Turkey Log

[Gobble!]

My memory is trash. After about my 5th season I decided to try to keep a log and had a really hard time remembering how I killed the first 5 years worth of birds. I just keep a simple excel spread sheet with a few lines on how the hunt played out. Don't worry about dates or anything weather related. Cool to have.

[mmorgan9812]

Trying to come up with some sort of Excel sheet now. I really like some of the categories you have listed

[Sir-diealot]

I bought a pad of paper to put in the backpack a month or so ago for doing this.

[davisd9]

I have a photo album I bought that has lines to write. I have every kill with details. I figure when I am old I can relive it or maybe my boys will enjoy it when I am gone across the Jordan.


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[Happy]

I caveman it and just scratch stick figures on boulders for those in future years to puzzle over. It takes an artists touch to depict blinds,decoys and tss shot over a food plot while wearing a hecs suite. Gotta let the future know how real hunting was done.

[GobbleNut]

I caveman it and just scratch stick figures on boulders for those in future years to puzzle over. It takes an artists touch to depict blinds,decoys and tss shot over a food plot while wearing a hecs suite. Gotta let the future know how real hunting was done.

  That was harsh,...you troublemaker!

[Happy]

Not really, 100 years from now that will be considered old school turkey hunting. If we manage to exist that long anyways.

[waysouth]

This is a great idea. I wish I had kept logs of all my hunts, I think it might be something nice for my son to read when I am gone.

[TrackeySauresRex]

I caveman it and just scratch stick figures on boulders for those in future years to puzzle over. It takes an artists touch to depict blinds,decoys and tss shot over a food plot while wearing a hecs suite. Gotta let the future know how real hunting was done.

Too funny! 

[shaman]

I'm glad y'all like idea. 

Here's another thing I learned from my log:

First off, remember that I have a favorite spot, called The Honey Hole.  It's produced gobs of gobs over the past two decades.  Second, you have to understand that The Honey Hole ceased to be a few years ago. I'd been sitting with my back to a big old dead oak tree, and it fell over a few years ago.  I moved down to the next big Oak on the tree line, but  it hasn't been the same.  I'm still able to kill turkeys, but it was. . . I dunno. . . different.

Looking over the log helped me figure out the difference, and the difference will possibly be a lesson for y'all.

At Honey Hole #1, I was kind of stuck back in the weeds.  In bright sunlight, I was in shadow.   Turkeys have a hard time seeing into deep shadow, so I was practically invisible to them when I had my back to the tree.  On cloudy days, I was always getting busted.

At Honey Hole #2, I'm sitting up a bit from the bushes.  It's all the same tree line, but the big oak's roots has raised the ground around it.  I put up a 2' high burlap screen around me, but I noticed after the second year, the gobs were avoiding me on sunny days.  I snapped a pic mid-season and caught the sun shining through.  It was almost like there was no blind at all on the west side of the the blind. 

Sure enough, when I looked at my log, it confirmed  what I thought.  At Honey Hole #1, my successes were mostly late morning and days when the sun was casting a shadow.  At Honey Hole #2, the bulk of my shots have been on cloudy days.

I've resolved to fix the problem.   I'll start off by putting landscape fabric behind the burlap.  That way, my shadow won't show up on the burlap.    Also, I need to figure out a way to even tually get back to Honey Hole #1.  Right now it has this big rotting trunk laying in a most inopportune spot.  Once it fully rots out, which won't be long, I think I'm going to build a faux-stump either out of wood or stone so I have something to rest my back against.

[GobbleNut]

Don't get me wrong,...I think keeping a log or "written history" of hunts is a great idea.  I also think it can go from a source of reliving hunts to just being "anal".   

I suppose part of that might be due to having such a limited area to hunt.  Honestly, I would feel like a caged animal if I only had 200 acres to hunt.  I would constantly be looking for other places to go,...which brings me to my point.  Hunting hundreds of thousand of acres of public land, I rarely hunt the same place on a regular basis,...and that is by choice.

My "bag", if you will, is to look over maps/Google, choose a spot that I think should hold birds, and then go there and find out.  I have killed birds in literally dozens of locations within the National Forests I hunt.  My "logs" are the maps of those areas, which I can pull out, look at, and say "Oh yeah, I remember the bird I killed in this spot",...and then pretty well relive the hunt in my memory.  The years they happened and the conditions are admittedly pretty foggy anymore after 50+ years,...but I can generally remember every hunt and how it played out.

Having said that, every year I contemplate taking the time to write the story of those hunts down.  Never end up doing it anymore,...I've just become a lazy old fart, I suppose....

[G squared 23]

 I use the Google Docs app on my phone.  I can write as little or as much as I want, and it automatically saves.

[unclee]

Turkey log...

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Now thats funny...

[ssramage]

Great idea. I don't keep one per say, but I do have a smaller forum that I frequent and every one of my kills is documented in detail on there. I should probably start a handwritten journal as well. My boys may want it for nostalgia one day to read about how often their dad got whipped by a bird.

[Illini Tom]

i started turkey hunting in 1991 and my girlfriend now wife bought me a journal for christmas that year.
i have a log, not really a story, about every bird i've shot. i note where i was hunting, what season (we have 1 thru 5), time of day, call(s) used, how far the shot was, the turkey's stats (beard and spur length and weight), a note about the weather and a brief recap of the hunt.
also have included some memorable hunts that didnt result in a bird
glad i did it and i read through it a few times a year