Keeping a fishing journal means recording just four things every time you find fish, the date, the time of day, the location, and what you found, so you can return and find them again years later. The mistake most anglers make is trying to log everything, water temperature, wind, clouds, barometric pressure, until the habit collapses. In this How 2 Tuesday I share the simple system my mentor Simon Becker taught me, why four pieces of data beat twenty, and how free historical weather sites fill in the rest whenever you need it.
Listen now: press play in the player above and follow along.
You keep it simple by recording only four things each time you find fish: the date, the time of day, the location, and what you found there. The location can be a GPS coordinate or just a name you will recognize, like a particular flat. The note can be as short as a school of tailing redfish or feeding tarpon. That is the entire system. Because it takes seconds, you actually keep the habit, and those four pieces of data are enough to recreate any successful day later.
Date, time of day, location, and what you found. The date and time matter because conditions repeat on cycles. The location can be GPS or a simple landmark name. The note on what you found should capture the species and what they were doing, tailing, feeding, schooling. Those four data points are all you need, because you can look up everything else, the wind, the pressure, the cloud cover, from free historical weather records whenever you want to plan a return trip.
Because trying to log all of those things is exactly what makes most people quit journaling. I tried it, kept a meticulous journal for about two weeks, then life, family, and guide responsibilities pushed it to the bottom of the pile. The conditions are absolutely important, but you do not have to write them down in the moment. With just the date, time, and location, you can pull the wind, pressure, and cloud cover later from a free site. Logging only four things is what keeps the habit alive.
Simon Becker was a great mentor to me, and he is the one who fixed my journaling problem. When I told him I could not keep up a detailed journal, he said I only needed to track a couple of things. That advice became this whole system: date, time, location, and what you found. Once I cut my journal down to those four items, I started writing in it every single day with no problem, because it took two seconds instead of feeling like a chore.
Use a free service like Weather Underground. Enter the date and the location and it gives you hourly observations, the wind speed and direction, how it picked up or dropped through the day, often the barometric pressure, precipitation, and the cloud cover described as fair, partly cloudy, or mostly cloudy. So with just your date, time, and location written down, you can reconstruct exactly what the conditions were, even five years later, and decide whether today's weather matches that successful day.
If you find fish somewhere, it is no accident. Something about that spot, the tide, the bait, the structure, is drawing them there, and under the same conditions they will come back. They might not be there tomorrow if you spooked them, but in the future, on the same tide and similar weather, you have a very good chance of finding the same situation. That is the entire reason a journal works. It lets you match conditions and replicate success on purpose instead of by luck.
Here is the four-part system I use, the one Simon Becker taught me. I walk through it in the episode.
I explain how I use these notes to plan a week of fishing in the episode. Press play in the player above.
I have seen it a hundred times, and it happened to me. You get excited, keep a meticulous journal for about two weeks logging every variable, and then the habit dies under everything else a guide or angler has to do. The fix is not more discipline, it is less data. When I cut my journal down to four things on Simon's advice, journaling stopped feeling laborious and I did it every single day. I get into why the simple version sticks in the episode, so press play in the player above.
The reason four items is enough is that the date, time, and location are keys that unlock everything else. With them I can go to a free historical weather site and pull the wind, the pressure, the cloud cover, even years later, then compare it to the conditions I am having now. If they match, I have a real chance of repeating that day. I break down exactly how I run that comparison in the episode, so press play in the player above.
Every great guide I know keeps some kind of journal, and the ones who keep it simple are the ones who keep it at all. You do not need to track twenty variables. You need four, written in seconds, often enough that the habit survives a busy life.
Print some tide charts, write down the date, time, location, and what you found every time you have a good day, and let free weather archives fill in the rest. Years from now those few words will put you right back on the fish. Press play in the player above.
How 2 Tuesday is my weekly series where I break down one fishing skill at a time, from knots and casting to gear, tactics, and the habits that make you a better angler. Watch and listen to every How 2 Tuesday episode from Tom Rowland.
Simon Becker · fishing journal · Florida Sportsman fishing planner · tide charts · Weather Underground · GPS coordinates · tailing bonefish · permit · redfish · tarpon · barometric pressure · How 2 Tuesday · Saltwater Experience
I'm Tom Rowland, a professional fishing guide based in the Florida Keys, host of the Tom Rowland Podcast, and the longtime host of the Saltwater Experience television show. On the podcast's How 2 Tuesday series I break down one practical skill or lesson at a time, from fishing technique and gear to the habits that make you a better angler, in short, focused episodes you can put to use right away.
Subscribe to get the latest episodes, show notes, and exclusive content delivered straight to your inbox.