I've never paid for stalking but I wouldn't rule it out. I have a couple of farms where I go, about 2000 acres in all, roe ground. I am also currently managing roe on a 300ish acre forestry block for a factoring company. I would pay for some red stalking if i could keep the carcasses.
I think the Scottish deer industry is missing a massive trick. Heres why. I have some friends who want to go stalking, one from down south and two from Scandinavia. We're not interested in trophies, we just want some shooting, cull stags, hinds, whatever. Reds, Sika or Fallow, we don't want roe as we all already have roe stalking. We want an american style hunting experience: 4 of us go into the wilderness and stay in a bothy or tent, yurt whatever, we stay for a few days. We scope the ground ourselves, identify what we're going to shoot and where and when, we shoot it, drag it and generally deal with it all ourselves. We sit around a campfire and drink a few beers have a laugh and enjoy being away from the family for a while. Then we go home.
Now each or us would be willing to pay around £250 for this experience, so thats £1k for the estate for just 1 week. I reckon there's a huge market for this type of hunting, I have a friend who was selling 'wilderness hunting experiences' in the highlands recently, he had loads of interest but has now lost that particular bit of ground and had to stop. An estate with a cull of say 50 hinds and 50 stags could theoretically let 20 weeks at 1000 per week to groups of 4 or 5 and make way more than they would from a syndicate. Or by offering the 'traditional highland stalking experience' where they have keepers wages and equipment to pay for. Surely it would be far more cost effective to simply rent out the ground for days or weeks at a time.
We have been asking around to try and find this kind of experience and its surprisingly hard to find. My friends and I find the traditional 'organised fun' type of stalking experience an huge turn off. Don't get me wrong I have huge respect for the highland keepers and yes they will be far better at getting in front of deer than 4 guys who don't know the ground, but for me outsourcing all the skill of the experience to someone else is pointless. I mean with some of these highland stalks the client just pulls the trigger and thats it! For me pulling the trigger is the least fun part of the whole experience. If that was the only stalking available I'd give it up.
So if you have a nice bit of wild ground where people can buy a week and maybe 2 hind tags, or a cull stag tag I think you'll do very well out of it. I'm convinced we're not the only four hunters who would jump at the chance of that kind of hunting.
