After you've gone on a hunt, you usually have lots of impressions but few details that can be used later on. When returning to your tracks a month later, those areas where the ground looked fresh, where the wind changed, where that unexpected animal appeared, all seem to blend together. Recording your decisions in the hunt will enable you to go back to them later. This can be done without having to write a daily journal of all your experiences and impressions. Simple notes are all that is required for a practical hunting journal.
Start with the decision you want to improve
Start with the decisions you want to improve. For example, do you forget where you saw sign? Or maybe you can't explain why a setup of yours failed. Go to camp with a list of questions for your guide. Work on all these problems by keeping different notes.
The kind of information to record in a hunting journal depends on the things you want to improve. For improving decision making at the moment of hunting, a simple list of the questions you want to answer on your next scouting trip might be sufficient. For improving planning for scouting trips, information about route planning, weather and wind, animal behavior, the equipment you are taking and other ethical decisions you have to make as a hunter would be more appropriate.
Keep your note taking format simple enough to be written with cold hands, little light, and be placed in your pack and then refereed to later. Use a pocket notebook, waterproof notebook pages, or even phone notes. Use the best system to reference later that you will actually open before the details fade.
Separate observations from interpretations
Your most valuable field notes are your observations (what you saw) as opposed to your interpretations (what you think the observation means). For example, "Three tracks in soft mud beside the north edge of the field" are your observations. " Animals are using this trail every morning" is your interpretation of what you just observed.
Use simple labels if they help:
– Seen: tracks, browse, movement, weather, people, vehicles, etc.
– Suspected: a working explanation based on several clues.
– Confirmed later: this information was verified at a later date either from further personal observation or from reliable local sources.
This helps to keep your field notes out of harm's way and will also aid you in your subsequent scouting trips to ensure you come back to untested suspicions instead of false FACTS.
Notes concerning sign should contain a description of the ground, visibility, wind direction, time of day, recent disturbance, etc. He should also include a description of the route that he took. One quiet sit or one track does not make a pattern. Be sure to include many observations to support your conclusions regarding a pattern of animal activity.
Use a repeatable entry that takes minutes
So long as you have enough categories to record the important details of each of your hunting excursions, a simple entry form of five or so items will be sufficient to compile a good hunting log and help to avoid making a hunting log into too much of a report. See the example below for an example of how a simple entry form for a hunting log might look.
1. Plan: what you intended to do and why.
2. Conditions: weather, wind, light, terrain access, and notable changes.
3. Observations: what you actually saw, heard, or found.
4. Decisions: where did you go, wait, change plans or not take an opportunity.
5. Next check: What question will you try to answer on the next visit?
Rather than leaving with the optimism of vague ideas, 'Look harder' needs to be translated into specific questions to be answered on the next visit. 'Check whether the trail is still used after fresh disturbance' is a better thing to look for on the next visit.
Do use fragments instead of complete sentences. The most important thing is that you can write down the information in a few words as soon as it occurs to you. If you are recording on your phone, for example, you could make a voice memo and then go back to clean up the note later. The main thing is to make it as easy as possible to write down the information in a few words as soon as it occurs to you.
Record the choices that do not make a good story
Note why you ceased to stalk a certain place, changed your route, did not shoot an animal that you could have, stopped searching for an animal that you had located, ceased to watch a particular area, etc. etc. The reasons for not taking a shot or for not continuing to search for a particular animal can be very instructive.
Comment your departures from ideal as fully as you can, and be sure to note your reasoning for all instances where you failed to pursue opportunities as you had originally intended. ("Target identification remained uncertain beyond safe and ethical range" is far more useful than "bad luck".).
Many hunting regulations need to be checked for individual seasons. Likewise, rules for access to land, for tags, for firearms or archery equipment, and for reporting game all can change from year to year. Your notebook can be a tool to aid in planning and reminding you of items to verify before a trip. But they are in no way a substitute for current, official rules and for expertise.
Questions asked of guided tours and the reasons for decisions made by guides should also be recorded and give due regard to issues of private land access and sensitive locations. These useful notes should help you hunt responsibly and not spread the word about too useful a place to go.
Review patterns without forcing a conclusion
Take a few minutes before your next foray into the field to review previous entries and look for repeated conditions. Remember to view isolated incidents with healthy skepticism and to look for patterns in the sign. Does the sign appear near the same type of cover under different weather conditions? Do access noise, changing wind or your own timing of arrival affect your observations? Was your plan to go hunting defeated by weak evidence or did you simply not give it enough time to pan out?
Cautious language: "Possibly associated with", "Worth checking", "No clear pattern yet". Remember a hunting journal should be used to improve your judgment, not prove to yourself that you are right.
Even a short review of notes prior to a trip can reveal difficulties such as route notes that are too vague to enable a return to that location, battery failure, or even last season's observations getting mixed up with current ones. Get the structure of your notes right and then you can add as much detail as you like later.
Keep the record useful to the next trip
Use your hunting journal entries to formulate one simple action that you will take on your next hunting trip. Will you check on an access detail, investigate an alternate route, test a wind associated fact, recheck a regulation, or bring a quieter garment. Remember small actions result in better accomplishment than large ambitions.
Remember to store your entries in a consistent place, and be careful with information of a sensitive nature. Digital journals should be backed up, and exact locations avoided in casual on-line posts and messages. Paper-based journals need only to be simple enough to continue to use, and then photographs of important pages taken before a wet trip into remote country, for example.
The length of your notes does not have to equal homework! A good record of your time in the field can be as short as several pages, and serves one purpose: to help you plan and go hunting on subsequent trips. Open up the journal prior to your next foray into the great outdoors and ask yourself three simple questions: What did I learn? What am I not quite sure of? How will I go about changing my approach?