Catch Log & Personal-Best Tracker
Log every catch in your browser, with automatic personal bests per species, release-rate statistics and CSV export.
Saved in this browser only. Export anytime below.
🏆 Personal bests
Release right: wet your hands first, keep air exposure under 10 seconds, support big fish horizontally (never by the jaw alone), and revive tired fish facing into current until they kick free. A photo on the measuring board and a quick log entry beats a wall mount.
A personal best is a running maximum, and those have exact arithmetic
Suppose the fish you catch arrive in no particular order — one today is no more or less likely to be your biggest than one from last spring. Then among the first n catches each is equally likely to be the largest, so the chance the newest is a personal best is exactly 1/n.
| Catch number | Chance it is a new personal best |
|---|---|
| 1 | 100% |
| 2 | 50% |
| 5 | 20% |
| 10 | 10% |
| 100 | 1% |
| 1000 | 0.10% |
It is not that the fish get harder to beat. It is that there are more of them to beat.
So the total is a harmonic number, and it grows like a logarithm
| Catches logged | Personal bests expected | ln n + 0.577 |
|---|---|---|
| 10 | 2.93 | 2.88 |
| 100 | 5.19 | 5.18 |
| 1,000 | 7.49 | 7.48 |
| 10,000 | 9.79 | 9.79 |
A hundred times the fishing does not buy a hundred times the records; it buys about 4.6 more. Simulating 4,000 anglers of a thousand catches each lands on 7.51 against a theoretical 7.485 — the check that this is arithmetic rather than a story.
The spread is wide, so the average is not the typical case. Over a thousand catches the middle angler logs 7 records, the unlucky tenth logs 4 and the lucky tenth 11. The variance works out at 5.84 against a mean of 7.49 — close enough together that the count behaves like a Poisson one, which is another way of saying two anglers with identical luck can end up several records apart.
And the gaps between records grow exponentially
| Record number | Lands near catch | Catches until the next |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 |
| 3 | 11 | 19 |
| 5 | 83 | 143 |
| 8 | 1,674 | 2,876 |
| 10 | 12,367 | 21,250 |
Each record takes about e — 2.72 — times as many catches as the one before. Which is worth knowing before reading a dry spell as a decline. Somebody four records in, fishing steadily, has a genuinely long wait for the fifth, and nothing has gone wrong. The flattening is the shape of the thing being measured.
What the other two numbers do and do not say
| Statistic | Can it fall? | Measured against |
|---|---|---|
| Personal best | no | none — a running maximum |
| Species logged | no | none — a running count of firsts |
| Percent released | yes | entries in the log, not fish caught |
The species count is the same kind of animal as the personal best — a running total of firsts, so it only ever rises and its increments get rarer. The release percentage is the only figure here that can go down, and it is a share of logged catches rather than of fish. An angler who writes down the notable ones and lets the small ones go unrecorded will read low for a reason that has nothing to do with what they released. That does not make it wrong; it makes it a statistic about the log.
How to use
- Log each catch with species, size and location.
- Record conditions — they are what make the log useful.
- Note whether the fish was kept or released.
- Export regularly, since this is stored locally only.
Frequently asked questions
What is worth recording beyond the fish?
Conditions, and this is where the value is. Water temperature, weather, time of day, tide or flow, and what you were using turn a list of fish into something that tells you where and when to go back. A log of species and sizes alone is a scrapbook rather than a tool.
How many entries before patterns appear?
More than a season, usually. Fishing is noisy enough that a handful of good days can suggest a pattern that does not exist, and it takes a few years of consistent logging before seasonal and conditional patterns become trustworthy.
Should I record blank sessions?
Yes, and this is the entry people skip. A log containing only successful trips tells you nothing about what does not work, which is half the information. The days you caught nothing are what make the good days meaningful.
Why track release rate?
Because it is a fact about your own practice worth knowing, and because some fisheries and clubs ask for it. It also prompts the more useful question of whether the fish you release actually survive, which depends on handling more than on intention.
Does this count for a record claim?
No. Record claims require a certified scale, witnesses and a specified procedure that varies by organisation. A personal log is for your own use, and describing a logged weight as estimated when it was is what keeps it honest.
Where is my log stored?
In your browser on this device, so nothing is uploaded and no account is needed. It does not sync between devices and clearing browsing data removes it — which is why exporting a multi-season log is worth doing regularly.
🔒 This tool runs entirely in your browser. Nothing you enter is uploaded, logged, or stored.