I remember catching 20 fish one morning weighing over 200 lbs. in Lake Granby. We were averaging 10-15 fish a day weighing around 150 lbs. I do not however remember the depth, but I do the location and the techniques along with the lures. The other things I do not remember

what we were doing before we learned this technique.

When I started chasing large fish, one gentleman told me to go buy a day timer. It has a daily calendar which would keep fishing logs for numerous years. The beauty to these is after a few years of keeping this style of log book in my truck, I’ve been able to look back at a particular week and see 3 years of fishing. This gives me a great opportunity to go chase the best bite.

Items I write down are simple.

Location, depth, weather, results, what I used, any info I was told about (if I thought it was real). I also started using a GPS back then and Id give my waypoints a code. It is something like PHrds23s. The first letter(s) would be location (Pumphouse) then structure (road, south would be the south end of the road bed) then the depth at full pool (23). Depth at full pool is very important out west because I’ve rarely fished the same lake elevation on lake Granby from year to year.

By keeping a simple written log book I’m able to glean information about my trips for the past 20 years. This has helped me turn tough bites into a manageable bite. Its also given me the opportunity not to think about what’s happening where, I just look it up.

I’m not saying networking isn’t important, it is very important. If everyone we fished with kept a written log, wed never miss that very hot bite we always talk about.

The fall season is just beginning, get yourself a day timer and start writing down your experiences. In a few years it will pay huge dividends.