Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Anyone learn to dress and cook wild game as a Boy Scout?

We never did anything like that when I was a Scout.

But, these UK Scouts sure had the opportunity - Roe deer and rabbit. Good thread with pics:

Bushcraft UK

I wish I would have organized something like this with my troop when I was a Scoutmaster. It's a shame there isn't a Hunting Merit Badge in the BSA.

Nope, this wasn't a merit badge thing I guess. I learned to be a pretty darned good cook from Mom, an ex wife and a European girl friend. I thank all of them too.

Not exactly wild game, but on one of our winter "survival" camporees, they divided us into groups of 3 or 4 and gave each group a freshly-killed chicken, and we had to take it from there-pluck it, gut it, cut it into pieces, cook it over a fire. My group of older scouts did OK because I had seen my grandmother behead and pluck many a chicken, as had at least one of my partners. It was a long evening for some of the younger kids who thought chicken came from the back room of the grocery store, neatly laid out under Saran wrap. This was in the early '60s, so it wasn't unusual for the time. We went on a troop camping trip or two on a river where we caught and cleaned some fish, but that was a bonus-not a required activity.

When I was in the Scouts, our Scout Master took us out often, for a survival trip.
We had to make our own shelter, catch or kill our meal, build our own fire, and handle all the other chores on our own.
Sure did teach me a lot at an early age.

My Dad and my outdoors mentor had been beating that stuff into me for several years before I joined the Scouts, so I had a head start.

It's a crying shame Scouts were so frowned upon when I was a kid because I bet it was an awsome experience and great fun. Course at 21 I think I'm a little too old to participate now. Hopefully things will change when my 2 sons are old enough to join if they choose to.

Dad died when I was four, so no experiences there. I learned to shoot in the Scouts (at camp, proper handling, target shooting), but not how to dress or cook. Grandfather taught me what he could, when he could, but we lived a good distance from him and he passed away when I was a teen.
Unfortunately, most of what I know past that is self-taught, and it shows.

Technically no because I had been hunting with my dad before that but...

I killed my first deer on a scout reservation on a hunt that was limited to scouts on a draw basis.

no , but maybe they will teach US yute's to bale themselves?

I grew up on a farm and thought the Scouts were just for poor city kids. Sunday dinner was usually chicken and started by chasing one down. I was too well versed in the rest of the process as well. Butchering hogs was an annual event that I wish I could have missed, but I was never mistaken about where my food came from. Hunting and fishing was a natural part of life. After school activities meant sports, chores, or, if you were frivolous, the FFA.

That's exactly what happened to us. Even though I'd hunted and fished, we had no idea what the hell to do with it (had I been thinking, we shoulda rung its neck like a pheasant). They gave us a chicken and hatchet. We drew straws, and dumbass kids that we were, hung the bird by its feet from a tree like a pinata, up against the trunk. The guy with the short straw ended up covered in chicken blood and feathers, and looking queasy. None of us ate much, and I wandered into a patch of poison oak in the dark when I went to take a piss later. A glorious moment for the Jackrabbit Patrol. Good times.

WTF were scouts frowned upon? Never heard those words.

You got TWO already? Time for surgery!

The fishing merit badge still requires the boys to clean and cook one fish. I'm betting that requirement will be removed in the next rendition as many Scout camps are now catch and release only fishing.

After that mom sued a scout master for taking the scouts on a tour of a chicken processing plant where the boys saw a chicken killed a few years ago don't look for the Boy Scouts of America to include hunting or field dressing game in their programs.


I learned to clean and cook critters long before I became a boy scout as did my sons.