Fishing Merit Badge

1. Hazards, first aid, the barbed hook, and five safety practices Requirement

Four parts. The third is specific enough to be worth reading twice, and the fourth asks you to produce five practices of your own rather than recite a list.

4 parts, 1 ticked

• 1(a). The hazards of fishing, and what to do about them
• 1(b). The health list, prevention and treatment
• 1(c). Removing a barbed hook from somebody's arm Often forgotten
• 1(d). Name and explain five safety practices you always follow

2. Two kinds of outfit compared, several rods and reels identified, and how to look after them Often forgotten Requirement

Three things in one requirement: a comparison of two outfit types, hands-on identification of parts across several rods and reels, and a care review with your counselor.

3. Use two different types of equipment properly Often forgotten Requirement

A demonstration, not a description, and two types, which usually means arranging access to a second outfit.

4. Five knots, tied and explained Requirement

Improved clinch, Palomar, uni, uni to uni, and arbor. Explaining how and when each is used is half of the requirement.

5. Five lures, five baits, how to fish them, and why baitfish stay Often forgotten Requirement

Naming and identifying five artificial lures and five natural baits, explaining how to fish with them, and explaining why baitfish are not released. The last clause is a conservation point sitting inside an equipment requirement.

6. Leave No Trace, the Outdoor Code, and catch and release Requirement

Two parts, both about the resource rather than the fishing.

2 parts

• 6(a). Why the principles and the Code matter, and what they do for fishing water
• 6(b). Catch and release: what it means, why it matters, and how to do it safely

7. Get the fishing regulations where you live, and understand why they exist Often forgotten Requirement

Obtained and reviewed, then explained: why they were adopted and what following them achieves. This is also what tells you whether requirement 10 is legal on your water.

8. Sportsmanlike behaviour, and the Code applied to littering and trespass Requirement

What good outdoor sportsmanship is for an angler, and how Leave No Trace and the Outdoor Code bear on littering, trespassing, courtesy and obeying the regulations.

9. Catch one fish and identify it. Start this first Often forgotten Requirement

The only requirement on this badge you cannot finish by deciding to. Every trip you take while working on the rest is a chance at it, so begin it early rather than in numerical order.

Start this one first, whatever the numbering says. It is the only requirement on the badge you cannot finish by deciding to finish it, and every trip you make while working on the other nine is a chance at it. Leaving it until ninth is how a badge that was otherwise done sits open for a season.

10. Clean and cook a fish, and the badge provides for not catching one Often forgotten Requirement

A fish you caught if you can; a fish you acquired if you cannot, cleaned and cooked the same way. Conditional on regulations and health concerns permitting. You are not required to eat it.

This requirement does NOT wait on requirement 9. If you cannot catch a fish to eat, the requirement itself tells you to acquire one and clean and cook that instead. A Scout who has not caught anything is not blocked here. That is the badge's own provision, not a concession from this site.

Counselor signs it off Milestone

The completion date is the date you met the requirements, not the date of the signature.

Usually comes after 10. Clean and cook a fish, and the badge provides for not catching one.

Merit badge requirements are republished annually. A Scout beginning work uses the requirements as they stand then; a Scout already working may finish under the ones they started with. Guide to Advancement 7.0.4.3 governs which applies. This page records the date its copy was read. Check it against the official page before relying on it.