Fly Fishing Database

[fishingn00b101]

I was wondering, has anyone ever collected data and built/started to build a database in terms of fly fishing data?

I've always thought this may bring some untapped knowledge into the equation...

Just asking out of curiosity, because I'm thinking about starting to build one for myself, and I was hoping someone might have some suggestions if they've done it before. Or someone might know of a place where I can find such data, where a database already exists.

 

[bikerfish]

well, not a database, but I do keep a journal, and I sometimes even remember to write stuff down in it! It's fun to read back 20 years and compare to today.

 

[Bruno]

Like stream reports / hatch charts ? I am a data junkie but applying data analysis to an animal with a brain the size of a pea ? I think your time may be better spent hitting your thumb with a hammer over and over and recording whether it hurts or not

 

[troutbert]

I think a journal (on paper or computer) is a much better idea.

Because much of what is worth knowing and remembering is descriptive and qualitative, not quantitative.

If you write down interesting things that you saw, that happened, interesting conversations with people, etc. that will be much more interesting to go back and look at, to rejuvenate memories, then "data points."

Also, taking photos is good. And be sure to label them. Because you may think you'll remember the name of the stream on that photo. But in many cases you won't. And if you have the name of the stream on the photo, and also a journal talking about your fishing that day on the stream, the combination will bring back a lot of memories, in addition to what you wrote down.

 

[steveo27]

I kept a little data base type spread sheet for a while with some info for a while.

Stream location, date, parking situation, times fished, air temp, water temp, weather conditions, stream conditions, rod/reel/line used, flies use, and a paragraph or 2 about the day.

I got lazy and stopped doing that.

 

[albatross]

I'm a statistician by trade. I fly fish to get away from all that...

 

[DGC]

I don't know about a database, but if I kept a journal I am fairly sure It would reduce the number of times I have to relearn the same lessons.

That is in addition to the enjoyment of memories.

One more example: last May I fished a light sulfur emergence in the rain (not Spring Creek). Swallows were going for them before it started raining. The birds swooped up and down the stream right by me and I was concerned I might hook one. What I can't recall is if the birds kept this up after it started raining. I wish I had written that down.

There's lots of details like that that would be good to access.

 

[fishingn00b101]

I'm an aspiring statistician... so I guess trying to combine two things I love? I mean it would be a pet project, for fun. I don't get to do this on a daily basis like I would like to, so it would be away I could combine two things that I love.

I fly fish to get away from my job at the bank...haha

And not sure what the size of the fish's brain has to do with data analysis? Data analysis is just used to find patterns in nature, using mathematics. Data analysis/statistics has been used for a wide range of fields, and for biology since the early 1900s.

 

[salmonoid]

I use an app on my phone that I log each catch with. Data that gets included are location, species, what it was caught with, date, time, etc. The underlying data is stored in SQLlite format, so I can then use SQL queries to extract anything I'm interested in. The most exotic thing I cooked up was to determine which moon phase my night fish came from (to try and prove or debunk the myth of the dark moon being better - results are inconclusive; need more data!). Every fish makes it into this app. I try to log a general summary of each trip too in a journal app, which pulls location and weather at the time of the entry, but my success rate on that is about 15%.

 

[sandfly]

http://www.mydailyfishinglog.com/default.asp

 

[DGC]

What journal app do you use Salmonoid if you don't mind my asking?

 

[salmonoid]

I use Memoires for general trip logging and FishNet Fishing Journal for logging the fishies. Both are Android apps.

 

[Dave_W]

I have kept a journal off and on over the last three decades however it has been several years since I have done so. These are paper journals. I could go back and compare some data but I doubt I'd find any significant correlations. I did enjoy comparing species caught...but rarely bothered with really crunching any numbers.

Frankly, I'm not really a data guy and have little motivation to get into that FFing angle. The only exceptions are that I like to survey macros and will set up some very basic data sets (such as the one I'm doing here on PAFF this year). I've also spent a lot of time comparing PFBC fish population surveys and I'm always keen to see new biologists' reports. But data directly associated with my fishing trips doesn't hold a lot of interest to me.

I would be interested in seeing Salmonoid's eventual conclusions on night fishing however. That would be interesting.

 

[dano]

I've kept a journal on hatches since the mid 80's.
Started out with a note book, then transferred to floppy discs and currently (still) using MS Works 95.
I lost most of the info pre 1998 after a failed hard drive.
The info I log is: Stream, Beginning and Ending Date, Insect, Time of Day the hatch started, and misc. notes.
It started as a predictive tool so help me plan my vacation time around the hatches. I normally keep this sorted as Month-Day-Year.
Or sometimes I sort the records by Stream-Month-Day if I'm targeting a certain hatch on a certain stream.
I don't keep it as up to date as I used to.
So, it's really not a fishing journal. It's a bug journal.

 

[franklin]

I guess it depends on what type of a data base you envision. Is this for your own records or would you be trying to compile a list of flies for given streams or sets of streams?

I was going to do something along the lines of a database of streams and flies for PA but I worked for Google at the time and their lawyers put the kabasho on it.