This week I wanted to question you… the FishAddix fishermen… about fishing logs. Since it is one of the focal points of FishAddix.com, and one of the features, we on the other half, are most proud of – Fishing Logs. Should you keep a fishing log?
Well like any topic of conversation there are pros and cons, for’s and against’s, advantages and disadvantages... you get the idea. So the first order of business is getting the pros out of the way. First and foremost, we have bragging rights. There’s nothing quite like comparing lunkers with your other friendly lunker hunting buddies over a couple of early evening cocktails. But please don’t go strutting your stuff down Main Street just yet though, because remember, “chicks dig the long ball” not, “chicks dig guys who catch big fish”. Although I’m sure it couldn’t hurt. Of course, your stats are only as good as the information you enter, so bragging rights could be a sticking point with your friends if nobody was around to see your 85 pound perch. In order to combat this, the fishing logs on FishAddix have an option to dispute the catches of other members.
Moving on, we have provided a free resource where you can’t possibly lose the information. It’s not like the marble composition notebooks of yesteryear that will be buried under old documents, you’ll spill coffee on it, and eventually your wife will find it and start using it to write down her grocery lists and you’re information will be lost forever. Plus, with the information on a computer, spreadsheet-like capabilities can be used and the information can be sorted, tracked, added, subtracted, etc. The fishing reports on the website take advantage of this and many of your stats are published and can be viewed over different time periods using different filters. And there’s always the possibility of adding more statistics if there is a demand from the users.
The main con, or disadvantage of creating fishing reports is that we, as fishermen, tend to try and protect our techniques and secrets. At least long enough for us to develop new techniques and then the old techniques become unclassified. This is more the case with people you don’t know and not with your close friends but I’m sure some of you die-hards don’t tell a soul about your tricks and the only way your kids will find out is when they attend your funeral and you’ve left them “Dad’s Guide to Fishing that Little Lake Behind our House.” Which they will inevitably not be able to use because arthritis will likely have settled in and that little lake will probably be filled in and a strip mall will have been built over it. And those fish and your memories will never be seen again. The point is, FishAddix has thought of this as well. If you don’t want anybody to steal your secrets you can keep your fishing reports private or only let your friends view them. Or if you still wanted to share them with the community, you could always just be a little more vague in your reports (i.e. don’t say in your fishing report that you caught a 3.2lb largemouth bass while standing on the north-facing shoreline, approximately 1 click from the old bunker, using 10lb monofilament line on a shimano reel with 29 ball bearings, all with a red/yellow 2 oz crankbait attached). Now I’m not even sure if what I wrote would be a reasonable setup because to be honest, I don’t get that specific in my reports and I honestly couldn’t tell you the specifications on my tackle. The point is that if you would like your stats to be tracked on the lakes you fish but don’t want to give up your secrets, there’s ways to avoid showing up at a lake with some guy in your favorite spot holding a fish you shoulda caught. In summary – there are ways around not letting your secrets out without compromising the specificity of your reports.
In the interest of attention spans I’m going to cut this blog short. So, what should you take away from this blog? Well I hope you take away that there are certainly reasons for and against keeping a fishing log. It will undoubtedly help you improve as a fisherman, but it certainly takes a commitment from the user – not just the time physically entering the fishing report into the computer, but the commitment of keeping your fishing logs active and updated. There’s no use in having 10 pages of notes from last season that holds all your fishing information but not putting it into the computer. This is certainly a hot topic in the fishing world and I’m sure if 100 people read this blog, there will be 100 different takes on why or why not to keep a fishing log.
Being an insider, I can tell you in all confidence that if you, the reader, has a good idea to improve the fishing logs, we at FishAddix would love to hear about it. After all, we are using the product as well to help better ourselves as fishermen, and of course… to make fun of our friends for their fishing antics.
In closing, I will leave you with this little teaser – once the site gains monetary autonomy – we have big plans to increase the capacity of the fishing reports and logs. So if you like using the fishing reports now, the additions to the fishing reports in the future will be nothing short of mind-blowing. Of course, the specifics of the plans remain in the FishAddix think-tank task force for now, but suggestions for the future are always welcomed.
So what do you think, where do you stand on fishing reports? For… or against?
Yours Truly,
CHIPTY
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