Animal harvest spreadsheet

[Idhunter777]

I want to start a spreadsheet that I keep track of the animals I have harvested with year, species, location and various other helpful info.

Does anyone know of a thread with an example of something like this? If anyone is doing something similar would you mind sharing what you keep track of or what you think would be worth keeping track of?

I think it will be helpful and fun to be able to look back at in the years to come.

 

[Joshk358]

I had one for years. Computer crashed and lost all the info...I think. I might have a CD with it, ill have to look. I'm probably going to try and recreate it from memory. I had location, species, distance, weapon, load/arrow/broadhead and listed anything cool or out of the ordinary from that particular hunt. Kind of a neat thing to look back on.

 

[Speaks]

Ive sort of tried to keep a hunting log for years but generally been really bad in doing it.

What I have done is a bird hunting log in onx. I have 50ish hunting spots marked in ONX and will add a few and rotate out a few every year. During a year I color code them red if I have not hunted them yet and green after hunting them (trying to hit everything and not do repeats) and black if they are off the list and I dont want to hunt them again.

I also drop a pin for every bird flushed and shot color coded by year with a different icon for flushed or shot. I can keep a running 6 year map of all bird contacts before I run out of colors and have to take an older year off. This has been very useful in seeing patterns and keeping me honest about both hunting effort and outcomes.

What I have been terrible at is notes about what all I tried and how it worked in a more narrative format.

I really should try and pick it up again whether its in a spreadsheet or elsewhere. The discrepancy in memory between me and my friends is illustrative on how fallible memory can be.

 

[Maverick1]

I have one. Helps to relive the hunts and keep memories fresh. Otherwise things just get lost in the shuffle. I am glad that I made it many years ago and update it on an annual basis.

Also, when I was a kid at the local gun range or store, I hated hearing guys say unintelligent things like "I've shot hundreds of deer with the XYZ caliber/weapon" when - in fact - the number is probably closer to six or seven. Those types of claims just sound so........dumb.

Anyhow: the spreadsheet has columns for:

• Season #
• Year
• My age
• # of pictures
  • Link to the folder with pictures on the PC
• Total quantity of each species killed
• Weapon
  • Firearm
  • Archery
• Shot distance
  • Average shot distance per weapon
• AM/PM
  • Broken out by total number of AM and PM kills
• State
• Notes

 

[Idhunter777]

I had one for years. Computer crashed and lost all the info...I think. I might have a CD with it, ill have to look. I'm probably going to try and recreate it from memory. I had location, species, distance, weapon, load/arrow/broadhead and listed anything cool or out of the ordinary from that particular hunt. Kind of a neat thing to look back on.

Thank you for replying this is helpful to know what your categories were I like the ideas of listing anything cool or out of the ordinary!

 

[Idhunter777]

Ive sort of tried to keep a hunting log for years but generally been really bad in doing it.

What I have done is a bird hunting log in onx. I have 50ish hunting spots marked in ONX and will add a few and rotate out a few every year. During a year I color code them red if I have not hunted them yet and green after hunting them (trying to hit everything and not do repeats) and black if they are off the list and I dont want to hunt them again.

I also drop a pin for every bird flushed and shot color coded by year with a different icon for flushed or shot. I can keep a running 6 year map of all bird contacts before I run out of colors and have to take an older year off. This has been very useful in seeing patterns and keeping me honest about both hunting effort and outcomes.

What I have been terrible at is notes about what all I tried and how it worked in a more narrative format.

I really should try and pick it up again whether its in a spreadsheet or elsewhere. The discrepancy in memory between me and my friends is illustrative on how fallible memory can be.

These are good tips, my onX is a mess with pins, I need to put them in folders and be more diligent with my data, especially the narrative notes

 

[Geewhiz]

I'm having a hard time understanding so if someone could post an example of their personal spreadsheet that would be cool. Please be sure to include the location in your example.

 

[Idhunter777]

I have one. Helps to relive the hunts and keep memories fresh. Otherwise things just get lost in the shuffle. I am glad that I made it many years ago and update it on an annual basis.

Also, when I was a kid at the local gun range or store, I hated hearing guys say unintelligent things like "I've shot hundreds of deer with the XYZ caliber/weapon" when - in fact - the number is probably closer to six or seven. Those types of claims just sound so........dumb.

Anyhow: the spreadsheet has columns for:

• Season #
• Year
• My age
• # of pictures
  • Link to the folder with pictures on the PC
• Total quantity of each species killed
• Weapon
  • Firearm
  • Archery
• Shot distance
  • Average shot distance per weapon
• AM/PM
  • Broken out by total number of AM and PM kills
• State
• Notes

Haha yeah I don’t want to be someone making claims that I can’t remember the details of. Those are great comumns and thorough, thank you!

 

[Lowedown]

I have loosley tracked stuff to help me remember over the years. It's nothing spectacular but lots of memories

 

[buffybr]

I shot my first deer in 1965 and my first elk in '66. That's when you could tell the engineering students at college because they all had a large cased slide rule hanging off ther belts. Cell phones and personal computers hadn't been invented.

About 1970 I started keeping track of my elk kills, listing them in a small bound book. I listed the year that I shot them, where, the number of points of bulls or if it was a cow. I later added the rifle caliber, or on one, the arrow.

It wasn't until after my divorce in 2000-01 where my Ex wanted me to pay her for half of the value of all of the animals that I had taxidermied (including ones that I had shot and had mounted years before I had even met her). After that I got my own home computer that I made a spreadsheet listing each animal that had mounted, the year that I shot them, the year that I had them mounted, the cost of the taxidermy, and I later added columns for the gun calibers/cartridges and bullet weights.

Then a few years after I went on my first African hunt I forgot some of the details of the hunt, so for many more of my international hunts, I kept a dairy or log of the hunts while I was there.

Here at home I've been deer and pronghorn antelope most of 60 plus years, and shooting 2 deer and/or antelope in some years, and not shooting any some in other years. Without me keeping any sort of records of all of those hunts, right now I couldn't tell you exactly how many total deer or antelope that I've shot.

 

[Chris in TN]

For the past several years the state of TN keeps our harvest records where we can access them online. I can't remember every deer I ever shot, but if you tell me county/year/date/sex, I can usually conjure it up.

They used to issue us permanent harvest tags and I had a long string I kept those on. I didn't realize the ink would fade and they became unreadable.

 

[Ready2Rut]

Here's mine. This is my first year big game hunting so I cannot speak to how useful it is, but I have kept similar logs for backcountry skiing for years and it has come in very handy and been fun. Added harvest time based on Maverick1's post.

 

[CMF]

I've started two similar sheets, one that I call hunt log, and one that is just kills. I've only started these in the past year, but the kill sheet is an effort to remember deer taken going back 20+ years and also to provide adequate data when talking about x broadheads/bullet etc, like @Maverick1 mentioned above. The hunt log is track of our out-of-state trips.
Also have sheets for App dates and hunts we applied for.
Has anyone ever made a template for trip planning? Things to research and put down into one document. I'm thinking contacts for packers or meat storage,bio or wardens, etc. Other open season dates, potential bow shops or outdoor stores for a gear emergency....

Hunt log

Arrival Date

Departure date

Days hunted

Scout or Hunt

Weapon

Primary Species

Other Species

Day, Spike, or Bivy

Game taken

State

Unit

Participants

RT miles

Summary

Kill

[td]Hunter[/td][td]Species[/td][td]Date[/td][td]M/F[/td][td]Points size[/td][td]Weapon[/td][td]Weapon details[/td][td]yardage[/td][td]Broadhead[/td][td]Mech or fixed[/td][td]pass through[/td][td]Distance traveled[/td][td]State[/td][td]Area[/td][td]Spot[/td][td]Notes[/td]

 

[Maverick1]

I've started two similar sheets, one that I call hunt log, and one that is just kills. I've only started these in the past year, but the kill sheet is an effort to remember deer taken going back 20+ years and also to provide adequate data when talking about x broadheads/bullet etc, like @Maverick1 mentioned above. The hunt log is track of our out-of-state trips.
Also have sheets for App dates and hunts we applied for.
Has anyone ever made a template for trip planning? Things to research and put down into one document. I'm thinking contacts for packers or meat storage,bio or wardens, etc. Other open season dates, potential bow shops or outdoor stores for a gear emergency....

Hunt log

Arrival Date

Departure date

Days hunted

Scout or Hunt

Weapon

Primary Species

Other Species

Day, Spike, or Bivy

Game taken

State

Unit

Participants

RT miles

Summary

Kill

[td]Hunter[/td][td]Species[/td][td]Date[/td][td]M/F[/td][td]Points size[/td][td]Weapon[/td][td]Weapon details[/td][td]yardage[/td][td]Broadhead[/td][td]Mech or fixed[/td][td]pass through[/td][td]Distance traveled[/td][td]State[/td][td]Area[/td][td]Spot[/td][td]Notes[/td]

Yes. Multiple spreadsheets.

• Kill log as described above.
• Gear and equipment checklist for out of state and in state hunts for different species.
• Scouting spreadsheet
• Contacts list (taxidermists, DNR and game wardens, addresses, bow shops, meat processors/butchers, grocery stores, local people/places I know.). Most of this can be figured out in the fly, but sometimes good to have discussions ahead of time. (Example: does the butcher accept meat on or off the bone? Does the taxidermist want you to cape the animal in the field, or do it himself?)
• Pre-hunt checklists.

Got tired of making it to a hunt destination and realizing I left something at home. Kind of a pain to have to decide “do without?” or “buy another?” when on the road and out of state hunts. Big hassle, especially when in the mountains.