Fishing Marks Database??

[RobAdair]

This is an idea I\'ve been toying with for a while now and I\'m just wondering if it\'s feasible ? (if I ever find the time )

I run a lot of reports at work (which are saved as microsoft excel spreadsheets) through a microsoft access database to sort and extract certain pieces of information ie you can specify a particular product, date, test result etc and extract only that necessary piece of information.

My idea is to cobble together a similar type of access database which I could use to extract data from my excel worksheets of local fishing marks and catch reports. When perfected you would enter certain variables, tide, wind direction, date, time etc and it would produce a list of marks that have shown to be successful in these conditions. I realise it wouldn\'t be foolproof as there are too many variables, but it would give a shortlist of hopefully productive area\'s to choose from.

What you lads think? A bit of fun, a waste of time, a useful tool?

 

[jonny_mc]

stephen \"used\" to run a few year back a database for fishing if i remember rightly. He would have to date/time, conditions i.e tide state etc. . and what he caught, then he could refer to it later on.

 

[alan]

I\'ve started this topic before and normally falls on deaf ears,alot of people prefer to fish at mark X Y and sometimes Z and some even fish club matches at imaginary marks,if you get it off the ground Rob you\'ll get 100 % support off me mate

 

[TC]

Alan,
Check \"looking Good\" in the Admin area on ANE ref. \"deaf ears\"

 

[jonny_mc]

a no what you mean alan, the sites here to share information, a Herd of us arnt going to go to this mark X and overfish it and make the mark not fishable, a mean ha\'way!

 

[alan]

have\'nt got there yet,just doing the rounds

 

[mark]

it\'ll go one of 2 ways. there\'ll be \"fantastic idea\" or \"terrible Idea, don\'t ant to tell anyone where I fish\"

got a mySQL db built to do the same with boat marks, its got a several hundred in it now with lat/long details etc, its online, folks can enter new marks if the wish, search, get plots and even some charts.

some people hate the idea others have been completly open to and contributed heavily

I\'m all in favour and would gladly stick my meagre results in!

 

[RobAdair]

Cheers Alan . It would just be for personal use at first, but if it got off the ground I would willingly give anyone a copy of the program AND the marks and catch reports that I had up until that time. It might have a use for new anglers, giving them a fighting chance of catching, educating them AND keeping them interested in our sport.

That would be cool

 

[Stores]

We used to have a database on the old board. The biggest problem with it was that people could not fill it in correctly so you\'d end up with:
Mark Name: Rotten bottom

Species Caught: Last two hours of the ebb
and so on
Perhaps one of the problems we have is that there are those who have some knowledge of some marks, a few who have a lot of knowledge of a few marks, one or two with excellent knowledge of a lot of marks and the majority who know little about the marks but just enjoy fishing them, hence the few are reluctant to tell the many. It\'s different for me. I would put myself in the \"few with a lot of knowledge of a few marks\" but as I\'m 200 miles away and fish so infrequently I\'m happy to tell others where to fish. Mostly the culture is one of \"I know where will fish tomorrow, I can tell you why, how and how far out, but if I do you might catch my fish\"
Don\'t know how you get round that.

 

[alan]

The only probelm I have is people posting Bass fishing results and marks,this was even in the local paper the other week,really disapointed with the article

 

[alan]

you could have a secondary pass word for accessing this section on the forum,this would stop commercial fishermen looking in,its debatable whether they look in or not,are they really interested,they should know where the fish are anyway !

 

[alan]

Alan,
Check \"looking Good\" in the Admin area on ANE ref. \"deaf ears\"

I\'m away there now

 

[TC]

\"We used to have a database on the old board. The biggest problem with it was that people could not fill it in correctly so you\'d end up with:
Mark Name: Rotten bottom
Species Caught: Last two hours of the ebb and so on\"

Yes David, I remember that.
It also tended to have the odd \"catch report\" or 2 posted on it.

I think the problem with that aspect of it, was that it was never really looked after and the good, informative stuff wasn\'t sepparated from the errmmm....not so good and uninformative stuff.

A database is only as good as the information that goes into it: put crap in - and you get crap out. If it\'s a case of somebody putting the right info in the wrong box, then there needs to be somebody there to amend the entries so that the right info goes into the right box.

Having said that.......I don\'t have the necessary permissions to set up something like that on the current site layout. It would end up as another \"forum\" - not really what\'s needed for a \"database\".

 

[Oblickta]

I\'ve been working on a access database for a couple of months now inside a .exe (soon to be) app. written in VB 6.0. (Pro. ed) The db is set up and has three tables, shore, boat and freshwater. The trouble is, I don\'t know much SQL to kick it\'s ass with! And I keep getting sidetracked by adding games and other little eggs here and there. So far the app. is 2.53MB (on Disc), has 16 .frm\'s, 3 .cls and 8 .bas modules and gets bigger everytime I load it. Latest addition was an image viewer with fullscreen viewing and now toying with the idea of a animated splashscreen.

So who\'s the NESA SQL guru, is it you Rob?

 

[mark]

If you\'ve played with VB, SQL is a breeze, in fact there\'s loads of little freeware utilities on the web to take an excel doc and convertstraight to SQL,

Much better option IMHO than access and its evil VB hoards. Apart from anything else, support for mySQL is pretty much universal on the web, and like all good things is free, It also will out perform access many many time ssover if you get a big db and lots of clients wnating into it at a time (EBAY is built using mySQL tables)

if you go down the SQL avenue don\'t be fooled by microsoft SQL (mSQL or microsoft Sequel as its sometimes know) Its not as good and doesn\'t work the same

How big is it? I\'ve got an Asset management site I run for Kelloggs, every piece of artwork and photograph from Kelloggs UK in the last 50 years catalogued on it - the mysql tables/data....a little under 1meg at present!

 

[RobAdair]

Thanks for all the comments lads

My intentions were never to set up a database on the site which could be accessed by anyone, as you all rightly say few people would contribute their \"markX\" and it would be a logistical nightmare to keep it updated. My idea was purely and simply to help myself (and/or whoever wanted the program and set up there own individual database) to shortlist possible productive marks prior to a days fishing and to record their catch reports for future reference.

At present I use an excel document for my catch reports which I have set up with drop down boxes for dates, times, species, weights etc to minimise typing and make it quick and easy to use. My plan was to link this to an access database which could selectively \"cherry pick\" whatever data I required, instead of having to wade through years and years of catch reports. Thinking this through though, I reckon it would probably be easier to just produce an access database where the data was added directly and which could then produce selective reports for whatever you required ie specific dates, species, baits etc. People could then use this on their personal PC\'s for there own marks and catch reports and NOT HAVE TO SHARE their \"secret info\"

I still think it would be a useful tool for anyone who enjoys their fishing and wants to get the most out of their sessions, and you could always get the bairn to show you how to use it

PS I\'m no expert Graham, I\'m only just learning this myself and thought this would be a good way to familiarise myself with the software, sounds like Marks your man

 

[Oblickta]

If we (or any angling site) had a markX database that was super efficient wouldn\'t that mean all members turning up at the same marks day after day or a big Q of boats waiting their turn to drift \"Wreck of the day\" lol

Rob, my program was just about ready \'till this appeared:

\"instead of having to wade through years and years of catch reports.\"
I hadn\'t given that any thought at all so thanks for the tip mate. Only now I\'ve got to think of the best and easiest way to get the required reports. I\'ve got a data environment wizard thingy with VB but it seems to have too many dependancies. Oh, and I cant get it to work! I think the way forward is a solution in code. I\'ll have to beg, borrow or steal cos I think bossing a database around with vb code is a tad too advanced for me but I\'ll never know \'till I try!

When/if I ever get finished anyone can have a copy (free) to compare with what they alredy use. It\'s a handy item cos the database is accessed and navigated using standard buttons and i\'ve added some interesting extras. I\'d be grateful for honest opinions cos I\'ve never distributed a program before.

Alan, my app. is for desktop use only so I\'ll be sticking with access cos I\'m too bone idle to change anything now. I\'ve heard loads of good things about mySQL and it\'s now on my list of \"things to do\". Thanks for your reply mate.

 

[alan]

I should have posted this before,my Deaf Ears comment was\'nt directed to Admin or Moderators past or present
Rob and Graham I\'m interested in what you are doing so let me know how you get on

 

[Oblickta]

If (anyone) had a program on their desktop to record catches, ie date, time, mark, rig used, species and fields to enter comments about tackle and weather etc. what would be your prefered report from the database?

I could include a seperate form in the program with option buttons to select the desired report. I\'ve now got the code to do this and just have to copy and modify it for each option.

And, if the program included a text editor to type lists of planned trips, tackle & bait etc. that can be edited, saved and/or printed (\"all in\", without having to open other programs), would you use it?

I\'m not picking brains here or bounty hunting for info, I just want to create something that is very easy to use and will be free to anybody that wants to have a look and maybe use it. I have designed the interface so you just follow the mouse pointer and not be put off by programmer showboating or plebian tech head jargon.

There\'s also a very annoying fish pointer that you\'ll either love or hate!

 

[alan]

if its free Graham I\'d love to try it out mate,I suppose you could email each other your reports and build up your data