Unlikely oasis for the French

A pioneering landowner on the Isle of Luing has introduced driven partridges and Patrick Galbraith is among the first to try them

If red stag stalking typifies the Highlands, partridge shooting is a quintessentially lowland pursuit. Yet every once in a while, something comes along that rewrites the sporting rule book.

Half a mile off the west coast of Scotland in the Firth of Lorn, the 1,400-hectare Isle of Luing is a thriving Hebridean island. Down the decades, the small community, which now stands at 170, has made a living out of quarrying slate, fishing for lobsters and farming the notoriously hardy Luing cattle. Recognised by the government in 1966, the beef shorthorn-highland cross, which was established by the Cadzow family, is Britain’s youngest breed. A little over two years ago, after a brief stint in London, Archie Cadzow moved back to the island to help on the farm.

Over a pint at the Lord of the

Isles, a famous seafood spot on the mainland, Archie admitted there are drawbacks to being in such a remote part of the world. But he thinks the sporting opportunities more than make up for it. “On the isle of Scarba,” he said, pointing across the dappled water, “there’s a population of fallow deer, living alongside the reds, that have been there since the Victorian period and goats that have been there for as long as anyone can remember. Then on Luing, there’s always been a lot of wildfowl and snipe.”

Two seasons ago, Archie hit on a plan to take things to another level. He remembers walking up one of the many gulleys on the island that runs down to the sea and suddenly being struck by how spectacular it would be to drive partridges across them.

First redleg

The following day in a smirry Hebdridean shower, I stood on my peg looking up at a gorsy hill. Above the salty autumnal wind, the shrill chirping of partridges sounded around the gulley. Then, further up the line, a shot rang out and I turned to see Luing’s first driven redleg tumble into the bracken.

Inevitably, for a keeper, there is a sense of jeopardy about the

Samson Steigerwhite stretches for a high partridge