Guys I have not kept a bass fishing log in many years. But it is something that was fun and had some decent info compiled in it. 
I didn’t stop because I bass fished less or forgot how to write I think it was when I started to lake fish more for largemouths. I’m a river rat at heart but over time Mother Nature done a disfavor to the river system that is my home. I still regularly Smallie fish it.  I split my time between the lake and the river. 
Anyway, I pulled some of them out to read my old notes on September river Smallie fishing and was amazed how I could remember some of those exact days like it was yesterday. 
I’ve always been a Rapala fanboy and I’m always ready to reach for a DT or Shad Rap without hesitation. They are always tied on. 
But going back over my notes I’m finding that the Rapala F07 & F09 floater/diver and the 1/4 oz. Spin Minnow had been big producers for a long length of time. No idea why I stopped using them. I don’t know. Most likely to fish Shad Raps, I don’t know. I can only think that I was trying to fish deeper depths. During dog days with lack of rains and water clear as a crystal the spin minnow would also catch its share of channel catfish. Sort of a bonus. 
I pulled them to use this week. Had only ever fished them in silver with black back and gold with a black back. 
Also reading through my notes I’ve caught more smallies with my Daiwa Tournament SS and Shimano Symetre reels than anything I’m using today. 
But that was a different time. 

I kept one for about 4-5 years and just kind of stopped. I think it helped me reflect on the day as I was writing it but being able to draw patterns looking back on it, maybe not so much. At least I don't think I was drawing any insights that I didn't already know, and I didn't want to start leaning on it and "fishing history" so to speak. It's always good to have a good starting point but being too locked in to what "should" be working can be dangerous to. 

The f9 and f11 are my all time favorite lures

I use my Bass Resource trip reports as my trip logs. For example, I'll go back and read my Sept. 2024 and Sept. 2023 trip reports to see what the bass were hitting then and how many I was catching. 

Unfortunately, this is as far as I ever got...

 

1 hour ago, MassYak85 said:

I kept one for about 4-5 years and just kind of stopped. I think it helped me reflect on the day as I was writing it but being able to draw patterns looking back on it, maybe not so much. At least I don't think I was drawing any insights that I didn't already know, and I didn't want to start leaning on it and "fishing history" so to speak. It's always good to have a good starting point but being too locked in to what "should" be working can be dangerous to. 

That was sort of my thoughts. When Mother Nature decided to take the river away I sort of felt like my heart was being ripped from my chest and knew I was gonna change my fishing habits. I’ve wanted to get into some lake fishing anyway, it was all the spark I needed to get into fishing greenies. Fish a few lake with some nice healthy fish. Have both grandsons (older kids) fishing to beat their personal bests so we have a good time. 
I pulled those Rapalas for a day this week to use at the river. Taking a small road trip to the lake tomorrow. 
Times have changed and nothing stays the same or last forever. You have to roll with it. I’ve got to fish, all there is to it. 
It was fun to read. Especially the things you haven’t thought about in quite some time. 

I've been keeping a log for 15 years. In reviewing past catches, I've found that the most useful information is actually not so much the lures. or even details about locations and conditions -- it is a brief narrative description I include for each trip about what decisions I made, and why: Where did I go, what presentations did I try, how did I narrow down a pattern, what moves and changes did I make, that sort of thing. 

Ah yes the fishing log or laydown as I like to call them — great place to flip a jig 😉😉😉

I have a photographic memory.

Show me a pic and I know time of day, weather conditions and what I was throwing....... except the body of water I was fishing 😞 

8 minutes ago, Bird said:

I have a photographic memory.

Show me a pic and I know time of day, weather conditions and what I was throwing....... except the body of water I was fishing 😞 

Sundown syndrome.

Tom

I don't keep a log. I do have a pretty good memory though. I build a pattern in my head.

 

Can anyone attest to how keeping a fishing log has helped them become a better angler?

I kept written fishing logs for several years.

It was advantageous IMO, especially as I was fishing many new lakes.

It enabled me to monitor and remember the information I deemed essential.

Overall, it ran its course and I stopped doing it.

Thereafter, I started going at it again, this time fishing inshore saltwater.

Noting dates, tides, and lunar phases year to year seemed useful. 

In the last 10 to 12 years, I have been recording videos of my fishing activities.

An added benefit beyond the obvious fun factor is how these clips have doubled as very decent and fairly detailed accounts of my trips.

It's been considerably more useful to me than the written logs ever were.

Plus once I set the cameras up and hit go, everything happens organically. 

The footage quickly revealed a few bad habits I had.

I was able to improve my skills in hooking, fighting, and landing fish.

Been able to capture some very special days on the water

and this one I'll remember for a while. 

https://youtu.be/3OXnPQs0bqQ?feature=shared

A-Jay

1 hour ago, A-Jay said:

I kept written fishing logs for several years.

It was advantageous IMO, especially as I was fishing many new lakes.

It enabled me to monitor and remember the information I deemed essential.

Overall, it ran its course and I stopped doing it.

Thereafter, I started going at it again, this time fishing inshore saltwater.

Noting dates, tides, and lunar phases year to year seemed useful. 

In the last 10 to 12 years, I have been recording videos of my fishing activities.

An added benefit beyond the obvious fun factor is how these clips have doubled as very decent and fairly detailed accounts of my trips.

It's been considerably more useful to me than the written logs ever were.

Plus once I set the cameras up and hit go, everything happens organically. 

The footage quickly revealed a few bad habits I had.

I was able to improve my skills in hooking, fighting, and landing fish.

Been able to capture some very special days on the water

and this one I'll remember for a while. 

https://youtu.be/3OXnPQs0bqQ?feature=shared

A-Jay

Good points.

 

I had the wife video me while casting, and I used that to tweak my motion. It was very helpful.

I absolutely believe logs are helpful, but my experience is limited to only river fishing.  When I started fishing the Potomac, Shenandoah and other nearby rivers nearly 40 years ago, it became pretty obvious how drastically different it was from fishing the TVA chain of ‘lakes’ I grew up on.  While I knew that river smallmouth behaved differently in a flowing river environment, I had no idea how those differences might look. So I kept a log.  I also quickly realized that just as important was learning the river’s behavior.  I could float and fish the same stretch twice in one week, and the changes in depth and flow rate resulted in what seemed like a different river.  So I expanded my log.  I began recording information about the river.  In addition to the typical information about #s, size, bait, weather, water temperature, clarity, time of day, etc., I also began noting depth and flow rate using a couple of USGS river gauges for reference.   By adding river conditions (depth and flow rates) to the routine information, I began to see how when all else was identical, an increase or decrease in depth of as little as 6-8” and the consequent change in flow rate seemed to change fish behavior.  And conversely, when depth/flow was the same, changes in weather, water clarity, time of day, etc., resulted in changes in behavior.  The changes weren’t necessarily always drastic, but I realized they were somewhat predictable.  By going through and reviewing my logs which had grown considerably over the years,  I could find historical information for a particular stretch that matched the conditions I was about to fish.  And over a short period of time (a couple seasons or three), the results became pretty noticeable.   My numbers increased which would have been rewarding enough, but the average size increased as well.  An added bonus was I found I could go to a new stretch of river and had information that gave me a good idea of how to start.  
I guess I might have enjoyed similar improvement without my logs, but I firmly believe that it would have taken much, much longer to gain the information and be able to use it reliably from memory alone.  And 40 years later I still record information from each trip, probably as much out of habit as fear that some tidbit of information could prove useful for my next trip.

What happened to your river?

 

No not for fishing. I committed to memory particulars.

 

I did for whitetail deer hunting & 5 years out they were invaluable. 

I kept handwritten logs for about 5 or 6 years until I started using an excel spreadsheet.  The thing that stuck out the most to me was how you can have two pond maybe 200 or 300 yards apart, and the baits that work are completely different.

I did it in the late 80's and early 90's . . . sort of. I still have the  log. It's a store bought fishing log. I thought it would be more useful to look back on seasonal patterns, dates, etc. but it's more entertaining as nostalgia rather than useful data to me. Even though I spend upwards of 90% of my fishing time on one lake system (a main lake and an afterbay below the dam), the most insightful thing I have learned is that every year is somewhat different than the other years and that's likely due to seemingly endless combinations of "X factors" such as weather patterns/trends, droughts, the effects of invasive mussels, wind, wildly fluctuating water levels, wildfire runoffs, algae blooms (and the water being bluestoned to treat it), the health of the forage base, the ups and downs of other species.

 

The bottom line is that I just haven't found a way to make it useful.

Thanks for all the posts. It seems like the log is something some of us have all do. And basically have stop doing for the same reason. 
If nothing else it is a fun read and to think back to a time that is water long over the dam. 
Mother Nature ruined the river I one had at my finger tips. It’s still fishable but it will never be what it was. That’s life, there’s no crying in fishing, you move on. 
In transitioning I stopped keeping it but if truth be known that’s when I should have kept a log. 
I'm getting older everyday but I can still remember things and can function. Don’t get lost driving to the lake. And I never forget to but the boat plug in. 
Good Fishing. 

I have only been fishing for a few years - and have kept a notebook with information in it - and so far I have found it to be very helpful - yet in the future I may make a form on the computer instead of writing everything out - or use a form like ones I have seen here - I also look to take a pic of each catch, typically on my measuring board, so I have a time stamp of when the fish was caught, ect...

Thank you for reminding us all --- as I have forgotten a few times, I repeat this to myself each time I arrive at the ramp --- PUT THE PLUG IN, PUT THE PLUG IN...... 

 

27 minutes ago, WaskaCrank12 said:

I have only been fishing for a few years - and have kept a notebook with information in it - and so far I have found it to be very helpful - yet in the future I may make a form on the computer instead of writing everything out - or use a form like ones I have seen here - I also look to take a pic of each catch, typically on my measuring board, so I have a time stamp of when the fish was caught, ect...

Thank you for reminding us all --- as I have forgotten a few times, I repeat this to myself each time I arrive at the ramp --- PUT THE PLUG IN, PUT THE PLUG IN...... 

 

On my transom, on the top edge, on the right and left sides by my motor I have a label that I printed on one of those Brother Printers “Is The Plug In ?”. Pretty hard to miss when unclamping in tiedown straps or removing the motor toter. But anything is possible. 

I kept logs when I musky fished.  Weather, water temp, time caught, major/minor or neither, bait, where it hit on my retrieve, what color underwear I was wearing, etc. ok the last one was a joke but I tried to have as much info as possible.
 

bass fishing I never have. I just bass fish. I treat it differently. There is fun and laughs to be had. Musky fishing was a job. It wasn’t fun I just loved the adrenaline. Bass fishing is just enjoyable.  

My fishing log is between my ears and it’s getting a little blurred.

Tom

11 hours ago, WRB-2.0 said:

it’s getting a little blurred.

Is it the fuzzy kind of blurred like old soft-focus movies or the static kind of blurred like when the rabbit ears aren't quite right?

 

I get the static type myself.

I log every trip on Excel.  I have been doing this for over 20 years.  I track the date, launch ramp, whose fishing with me, whose boat we used, the lake level, the launch and load time, air temp beginning and ending, water temp low and high, wind speed and direction, moon phase, # of bass, # of keepers, average fish depth, best bait (s), bait color, and other relevant data like points, flats, timber, rocks, bluffs, etc.

 

The day before I go I like to review the last two or three years in the time period around the trip so I can get a general idea of what to expect.

 

 I try go at least twice a week so I am looking at the files quite often.

I never bothered with keeping a log, though I'm sure it would have been beneficial earlier on. At this point I don't think it would be much help to me. I only fish a few different lakes, and pretty much know where the fish will be seasonally, so I take that into consideration, and fish the current conditions. Start with plan A and adapt as needed. I'm a big proponent of the K.I.S.S system.