SPORT ON A SHOESTRING
Top-notch sport needn’t be expensive, says Marcus Janssen, particularly in Scotland where shooters, stalkers and fishers on tight budgets are well and truly spoilt for choice.
Marcus Janssen takes us on a budget tour of Scotland's top fieldsports offerings
It surprises me how little one needs to spend in Scotland to find sublime sport
Whenever I reach that stretch of the motorway between Gretna Green and Ecclefechan, I always find myself swept up in a warm wave of nostalgia and the sense that I have returned home. Which may be a bit of a strange thing to say, coming from a chap who was born and raised south of the border; some 6,000 miles south of the border in fact – in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa.
Having said that, my mum is as Scottish as Creag na Gaoith, the hill that overlooks Lochlane, her family’s farm just outside Crieff where my brother and I spent most of our school holidays under the care of my shooting-obsessed grandfather.
A day was deemed to have been thoroughly wasted if there wasn’t some freshly-killed bird or beast hanging up in the game larder each evening. Pigeons, crows, jackdaws, jays, woodcock, duck, teal, geese, rabbits, grey squirrels, partridges, pheasants, roe deer and red deer all feature on the first six pages of my earliest game book, a wildlife-themed notepad that my mother bought for me from the shop at Auchingarrich Wildlife Centre.
There are also trout, grayling and even an out-of-season cock salmon that I winkled out of the Earn on a Devon minnow whilst Papa was at a livestock auction in Stirling. One alarming entry – ‘1 x sheep (ewe), shot between the eyes with a .22LR’ – suggests that, despite the plethora of great sport available, we weren’t particularly discerning when it came to our choice of quarry. Every day seemed to throw up fresh experiences and new adventures. To a wild and wide-eyed 12-year-old, Scotland was a sportsman’s Shangri-la. It was paradise. And do you know what? It still is. In every sense.
I actually moved to Scotland in my early 20s to study at the University of Aberdeen, my choice of institution being somewhat determined by the amount of sport I would have on my doorstep. And what a great decision that turned out to be; it didn’t take me long to work out that I could get the 202 bus, from a stop 100m from my digs, directly to either Crathes or Banchory on the Dee. If I asked the driver nicely, he would even drop me off at the top of the track leading down to the fishing hut.
Despite not being able to get a student loan and having very little spare cash, I somehow managed to fill my fieldsports boots, squeezing in more shooting, stalking and fishing in four years than I would ever admit to my parents.
Initially, I intended to return to the South African bush from whence I had come after I graduated, but I never did; I’m still here, and that has a lot to do with the fact that Scotland has so much to offer the fieldsports obsessed.
One of the things that constantly surprises me is just how little one needs to spend in Scotland to find sublime sport. Don’t get me wrong, swinging a fly through the Tweed’s Junction Pool or spending a day in a grouse butt at Invermark are probably worth every one of the many, many pounds it costs for such a privilege, but there are also equally memorable sporting experiences to be had without having to sell your car or house.
PIKE, PERHAPS?
Whilst hordes of 10-weight-wielding fly fishers have converged on Chew Valley Lake in Somerset and Rutland Water in the Midlands in recent years, most of Scotland’s wild pike lochs have remained lightly fished. The majority of Scotland’s larger lochs are home to a population of pike, but those with a good head of either wild browns or stocked rainbows offer the best chance of a serious fish.
Lochs Alvie and Insh near Aviemore are good examples; both have decent populations of wild brownies and, as a result, the pike grow to impressive sizes. I’ve fished Alvie many times over the years and have had pike up to 20lb on more than one occasion. And for as little as £15 a day, that’s a serious bargain. www.alvie-estate.co.uk
HOORAY FOR HINDS
Stalking a red stag in the Highlands is an experience that will leave an indelible mark on the heart of any hunter. The vistas and views alone will stay with you forever.
But it needn’t be a stag – hinds can offer just as much of a challenge as the monarch of the glen, and the good news is that most Highland estates will happily take paying guests out during hind season (Oct 21 – Feb 15) for a nominal fee.
Spectacular Highland estates such as Tulchan of Glenisla in Perthshire, and Glendessary near Spean Bridge offer hind stalking at very affordable prices. www.tulchan-glenisla.co.uk
THE WONDER OF WILDFOWL
Have you ever had a conversation with a wildfowler about wildfowling? If you have, you’ll know that their love of the sport runs deep. They also tend to be the poets of the shooting world, describing the foreshore at first light in misty-eyed and lyrical prose.
‘The uncertainty of wildfowling is the spice that makes it so addictive,’ says Jeremy Westmoreland, a passionate wildfowler who would choose a morning flight on the foreshore over any other form of shooting.
‘On most occasions, you don’t get a shot at all,’ he continues. ‘But are you bothered? Not in the slightest, for you have shared the marsh with these birds, you have watched the sun rise over the North Sea, been treated to a panoply of wildfowl and wader activity, seen the pattern of their wings against the skies, and you have breathed in the icy salt air. It lifts your spirits when you are feeling down, and that vast area of saltmarsh puts things into perspective and occupies your mind completely. You simply forget about work or any other worries you might have. You lose yourself in the hive of activity around you. It is all-encompassing.’
Perhaps the most extraordinary thing about all of this is that you can experience it for free. In Scotland, apart from in a few specific areas such as nature reserves and on MOD land, you are free to shoot on the foreshore without having to pay a penny. Some areas do have permit schemes in place, though, so make sure you check the BASC Scotland website before venturing onto new ground.
And it’s important to do your homework first, too, as the foreshore is an inherently dangerous place, particularly on an incoming tide. www.basc.org.uk/basc-scotland
PIGEONS GALORE
Many keen shooters I know, including renowned game shots Lord James Percy and Tom Payne, argue that the UK’s ultimate sporting quarry is unquestionably the humble wood pigeon.
‘They present you with every shot in the book,’ says Tom, a professional shooting instructor, gun fitter and author of A Pigeon Shooter’s Diary. ‘From sky-scraping overhead shots to long, quartering crossers and everything in between, they’ll test the best pheasant shots in the land and the finest grouse guns in equal measure.’
And because wood pigeons are so prolific – there are an estimated 5.2 million breeding pairs in the UK, making them a serious pest for arable farmers – it is relatively easy to find free pigeon shooting in Scotland. All that is required is permission from the landowner who will appreciate a decent bottle of wine or whisky as a thank you.
A word of advice, though – the secret to successful pigeon shooting is in the reconnaissance and fieldcraft. Simply seeing great numbers of pigeons in an area is no guarantee whatsoever that any of them will come in to your decoy pattern. The key is to do your homework beforehand and work out their flight lines and timings.
Clockwise from top: Grouse shooting is too expensive for many people, but Lammermuir Game Services offer a way around this; wildfowling can be experienced for free on the foreshores of Scotland; for stalkers, hinds can offer just as much of a challenge as stags.