Do any of you keep records of your deer sightings? I usually keep extensive records, however, some years I've been lax. This year I've recorded all of my deer sightings. I've hunted every day since Oct. 29th and recorded my sightings. I keep track of Does, Fawns, immature Bucks and mature Bucks (3 1/2+). AM, PM, stand location,weather conditions etc. are all recorded. Here is a chart of my matureBuck sightings for Nov. 2006.

I've kept a bow & turkeyhuntingloggoing since 1977. I used to incudea lot of detail, but have also gotten lax in the past few years - now, it's just basic info such as when, where, and sightings, with an occasional narration of special events. MD DNR has a bowhunter survey, and I've adapted mylogto their data call.

-fsh

thanks for the reminder man, i log all of my fishing trips and should do the same for hunting, year in year out these logs have proven to be quite helpful and you can also check with other indicators and see if the times/events are the same..

another thing i do on the fishing is carry a voice activated recorder, when i catch a fish i mention everthing i can think of (time/bait/weather/water clairity/current/depth)and log it once i'm back at the house

anyway thanks again for the reminder, have a great thanksgiving and hope the rest of your season turns out good

keith

I don't do a graph, just a notebook with date, time , location, and type of activity.( ie, rutting, feeding, traveling, etc.). This has been helpful from year to year with making decisions about what stand to hunt. Has it helped my success rate? Who knows.

GregH:

I keep an excel journal. I note date/weather/number of deer seen/bucks/does/and how many were in bow range (30yds). I've seen 191 deer from stand, this year.....in 29 sittings. 99 were in bow range.

Jeff

FYI, I can back this up, I hunted with Jeff one day. I saw 13 in the am, 6 were in bow range, in the evening I stopped counting at 37 and saw many more including previously unseen bucks. Of the 60 plus deer I saw in one day, prolly 20 were in bow range at any given time.

I also keep track of all sightings, stand locations and weather. Never made a chart like yours though.

I killed my big buck on Nov. 6 Thats a pretty good time to be out, and also shows on your chart as well.

Holy crap! What zoo were you hunting?[8D]

I keep records also. Weather, time of day, location, quantity, quality, misc. notes etc..... I have them in regular ole notebook that gets a little discombobulated (not sure if that's a word). One of these days I should transfer it to my computer so I can actually read some of it and make use of it.

Rob:

I personally saw 16 the evening you saw the ones you did. I only entered the 16 I saw in my journal. I know they're there, though. (now...so do YOU!)

Jeff

I keep a journal and enter it in my laptop when I get home. Like you Greg my mature buck sightings have really decreased the last few outings. Now ofcourse I am second guessing myself for not taking one of them big 8's I seen. It usually doesn't bother me a bit because the freezer is full andI like to try and get the dominant buck in my area. But being on a contest team has added some pressure. I feel like I need to score on something just for our team. I got the rest of the weekoff so maybe my Huckelberry will show up.