How Useful Is Keeping Records?

Prompted somewhat by this article http://www.fishingmagic.com/forums/...eeping-records-learning-lessons-doc-spot.html

How many people on here keep an angling diary? What kind of information do you keep in it?

I don`t keep a diary the main reason being I`m just not that serious an angler. However I wonder just how useful they are in terms of improving your fishing. I`m no statistician but I know a little bit about the subject from my time at college and more so from my poker playing days.

In poker it`s reckoned that for a sample to be statistically significant you need to play at least 10,000 hands, preferably more.

So if you transfered those numbers to fishing it would mean you`d have to fish everyday for almost 30 years to reach that sample size. So in reality few anglers will ever fish enough to accrue a significant sample of data for analysis. Of course you may be able to draw some conclusions from smaller samples, some of those conclusions will even prove correct. However, given that the human brain is very good at spotting patterns even when they don`t really exist, many of those conclusions will be incorrect/flawed.

Thoughts?

So long as its just fishing records Mousie

I use a dairy but often the information about conditions, tatics, catches and bait are kept very brief. I often wonder if there are just too many variables to draw very accurate conclusions but it can be an interesting.

It's main use is in mapping out the swims and in turn the lake. I'll use sight points in all the swims along with a marker rod and record depth changes, bottom type et., Very boring spending a couple of days mapping a lake but often very useful.

For over 30 years I have kept a detailed fishing diary and I wish I had started to earlier. I record where I fished, the swim, what I was fishing for (normally either carp or roach), baits, methods used etc, the weather and especially in winter I record water temperatures. Quite frankly sometimes it is a real pain bothering to write up the diary but then years later I might reread them and then remember something I tried which either worked or failed.

I have also kept a record of bait recipes for boilies and groundbaits - most have been useless but there are a few real gems in there!

I do keep a track - on a spreadsheet rather than a diary - of just my pike fishing, about 70 sessions between October and mid March.

Venue, swim, catch, methods, conditions, bait and size of fish caught.

Over a few years it has grown into a useful database where trends can be identified to contribute to success, though of course there is no magic set of conditions.