I spent a lot more time fishing for them than I have since.
My small game logs provided confirmation for the effort-equals-results theory, but the main thing it did for me was remind me of a little beagle named Grace. She didn’t know the meaning of quit, so when she jumped a rabbit, the chase was going to end with somebody shooting the rabbit or it going into a hole Grace couldn’t force it out of.
2005 was our banner year. I shot 54 of her cottontails, and various hunting partners probably accounted for almost that many more.
Much to my surprise, since 1991 I’ve averaged almost exactly as many days hunting big game (deer, turkey, antelope etc.) as I have fishing–20.3 and 20.8, respectively. However, I spend fewer hours per day when I’m hunting big game than I do when I’m fishing.
It doesn’t take much more than a glance at my big game log recap to see printed evidence of what local deer hunters already know–there are fewer deer in central Missouri than there were a few years ago. In fact, I’ve only killed six firearms deer and four archery deer since 2012. By way of comparison, in 2002–admittedly my best year ever–I killed four firearms deer and three archery deer.
My big game log also records the number of shots fired at each species and the resulting shooting percentages. I kill almost 90 percent of the deer I shoot at with firearms and 85 percent with my crossbow. Turkeys are another matter. Give me a shotgun, and more than 92 percent of the turkeys I shoot at are coming home to dinner. During archery season, only 55 percent of the turkeys I fling crossbow bolts at have anything to worry about.
My small game log records the same shooting information. I’m surprisingly consistent from species to species, with squirrels being highest at 64 percent and waterfowl lowest at 53 percent.
Do my logs provide me with any vital information? Not really. Do I get enough enjoyment out of them to make them worth the effort? You bet!
