Waterfowl Hunting Journal

October 4, 2012

Nick's journal

A few days before the opening of the North Dakota waterfowl season I decided to crack open the box of new Tanglefree mallard decoys that my wife gave me for my birthday back in February. To my surprise, on top of the decoys laid a nice decoy bag and a waterfowl hunting journal that came in a handy canvas carrying case. My birthday happened to fall just prior to our move half-way across the country so I had forgotten about simply repacking all of the gifts in the box for easy shipping.

While I've never kept a waterfowl hunting journal, I'm pretty excited to get started and I already have a few hunts in the books to report on from this season. I always took time to write a deer hunting journal, but it occurred to me that I rarely referenced it for help in the seasons that followed. In fact, when I did go back and read earlier entries it was mostly for entertainment purposes. I now realize that my hunting journals have become more of a unique way to capture hunting memories than a tactical guide to future success based on past experience. I think I'm fine with that.

I'm looking forward to filling my journal with lots of critical notes like GPS coordinates, percent cloud cover, moon phases, and decoys used, but I think it's the notes section that will ultimately provide me with the most value in terms of laughs and memories. If you haven't been keeping a hunting journal I highly recommend that you start. It's a simple and fun way to track your hunts that you'll enjoy reading about later, and you might even find it useful sometime for a future hunt. You don't necessarily need a fancy journal populated with key elements to note as there are plenty of examples to follow for making your own for free. Take a few seconds to check out this Google search for hunting journals and get started today.

Reprinted from: whitetailwriter.com/waterfowl-hunting-journal/