johnnytheboy
Well-Known Member
That’s a view
Scenic hill stalking
- Thread starter Whitefront
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That’s a view
Sealgair nam fiadh
Well-Known Member
Stalked it several times with guests as it was the opposite side to Dawyck where I was. A lovely place it was before it was sold off, but nothing to compete with Torridon scenery or the Cairngorms where I used to give a hand on the hinds after the shooting season.
RescueMe0007
Well-Known Member
Very nice photo's, very like my part of the world (though the mountains here are not as rugged), the keystone piece of course is the rain sheeting in from the west 
You’d be horrified to see what’s happened to it now.
Very much agree re. Torridon. My favourite scenery in Scotland. I’m off up there next week to go hill loch fishing.
Yes, I used to stalk Bein Damph when David Carr Smith was an owner. Had a bad fall on their last time up on the stags, came down on a pony circa 85.
caorach
Well-Known Member
I think you make a good point, but I also think that many of the places we stalk have their own appeal. The relatively flat peatlands are just as interesting as the bigger hills and they can provide a wide variety of interesting plant life, lochs, and so on plus excellent stalking. The "big hills" may be iconic and the Victorian images of traditional Scottish stalking play their part in these images and I don't dispute for one minute that such days can be really remarkable but I'm going to suggest that if you are open minded and genuinely observant then stalking the edge of a plantation for sika can be just as good stalking even if it is different to the Victorian images we all have in our heads.
Even on some of the remote or more scenic estates the deer are fed by the road and the "stalkers" are taken up the hill in the argocat and for the people seeking sport this might devalue the stalking as the whole point of sport and achieving a "royal" head (for example) is that these things shouldn't be easy to do. Historically, in the highlands, about 1 in every 20 stags shot had 12 point heads so it's probably going to require a month or two of walking the hills to get your Royal stag. These days you see people on this forum asking for stalking where they can be assured of a "representative" 12 point head etc. and I'm going to suggest that these very same people aren't going to want to walk 12 - 18 miles to get the shot.
So I'm going to suggest that while there is a lot of validity in your comments that a day on a really wild hill is hard to beat the actual key to quality stalking is in the actual quality of the sport. If you've just been dropped off by argocat on some scenic hill to shoot a 12 point stag that has been fed by the road all winter is this better sport than spending a really challenging week to shoot a sika spiker on the edge of some forestry out on the peatlands?
Another aspect of really good quality sport is that it is ephemeral - 15 or 20 years ago walking big miles with huge ascents over the day didn't bother me but these days I can barely get up the stairs to bed and I know that my days of real hill stalking are over. Sport that is short lived like that has a really high value.
63
Well-Known Member
I guess it all depends on where you start from - I was sat in Green Park in London recently listening to a (clearly London based, from the accents) family gushing about how wonderful it was to spend some time in nature with the gorgeous wildlife.
They were looking at a squirrel.
Separately though, I thought that if you don't enthuse about Scottish scenery (no matter how mundane) at every opportunity Rab C Nesbitt comes and farts on your pillow?
Moray Outfitting
Well-Known Member
It is all reletive really. As long as you are really stalking a wild deer. I have worked on many estates in my career. The last two were complete opposites. Stalker for Arran Estates was wonderful deer management. High mountains, deep glens and faces running into the sea. Scenery was fantastic with the mountains and the sea. Seeing eagles on the tops and then looking down on basking sharks. I could run up and down Goat Fell twice a day. Compare that with the Flow Country in Caithness. very flat boggy land. First day there after Arran, I thought this will be easy on the legs. Wrong, pulling your feet out of spongy ground all day meant I had pains in leg muscles I never knew existed. But once used to it , the stalking was great. Deer could see you a long way off. Lots of hands and knees and belly crawling to get into range. My longest was 2hrs 40 minutes with an American. He looked back the way we came and said to me, John how did you get us across that flat?? The land may have been different , but the wildlife was still there. The point is that it doesn't matter where you are as long as the stalking is a challenge. Man against beast, and the beast often wins. If it was that easy we wouldn't be doing it. J
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