FC and FC leases? Why so much dislike?

wildfowler.250

Well-Known Member
I don't know if this has been covered before but I thought I'd ask...

I'm looking into doing my level 1 currently with a view to doing my level 2. Now the only reason I am doing either is that it gives me an option to rent a FC lease,(I don't shoot enough deer to look into selling the meat ect). However there seems to be a lot of dislike towards the Forrestry Comission on this site? Is this purely because they regard deer as vermin? Or have I missed something?
I have also heard that the FC leases are expensive? Is the ground not worth while? If there are lots of deer to shoot then I would look into selling meat to recoup the costs so surely it works out?


Please feel free to give your opinion or rant away as you see fit... If the FC leases are a waste of time then DSC1 can go out the window! :-|
 
I will start this one.

I have just completed a year on a forestry lease. my first FC lease

My concern is not one of outright hatred of the FC, I have no reason to.
What concerns me is the practices that take place before the lease.
I am not convinced either the ground covered by the lease of the surrounding ground has anything like the amount of deer the target cull figure would suggest.

on deeper inspection and in discussion with two paid FC stalkers (lets not get into a debate about whether they are contract or perm employees, I dont care, only what I was told first hand!).
the cull targets for the much larger area around the lease are had not been achieved for two years running.

Now my question is:
if you cant hit a number with a professional stalker doing it then which is wrong? the number? or the stalker?

The ground around the lease had a survey done by some company/educational spin off that was doing a dung count to assess the deer population. I am a biologist by training and spent my educational years tramping round the countryside counting all manner of wildlife including a stint with the Environment Agency.

Dung counts dont work. its good money if you can find someone stupid enough to pay you (and the students who are probably doing it for free as part of the MSc!) to do it.

I do not think the cost is too high, or at least on the lease I am in it isnt. but I am a suspicious individual.
Its very easy to sell something based on a population estimate that cant be backed up or confirmed without a year on the ground!

buyer beware.

as with anything, there are undoubtedly good ones, but there are some dogs as well!
 
I had three leases in Perthshire and firstly they were lamped heavily prior to us taking them over so the deer were almost shot out. The cull figure would have been impossible. The FC promotes walking and MTB use but we had huskie sled teams by the dozen and moto-cross and two stroke high performance quads every weekend which was allowed without question. We struggled with the disturbance and the cull figure was some 20 short so the FC took the lease off us with 6 weeks to go. We complained about this and the FC kindly said we could continue at weekends but like all FC leases we had to notify them well in advance who was going where and with all the human disturbance it was a waste of time. I was then offered to take the whole three leases on and in a matter of days they withdrew the offer due to H&S concerns over the risk to humans. Never again!!
 
red dot is correct, We had a lease at bonchester bridge and had exactly the same problems with disturbance with either dog walkers,quads, moutain bikes,skiers in the snow and even a f****** motor rally that we were'nt even informed of to mention a few.
I have known a few fc rangers so I won't tar them all with the same brush but he was the biggest problem we had on there , his whole adolf hittler attitude was disgusting to say the lease.
Me and deako were on the ground stalking of which he knew because of the 48 hr notification bollox and he shot a deer on a flat road directly in front of us.
I did make a complaint to John cadman but as usual got nowhere.
Red dot is also correct when he say's about the ground being lamped to death even though they know they are about to lease it.

I'm affraid once they have your money they don't give a toss.

Also please be aware any of you who are thinking of taking on a fc lease make sure you ask who the ranger is and if the name Graham lightly come's up steer clear he's a complete ****.

End of my rant .

Mark.:stir:
 
I'm on FC ground at the moment with no problems whatsoever..............good number of deer, nice ranger who tells us when and where he has seen deer and low cost............I for one have no complaints. Long may it continue.
 
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Well, I can only comment on the ones I looked at last year in England, but:

The land was, from a forestry point of view, **** poorly managed - the justification for the cull target seemed to be that there was no ground vegetation, but that was mainly because there was no light at all to the woodland floor, the woods were almost hollow with overgrown coppice and a bitter wind whipping through at ground level - I would have been gobsmacked if there were that many deer in the woods in total

Was restricted to high seats, with public access the wood was full of dog walkers at daytimes and weekends, therefore doe cull targets would have been almost impossible to achieve.

For this, if you did get the target, you were looking at about paying the commission about £150 per deer
 
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Well thank you very much for the replies!


I think you may have put me off doing my level 1+2 as I was only going to them as it would enable me to take on a FC lease. Is there anyone else that leases stalking that requires the level 1 or 2 that are worthwhile looking at?


Sounds like asking locally is the best option!
 
i just put a post on your dsc1 thread,but there are other places to lease from tillhill, fountains others might know of more but on the fc front i know of people very happy to lease with fc just keep looking and dont give up before you start others seem to find deer and hit culls,atb wayne
 
I think you will find that most other forestry companies that offer leases also require either DSC1 or DSC2.

John
 
sorry i didnt make that clear in my post ,i also wasnt being negative about the companys leasing ground and to wildfowler i think dsc will be needed for the fit and competent register ,atb wayne
 
been in a f c lease for around 6 or 7 years in central fife with no problems what so ever we also get on well with the f c ranger if you get the chance of being in f c lease try it for your self they cannot all be bad
 
Ours is great, no problems with silly rules about high seats etc, good numbers of deer and use of the FC larder with our own tags for highland game and very helpful ranger. Like anything there will be the good, not so good and the absolute rubbish. You will just have to look at ground and the terms under which they are leased to take a view on anything on offer. Don't be put off even looking by stories of disasters because everyone will talk about those but not so much the success stories.
 
Never had any problems with Tayside forest district. My lease has lots of deer and all the staff and ranger service could not be more helpful.
When the ground mentioned by Red Dot earlier came up for lease I went to visit it. In my opinion any fool could see the amount of public access would preclude reasonable stalking. Do your homework,visit potential permissions more than once before tendering and you may land a gem, as I did.
I guess also that some are better at getting on with others and forming good relations. Its a two way thing.
S.
 
Jeeze oh... i was the 40-50 walkers a day and i was the 12 huskie sled teams was i???? Enlighten me where I went wrong??

In my experience everyone gets the chance to go and see the area before bidding for it. This should help you to see how the land lies and decide whether to bid or not. With the numbers of walkers you are talking about it should have been obvious that this was a popular area. It is the old adage 'buyer beware'!
 
Ask for a specimen lease and look for the clause that says "FC reserve the right to cull concurrently". That means, in my experience, when you ring up to advise them you are coming at the weekend, they will go out and lamp it thoroughly beforehand. You will be lucky to see deer never mind shoot any. Try the private forestry companies who don't employ full time professionals.
 
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