What Should You Log After a Day's Pigeon or Pest Control Shooting? A Simple Checklist

You come home from a cold morning in the hide or a long evening around the farm buildings, tired, muddy and pleased with how it went. Then comes the bit most of us skip: writing it down. A good shooting log takes two minutes, and it pays you back for years. Here is a plain-English checklist of what is worth recording, and how to make it a habit rather than a chore.

Why bother keeping a shooting log at all?

Memory is a poor record keeper. Three months on, nobody remembers which field the pigeons were hammering the drilled peas, or how many rabbits came off the bank behind the barn. A dated log turns guesswork into something you can actually use: it shows landowners what you have done for them, it helps you plan the next visit, and it gives you a personal diary of days you will want to look back on.

What to write down every time

You do not need an essay. These are the details that make an entry genuinely useful later:

• Date and time: start and finish, so a record always reads as a real day out.

• Location: the farm, field or permission name, not just "the usual place".

• Who you shot for: the landowner or farmer, and any request they made, such as protecting a particular crop.

• Quarry and numbers: what you saw, what you took, and how many.

• Shots and cartridges used: handy for judging your own efficiency over a season.

• Weather and wind: it explains a lot about why one day was quiet and another was busy.

• Notes: where the birds were feeding, what decoy pattern worked, anything to try next time.

Why paper diaries tend to fail

A notebook in the glovebox is a lovely idea until it gets wet, goes missing or is left at home on the one day you needed it. Phone notes are better, but they are scattered, hard to search and awkward to print or hand to someone. The best system is the one you will actually use in the field, in the rain, with cold fingers and no phone signal.

Where Set & Shot fits in

Set & Shot is a shooting and pest control diary from RP Digital Studio Ltd, built for pest controllers, hunters and shooters who want a clean, dated record without the scramble. You log the day as it happens, and you can produce a professional PDF printout whenever someone asks to see your records. It works fully offline, so a farm with no signal is no problem. It is a one-off purchase with lifetime updates, it tracks none of your data, and it is available worldwide on the App Store and Google Play. Search for Set & Shot in either store.

Making it a habit

The trick is to log while the details are fresh, ideally before you leave the field. Put the entry on your end-of-day routine, right after you unload and clean up. Keep it short and consistent rather than long and occasional. A line a day beats a perfect page you never get around to writing.

Choosing the right load for the job

If you are recording cartridges, it helps to know what you are actually shooting. Our Free UK Cartridge Guide shows typical shot sizes and load weights for clay, game and vermin in 12 and 20 bore, and it is free to use.

The short version

Record the date, place, who you shot for, quarry, numbers and conditions every time, and do it straight away. If you want to see how other RP Digital Studio Ltd apps support shooting records, our post on keeping evidence for your shotgun licence renewal explains how a running log can help over a whole certificate period.