How much are willing to pay for your stalking ? and How far are you willing to travel?

[Island]

Oh I am not having a gripe I am just trying to gauge what stalkers want ,. it really is hard to tell these days

It would seem that a lot of the time the simple answer to that question is "everything for nothing"....

Two friends and myself formed a small syndicate a few years back, leasing the Roe over a rather large estate for incredibly reasonable money. The problem was that it entailed upwards of a two hour drive and a ferry each way, plus the accommodation costs / fuel etc etc. In the end we felt that the logistics meant that we could not do a particularly efficient job and we surrendered the lease. Subsequently we now hold shooting over three estates (the closest being a 40 minute drive, the furthest being approx. 1.5 hours) totaling, iirc, around 8k acres with an annual harvest of ~100 animals. Our arrangement is for "suitable cull animals" which suits us just fine. None of us are interested in trophies. The estate gets to sell the medals and doesn't have to worry about the cull numbers. We have free reign to attend whenever we like. Estate nominally keeps the venison, but with a nod to us that we can take whatever we need for our own freezers.

Each of us are happy with the current arrangement.

Stalking is our hobby, and we acknowledge that as such we should not expect it to be free. My pheasant / partridge shooting cost me money, my fishing costs me money, why should my stalking not? The cost that one is willing to pay is a choice for the individual stalker.

If a stalker should find him or herself in the situation where they are doing the landowner a "favour" or a "service" and getting the stalking / carcass / bullets / accommodation / vehicle etc etc etc for nothing then all power to them. They are in a massive minority. Like it or not most landowners now realize that deer (and the stalking of them) are effectively a monetary asset. You may be doing him a service, but there will always be someone willing to pay money to carry out that service waiting in line. Can you blame a landowner for making the obvious choice between someone who says "I will shoot your deer and not charge you" and "I will pay you £££ if you let me come and shoot your deer"?

I have watched your advertisements both here and on FB for a while now (I am itching for you to get some ground in, or near, Central Scotland!) and have noticed frequently the viciousness with which some respond. I always found it strange to be honest, if it is not for you then let it pass by! Your T&C's are clear and transparent and I cannot understand why some get their knickers in a knot about it all.

In the end it all comes down to personal choice, and the offshoot of that is you will always get stick from those who think you are somehow making your millions out of them.

P.S. If you do pick up anything nearer to Central Scotland, drop me a line!

 

[Chasey]

I think you made the right choice!

Do you think?

With the numbers of deer on this place I reckon we could have charged 15 blokes 2000 each let them keep 3 animals and we sell the rest of the meet and they'd all be happy and wed have made a few grand and got free stalking

A handful of nice Sika Stags were spotted

IMG-20190308-WA0003 by markchase8, on Flickr.

And a couple of fallow (click link for vid)

VID-20190308-WA0001 by markchase8, on Flickr

 

[Rake Aboot]

I won't pay for stalking as it's basically pest control. If no one paid for it, landowners would then be paying people to come shoot deer. Pest control has been commersialised and marketed as a commodity.

I'll quite happily travel to shoot deer, but lets face it, a day on pigeons can sometimes be more appealing than a long day to go stalking.

 

[sauer404]

It is a happy compromise of a few different factors. You win some, you lose some.

 

[Nots so bad lad]

Finding a local and honest stalking syndicate would be perfect but unfortunately having been conned it makes you very wary of what people are offering out their and for newcomers it’s very off putting and a night mare. Threw networking I have managed to find some roe stalking where I don’t have to compete with 4 or 5 other stalkers on 500 arces and I take what I shoot Some one should start a recommendation s page where genuine stalking and syndicate s register and people have left feedback etc saying good or bad service, avoid

 

[Dama Dama 6.5]

In answer to your questions:
1. I am not prepared to pay for my stalking, as I believe I offer my landowners a service. Those landowners that want some venison - not that many do- I will give up to 50% of what I shoot, but in reality they usually want a lot less than that.
2. About 45 Min by car is about the maximum I am prepared to travel to access my stalking - most is within 10-15 Min by car or even within walking distance from home.

I think you are extremely lucky not to have to pay for your stalking Erik and good luck to you for that. Just to put it in perspective over the last five years I have been looking for some ground which I could call my own. I written in excess of 70 to 80 letters to landowners asking if there are any opportunities for deerstalking on their ground. To this day I have only ever had a handful of replies, one which springs to mind was a call from a sweet old lady thanking me for the letter but unfortunately informing me that they have a guy already on the ground that comes maybe once or twice a year!

 

[macfarlane]

In answer to your questions:
1. I am not prepared to pay for my stalking, as I believe I offer my landowners a service. Those landowners that want some venison - not that many do- I will give up to 50% of what I shoot, but in reality they usually want a lot less than that.
2. About 45 Min by car is about the maximum I am prepared to travel to access my stalking - most is within 10-15 Min by car or even within walking distance from home.

I think your bang on we provide a service for landowners that would need to pay to have the deer culled. I'm lucky I can afford to pay for stalking if I wanted to but in principle I refuse to do so. I'm lucky iv land I can Stalk for free.

 

[25 Sharps]

It would seem that a lot of the time the simple answer to that question is "everything for nothing"....

Two friends and myself formed a small syndicate a few years back, leasing the Roe over a rather large estate for incredibly reasonable money. The problem was that it entailed upwards of a two hour drive and a ferry each way, plus the accommodation costs / fuel etc etc. In the end we felt that the logistics meant that we could not do a particularly efficient job and we surrendered the lease. Subsequently we now hold shooting over three estates (the closest being a 40 minute drive, the furthest being approx. 1.5 hours) totaling, iirc, around 8k acres with an annual harvest of ~100 animals. Our arrangement is for "suitable cull animals" which suits us just fine. None of us are interested in trophies. The estate gets to sell the medals and doesn't have to worry about the cull numbers. We have free reign to attend whenever we like. Estate nominally keeps the venison, but with a nod to us that we can take whatever we need for our own freezers.

Each of us are happy with the current arrangement.

Stalking is our hobby, and we acknowledge that as such we should not expect it to be free. My pheasant / partridge shooting cost me money, my fishing costs me money, why should my stalking not? The cost that one is willing to pay is a choice for the individual stalker.

If a stalker should find him or herself in the situation where they are doing the landowner a "favour" or a "service" and getting the stalking / carcass / bullets / accommodation / vehicle etc etc etc for nothing then all power to them. They are in a massive minority. Like it or not most landowners now realize that deer (and the stalking of them) are effectively a monetary asset. You may be doing him a service, but there will always be someone willing to pay money to carry out that service waiting in line. Can you blame a landowner for making the obvious choice between someone who says "I will shoot your deer and not charge you" and "I will pay you £££ if you let me come and shoot your deer"?

I have watched your advertisements both here and on FB for a while now (I am itching for you to get some ground in, or near, Central Scotland!) and have noticed frequently the viciousness with which some respond. I always found it strange to be honest, if it is not for you then let it pass by! Your T&C's are clear and transparent and I cannot understand why some get their knickers in a knot about it all.

In the end it all comes down to personal choice, and the offshoot of that is you will always get stick from those who think you are somehow making your millions out of them.

P.S. If you do pick up anything nearer to Central Scotland, drop me a line!

The stalking I do isn’t the service, the pest and predator control that I do (helped by a couple of members off here who also get invited to stalk) is the service I provide and I work hard at making sure I do a good job. The stalking is the ‘thanks’ for that. One landowner has half of the venison and of either of my buddies wants to keep a carcass they just pay the dealer ate for it.

One of the other farmers actually asked if he could buy some last time I was out, he’s always declined venison in the past, I told him not to be so daft and let him have his deer for free.

I realise I’m in the minority and it took 15 or so years of keeping on top of pests before I got deer permission but I got there in the end! To some farmers having someone on the ground who is doing a good job of all aspects ‘wildlife management’ not just the stalking, and just generally keeping an eye is worth more than the few thousand they’d get a year from selling the deer stalking.

Going forward and as funds allow I am going on one guided stalk a year, for species I don’t have on my ground or access through invites. So boar last year, CWD this year and Sika next. But that’s just a treat, as o say if I relied on it to get out regularly I’d give up and take up CSR!

 

[Island]

The stalking I do isn’t the service, the pest and predator control that I do (helped by a couple of members off here who also get invited to stalk) is the service I provide and I work hard at making sure I do a good job. The stalking is the ‘thanks’ for that. One landowner has half of the venison and of either of my buddies wants to keep a carcass they just pay the dealer ate for it.

One of the other farmers actually asked if he could buy some last time I was out, he’s always declined venison in the past, I told him not to be so daft and let him have his deer for free.

I realise I’m in the minority and it took 15 or so years of keeping on top of pests before I got deer permission but I got there in the end! To some farmers having someone on the ground who is doing a good job of all aspects ‘wildlife management’ not just the stalking, and just generally keeping an eye is worth more than the few thousand they’d get a year from selling the deer stalking.

Going forward and as funds allow I am going on one guided stalk a year, for species I don’t have on my ground or access through invites. So boar last year, CWD this year and Sika next. But that’s just a treat, as o say if I relied on it to get out regularly I’d give up and take up CSR!

Absolutely agree.

Looking at it objectively, you are indeed paying for your stalking albeit not in monetary terms. You have, by your own admission, invested 15 years of your time doing a job for the farmers and landowners. Your reward is the stalking. I dare say that your investment in time is many orders of magnitude more valuable than money.

On each of our syndicate leases the price is below the rate that the landowner / shooting tenant would get otherwise because we are a known quantity, we are on very good terms, we have a proven record and we help the keepers out by being an extra set of eyes and keeping on top of foxes etc when we are there. Not all "rent" need be a cash payment.

 

[imnotrucknut]

It would seem that a lot of the time the simple answer to that question is "everything for nothing"....

Two friends and myself formed a small syndicate a few years back, leasing the Roe over a rather large estate for incredibly reasonable money. The problem was that it entailed upwards of a two hour drive and a ferry each way, plus the accommodation costs / fuel etc etc. In the end we felt that the logistics meant that we could not do a particularly efficient job and we surrendered the lease. Subsequently we now hold shooting over three estates (the closest being a 40 minute drive, the furthest being approx. 1.5 hours) totaling, iirc, around 8k acres with an annual harvest of ~100 animals. Our arrangement is for "suitable cull animals" which suits us just fine. None of us are interested in trophies. The estate gets to sell the medals and doesn't have to worry about the cull numbers. We have free reign to attend whenever we like. Estate nominally keeps the venison, but with a nod to us that we can take whatever we need for our own freezers.

Each of us are happy with the current arrangement.

Stalking is our hobby, and we acknowledge that as such we should not expect it to be free. My pheasant / partridge shooting cost me money, my fishing costs me money, why should my stalking not? The cost that one is willing to pay is a choice for the individual stalker.

If a stalker should find him or herself in the situation where they are doing the landowner a "favour" or a "service" and getting the stalking / carcass / bullets / accommodation / vehicle etc etc etc for nothing then all power to them. They are in a massive minority. Like it or not most landowners now realize that deer (and the stalking of them) are effectively a monetary asset. You may be doing him a service, but there will always be someone willing to pay money to carry out that service waiting in line. Can you blame a landowner for making the obvious choice between someone who says "I will shoot your deer and not charge you" and "I will pay you £££ if you let me come and shoot your deer"?

I have watched your advertisements both here and on FB for a while now (I am itching for you to get some ground in, or near, Central Scotland!) and have noticed frequently the viciousness with which some respond. I always found it strange to be honest, if it is not for you then let it pass by! Your T&C's are clear and transparent and I cannot understand why some get their knickers in a knot about it all.

In the end it all comes down to personal choice, and the offshoot of that is you will always get stick from those who think you are somehow making your millions out of them.

P.S. If you do pick up anything nearer to Central Scotland, drop me a line!

Well said island I totally agree.these guys who think there doing the landowner a favour are going to come down with a bang.
I'm lucky not to pay for my stalking but I help out with the pheasant shoot.i would gladly join a syndicate but would look to offset the cost by retaining the carcass

 

[imnotrucknut]

I think you are extremely lucky not to have to pay for your stalking Erik and good luck to you for that. Just to put it in perspective over the last five years I have been looking for some ground which I could call my own. I written in excess of 70 to 80 letters to landowners asking if there are any opportunities for deerstalking on their ground. To this day I have only ever had a handful of replies, one which springs to mind was a call from a sweet old lady thanking me for the letter but unfortunately informing me that they have a guy already on the ground that comes maybe once or twice a year!

I honestly believe a face to face is a lot more productive.as said on here if the landowner doesn't like you he won't let you stalk.

 

[25 Sharps]

Absolutely agree.

Looking at it objectively, you are indeed paying for your stalking albeit not in monetary terms. You have, by your own admission, invested 15 years of your time doing a job for the farmers and landowners. Your reward is the stalking. I dare say that your investment in time is many orders of magnitude more valuable than money.

On each of our syndicate leases the price is below the rate that the landowner / shooting tenant would get otherwise because we are a known quantity, we are on very good terms, we have a proven record and we help the keepers out by being an extra set of eyes and keeping on top of foxes etc when we are there. Not all "rent" need be a cash payment.

Yes there is that, though there are plenty out there who would be happy just to get land for rabbiting or fox shooting so that is reward in itself and I know of at one paid syndicate locally, and another further afield, that is purely for vermin and fox which really is taking things too far as far as I am concerned! As you say its building a reputation that gets you in below the market rate, however much below the rate that is.

 

[25 Sharps]

I won't pay for stalking as it's basically pest control. If no one paid for it, landowners would then be paying people to come shoot deer. Pest control has been commersialised and marketed as a commodity.

I'll quite happily travel to shoot deer, but lets face it, a day on pigeons can sometimes be more appealing than a long day to go stalking.

I'd take a good day on the pigeons over stalking any day of the week, I enjoy all of the shooting Ido but long range bunnies and decoying pigeons are my 2 absolute favourite forms of shooting.

As for it becoming too commercialised, absolutely, a while back I found someone on an area of ground I shoot where there were no footpaths, 3 gun dogs with him, a bit of googling and sure enough he is a professional pigeon and stalking guide!! So they're out there, trying to steal the shooting off of people who've worked hard for it, just to make a profit, I've still got all the shooting on there though

 

[25 Sharps]

I think you are extremely lucky not to have to pay for your stalking Erik and good luck to you for that. Just to put it in perspective over the last five years I have been looking for some ground which I could call my own. I written in excess of 70 to 80 letters to landowners asking if there are any opportunities for deerstalking on their ground. To this day I have only ever had a handful of replies, one which springs to mind was a call from a sweet old lady thanking me for the letter but unfortunately informing me that they have a guy already on the ground that comes maybe once or twice a year!

So start small get out and offer to do some pest control, 15 years for me to get a piece of deer ground and that was only 12 acres, within 5 years that has grown to 5 landowners and around 1800 acres all bordering across them for the deer and considerably more for the other shooting. A combination of luck and hard work but it is doable, deer are far less of a problem to landowners than rabbit and pigeons and possibly corvids and foxes depending on land use so start where there is the most need.

I've given the last 2 permissions I've been approached about to other people as I can't take on any more!

 

[Silvius]

If it wasn't fun we would all be paid for it.

Since it is fun, it can sometimes be sold especially the bits of it that people want most.

Selling stalking does change the experience.

One is likely to pay more and to travel further the more desirable the offer. Desirable generally means you get to see more deer or bigger deer to shoot at, so the greater the cost , the further one is probably likely to go provided the cost is value for money. It is going to be a case of supply and demand.

I think that to get an accurate answer to what is a good question, one probably needs a precise question. How much and how far for a cull animal of a given species? For a representative male of a given species? For a trophy? Everyone will have different answers and probably a good question is "How far have you travelled in the last year and how much did you pay and for what animal? Because that really sorts out what people are doing not what they say they will do. People like to come and blow hard about not paying and how great they are for it and people get ideas of what they would like to do and would be prepared to pay but never do it. All that is noise and will not help. What tells is what they actually paid for.

 

[25 Sharps]

If it wasn't fun we would all be paid for it.

Since it is fun, it can sometimes be sold especially the bits of it that people want most.

Selling stalking does change the experience.

One is likely to pay more and to travel further the more desirable the offer. Desirable generally means you get to see more deer or bigger deer to shoot at, so the greater the cost , the further one is probably likely to go provided the cost is value for money. It is going to be a case of supply and demand.

I think that to get an accurate answer to what is a good question, one probably needs a precise question. How much and how far for a cull animal of a given species? For a representative male of a given species? For a trophy? Everyone will have different answers and probably a good question is "How far have you travelled in the last year and how much did you pay and for what animal? Because that really sorts out what people are doing not what they say they will do. People like to come and blow hard about not paying and how great they are for it and people get ideas of what they would like to do and would be prepared to pay but never do it. All that is noise and will not help. What tells is what they actually paid for.

Why is it an issue for people to come on and say they don’t want to pay for it? It’s a perfectly valid answer to the OP.

To answer your question I travelled 110 miles each way to shoot reds on an invitation and do a couple of times a year.

Similar for Fallow but around 30 miles, on invitation

55 miles and £150 to shoot a boar, I managed 2, no extra charged.

100 ish miles this year and potentially £600 if I’m lucky enough to shoot a decent CWD buck.

I wouldn’t go much higher than this for any paid stalk for any species in the UK.

In between all that 2-3 miles to shoot roe and the odd muntjac for free as and when I want to. That is the bit that I would not pay for....

 

[John Gryphon]

2. About 45 Min by car is about the maximum I am prepared to travel to access my stalking - most is within 10-15 Min by car or even within walking distance from home.

I`ll bet that if there was a monster stag or buck on offer that you might just increase the distance.

If no one paid for it, landowners would then be paying people to come shoot deer. Pest control has been commercialised and marketed as a commodity.

And that is the truth too!

I myself have been offered $$$$ to take people deer hunting, however that is not me and I do it for a swap/barter or simply because I find that you are a decent bloke or just that I like you,its as simple as that.
Oh yes and I will add that because I love being out there doing it,immersing oneself in the forest is a real panacea!

 

[imnotrucknut]

I'd take a good day on the pigeons over stalking any day of the week, I enjoy all of the shooting Ido but long range bunnies and decoying pigeons are my 2 absolute favourite forms of shooting.

As for it becoming too commercialised, absolutely, a while back I found someone on an area of ground I shoot where there were no footpaths, 3 gun dogs with him, a bit of googling and sure enough he is a professional pigeon and stalking guide!! So they're out there, trying to steal the shooting off of people who've worked hard for it, just to make a profit, I've still got all the shooting on there though

I'll swap you my pigeon shooting for you're stalking

 

[25 Sharps]

I'll swap you my pigeon shooting for you're stalking

Fair one. Fortunately I have the option for both, and I did mean a good day on the pigeons where it all falls right and they just keep dropping in. Because to me that is a great day’s sport.

I forgot to mention ferreting, a good day on the ferrets is up there.

 

[imnotrucknut]

I'll swap you my pigeon shooting for you're stalking

Fair one. Fortunately I have the option for both, and I did mean a good day on the pigeons where it all falls right and they just keep dropping in. Because to me that is a great day’s sport.

I forgot to mention ferreting, a good day on the ferrets is up there.

Know what you mean