Shooting UK: Shooting in scotland without a shooting day

Hi BCLondon,

The answer to your question essentially is that you will certainly need the permission of whoever owns the shooting rights, usually the landowner. Otherwise you'd be poaching! Unless you have good friends with lots of land in Scotland, you will have to pay for the privilege.

The term "rough shooting" only really describes the style of the shooting, in that it is conducted by a handful of shooters with a couple of dogs. In all likelihood they will do their own beating, tapping up hedges and other cover in the hope of flushing the occasional pheasant, rabbit, woodcock etc. As I'm sure you know, it differs from a formal driven day where a team of beaters flush a specific quarry (pheasant, partridge etc) over a line of guns.

Unlike in other countries, such as Sweden, there are no public hunting grounds in any of the UK and all land has shooting rights which apply to it. You will need to find whoever it is who has the shooting rights to gain their permission to shoot. Basically that means going through a sporting agent or direct to an estate and as I said earlier, you will have to pay for the privilege. Typically for a day's walked up rough shooting on a lowground estate you could expect to pay from £100 to £300/400 per day per gun depending on where it is, how much you shoot and how much input the estate gives (such as lunch etc). The classified pages of Shooting Times are an excellent place to start looking as walked-up days, especially early and late in the season are frequently offered. Equally searching under "walked up shooting scotland" in google will show you how many people offer packages and describe more closely a typical day.

I hope that makes sense, if you want any more info, let me know.

Alastair.

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Alastair Balmain, Deputy editor, Shooting Times