Scotland

E

esetter

Active member
Was in scotland , U.K. last week. Very neat place! Saw tons of pheasants. I know most all of them were stocked in the past year , but , they stop hunting them in december and I thought the number of carry overs we saw was impressive. Apparently very low predation and for the most part the winters are mild. Saw some red grouse as well. AWSOME birds. What a cool mount one of those would make!
 
Take any photos?
 
Now that there is some travelling for a Tennessee native! More importantly, did you see some esetters or gsetters???
 
I did take some pics , nothing with birds in them but some cool landscape shots. Will post some. I did see a GWP and a weimeraner. No setters. I couldnt help but think how perfect the habitat in rural england was for upland birds. No warm season grasses but , every grain field was bordered by huge hedge rows. Supposedly some ptarmigan in the higher altitudes in scotland (over 3000 ft there)! Seems short to us but the mountains start at sea level there.
 
I was fortunate to rough shoot red grouse behind setters and pointers in Scotland in 2002. It was a great hunt.

I have family in Ayrshire and have seen pheasants while visiting.

I was surprised by the number of pheasants that I saw in Germany and Holland during a trip a couple of years ago. That was in May. I guess they were wild birds.

The habitat in both countries was nice.
 
A large number of the birds seen in Britain are also truly wild birds. The pheasants in Britain are made up of many true pheasant subspecies from around the world. True pheasant or common pheasants were brought in from all over the world. In the old days it was said " the sun never sets on the British empire". The link below give the history of Britain's pheasants:

http://www.thefield.co.uk/features/the-history-of-the-pheasant-22364

The pheasant gene pool is made from the original old English pheasant brought in believed by the Romans the Chinese ringneck, the Mongolian ringneck the Japanese Green and the White-Winged pheasant (they called their White-Winged pheasants "The Prince of Wales" pheasants).

In 1906 the state of Kansas and many eastern and midwest states obtained their original brood stock for release from England, but 100 years ago in terms of genetic wildness and alertness those birds were closer to F1 because they were only a few generations removed from the wild.
 
Didnt do any golfing. Id love to shoot a red grouse , those bright eye combs are really cool. Apparently predation is almost a non factor there and the mild climate is very bird friendly. I mostly saw what appeared to be the chinese ringneck.
 
Last year I have gone to Scotland and the places i like the most are Fort William or Aviemore. These are beautiful places to stay in . These are all very scenic places. There are good species to do hunting.
 
Stayed in Ft. William one night. We went north of there to a town called mallaig. From there we took a ferry and had a few pints at the most remote pub in the UK. Not a big game hunter but saw lots of red stags , really cool!
 
I dont golf here is probably the reason why I didn't golf there. I was in darn near every malt whiskey distillery in that country!
 
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