No, but I have close to 300 notches on my shooting sticks from all the coyotes I've killed off them.

I keep a small journal about my hunts and kills. It nice to look back and read how it went 10 or 15 years ago. I would never damage my gun intentionally.

No. Pictures go into my hunting photo album.

So far, I have only killed two doe and a few birds. I have 5x7 pictures of the two doe in my room and plan to add to it and eventually make a whole wall of em. Okay maybe a whole door. And I write when and where I took them on the pictures.

Wouldn't have a stock left... jk lol too pretty to cut into

When I was about 17 I took a spiral notebook and made a page for each deer I had taken up to that time. Date, time, weather, who with, and a brief story of each hunt. Think it had 8-10 stories in it. Then I stopped. Now the memories have faded/run together a bit. I would love to have that little notebook today but it has been lost somewhere along the way.

I don't and probably wouldn't BUT if it's a gun you plan to keep and pass down someday it might be kinda cool.
I know if I had inherited a gun that was notched, it would be cool to me and if I was buying an older gun, notches wouldn't bother me.

I see nothing wrong with notching your rifle. Like you said its not about disgracing the animal but its about awakening the memories while your sitting in the blind rubbing the stock and thinking about the animal that represents the notch. I bow hunt alot and on my back quiver I have leather shoe strings hanging of of it. Every time I kill a big game animal I put a knot in the string. Same as notching! I also retire the arrow with broadhead to a plack on the wall made of barnwood with the discription of the animal killed and discription of shot, where animal was killed etc. written on the arrow with a sharpy pen. Its fun to go read one from ten years ago and remmeber times that are forgotten until something triggers your soul!

wouldn't intentionally cut on
my firearm, but i had thought
about a brass inlay where i
could have a professional
engraver put a mark and date.
i forgot about it though, because
a memory like that wouldn't mean
anything to anyone else but me.

A friend of mine has a knife that he got in Germany years ago. He always uses that knife to field dress his deer. He puts a notch in the leather sheath for each one.

So true, So true gentlemen. I have enough memories from scars on me by getting scratched, poked, cut, stung & burnt & banged up in the field, I have living record of living with gun & bow in hand. Not at the same time of course.
js

No way. But we do keep every shell casing in the stand the deer was shot out of. after about 8 years it is kinda cool to see.

Save the shell with date/time/distance.

Cheap.

Before I was 10 years old I was given an old wood stock and worn marlin model 60 that would accompany me on treks thru the central Texas woods and creek bottoms in pursuit of squirrels, rabbits, and various birds. Not long after being gifted that old .22, I decided I would carve a small knotch, rounded divets about the size of a ball point pen tip, for any mammals I killed. This lasted awhile until interest and tradition waned in this practice, but I had successfully gnarled up that old stock from buttplate to pistol grip over time. Though quite foolish in practice, things like this are nostalgic of simpler times and a youthful amazement and appreciation for the wonders of the outdoors.

Texas Red had notches that numbered one and nineteen more, but the ranger with the big iron on his hip put an end to that.