Outfitter: http://www.sportinglets.co.uk/
Hunt Area: Braeroy Estate, Scotland
Hunt Dates: Sept. 11 – 13, 2017
Game Taken: (2) Red deer stags
Game Seen: Red deer, Roe deer, Red grouse
2017 Price: £650 per deer harvested. £250 outing fee if no shot opportunity



Travel: I flew from Salt Lake City to New York, then onto Dublin, and finally Glasgow. I picked up a rental car from the airport and drove the 2.5 hours to the estate. My rental car had Wi-Fi so it was very easy to use google maps and navigate the roads. The hunting lodge at the estate is currently under renovation for the foreseeable future, but there are numerous hotels and Airbnbs in the town of Roy Bridge. I stayed in a small hotel with a good restaurant and then drove 25 minutes to the estate each morning. I enjoyed the daily commute since there was zero traffic on the remote road and it was a good time for my clothing and boots to dry out.

Hunt Overview: The Braeroy Estate is a traditional Scottish hunting estate. Vehicles are only used to access different hunting areas on the 23,000-acre estate, but all hunting is done on foot. Once a stag is harvested a ghillie and his garron pony will come to the kill site and pack the stag down to the vehicle. This is also not a trophy hunt. Harvested stags are selected based upon age, or malformed antlers. The estate is not high fenced.







Day 1: The hunt started off with the standard introductions and shooting of the borrowed estate rifle at the estate shooting range. We then headed to the portion of the estate we’d be hunting that day in the Land Rover. Once we arrived at the hunting area we parked the Land Rover and started a long hike up a beautiful canyon. A ghillie and his garron pony followed a couple miles behind my stalker and I to pack down a stag if we were successful. It didn’t take long and we started seeing groups of hinds and stags on the hills above us, and after a 4-mile hike we found a couple stags in the age class that we were looking for. The stalk included an hour-long crawl, but it was the most pleasant stalk I’ve ever done. There were no rocks, stickers, thorns, or branches to worry about. It was like crawling across a mattress. We crawled to 112 yards from the stags and one offered a perfect broadsided shot. The stag was 11 years old. Overall, on day one, we saw about 400 deer. It was an incredible sight.









Day 2: The second day started off much as the first, but we hunted a different area of the estate. This area had a much higher percentage of stags in each herd we glassed. Within the first hour of hiking we glassed well over 200 stags in multiple herds. The rut had just begun and most stags were still in bachelor herds. My stalker and I hiked 14 miles on day 2 with 4 unsuccessful stalks. These ruined stalks were caused by us bumping hinds that in turn caused all other deer in the immediate area to move out, and by an inconsistent wind that gave us away on more than one occasion. We returned to the estate lodge empty handed, but we covered a lot of beautiful country and saw over 600 deer.

Day 3: On my final day of the hunt we quickly located a couple bedded stags in a saddle, high on a ridge. We crawled to 175 yards of the deer and I shot an old white-faced stag from the group. My stalker examined his teeth and believed he was 15-16 years old. I couldn’t ask for a better ending to my quick hunt in Scotland.



Other Information: Before my hunt, I tried to gather as much information as I could so that I could be prepared for the type of hunting I might encounter in Scotland. In this section, hopefully I can give a few pointers to anyone looking to book a Scotland hunting trip for the first time.

Waterproof gear is crucial to an enjoyable Scottish hunt. It rained 80% of the time that I was hunting, and the ground is more liquid than solid and I spent hours crawling while stalking deer. I brought a pair of Kenetrek boots, but by day 2 they were soaked all the way through. I wore a pair of Kuiu gaiters and they really helped in the numerous stream crossings. My camera isn’t waterproof so I kept it in a small dry bag in my jacket. I would have hated myself if I didn’t have a camera always at the ready in my pocket.
I had read about the biting midges that are so numerous in the Scottish Highlands, so I came prepared with a head net, but we always had enough of a breeze that I never once saw a midge, but my stalker said they can be unbearable on a calm day and before a frost kills them all.

I hunted September 11 – 13, so the rut wasn’t in full swing yet and the stags were typically in large bachelor groups that made hunting difficult. I understand that a few weeks later and the rut would be in full swing and the hunting very easy.

Finally, Braeroy Estate is unable to find a shipping company in the U.K. that will ship hunting trophies to the U.S., so I left my trophies there. I’d rather save the money anyway and go back and shoot more deer, but I understand that this could be a deterrent for a lot of hunters.

I’ve never wrote an online hunting review, but I learned a lot about the anti-hunting sentiment and massive deer culling happening in Scotland right now, and thought I could help spread awareness of the hunting possibilities in Scotland. Hopefully, one day, locals and the government will see the benefit of the deer, and hunting with more hunters putting money into the local economy.

Beautiful old stags! You guys are making me regret not hunting while I was in Scotland.

Nice stags....man that looks interesting.

.

Enjoyable write up and great pictures.

Something about a pony to carry the stag off the hill
just makes it all that bit more fun! Congratulations
on a successful trip.

Charlie

.

And as an add on - we visited Scotland in 2015 with a party of 12 inc a couple from Texas. They boxed their 2 heads with cut garden hose over the points and checked them in as hold luggage. No issues whatsoever in the US on arrival. There was a recent thread on roe and red heads to the USA as luggage somewhere here on AR.

Cheers

.

congratulations! a great experience

Excellent hunt and a great report. Very well done.

Your experience got me thinking about going again.

But that last part about not being able to get the trophies home - I came close to having the same experience.

Is it that they can't find a shipping company, or they won't (can't be bothered)? I do not understand the lack of follow through from a hunting culture, if you will, that seems to have absolutely every other detail covered!

Great report and trip. Only hunted hill stag in Scotland once but absolutely enjoyed the tradition of it all. Not to mention the single malts and pubs!

Good stuff! Thanks for posting.

Pics are awesome! My ancestors came from NE Scotland. Our castle still stands and is now owned by an attorney...lol, probably doesn't hunt.

Great report sir.
I have been fortunate enough to do a similar hunt a few years ago. It is an awesome experience. Your pictures brought those memories right back.

Thanks; great report and fantastic photography.

Great report - thanks for posting.

Trophy shipping - this is just "can't be bothered" - there are plenty of companies able to ship - mostly through taxidermists. There is a cultural aspect to this though - most folks (stalkers and 'keepers) involved directly with the taking of deer will be seeing several hundred deer through the estate larder each year. Very, very few of these will be taken as trophies in the sense you understand - most will be processed, lardered and the heads put in the "midden" - the shit heap. I have to confess most of the roe I take are treated in this way.

If you want to take the trophies home you need to make this known in advance. As others have said if you simply tape on some garden hose to the tips of a clean boiled head these can be checked as luggage no problem - especially at Inverness and Aberdeen - no-one will take a second glance.

Weather - well yes!! But you did pick the wettest place in Scotland (indeed one of the wettest in the world) to hunt - average rainfall in the area around "the Fort" (William) is around four metres per annum....

Great hunt though - if you want to experience the real highs and lows of highland hunting try culling hinds in January or February.

Very Cool!

quote:

Originally posted by Kuwinda:

If you want to take the trophies home you need to make this known in advance. As others have said if you simply tape on some garden hose to the tips of a clean boiled head these can be checked as luggage no problem - especially at Inverness and Aberdeen - no-one will take a second glance.

If you want a shoulder mount, you better be prepared to cape it yourself; my stalker really had no idea how to do this.

This is very ineteresting hunt ,ill hunt with you i love scotland and its hunting culture and greatly admire the ghillies .
Kind Regards Juan

I love Scotland and the whisky and the haggus and black pudding, but the weather is fierce. I remember lying in the rain in the wet grass for 3 hours so the stag could stand up before i shot it at 50 yards which i could have done 3 hours ago!

Guys

A little bit of info regarding the shipping of trophies.

The problem is that taxidermists here are not really used to exporting items especially to the USA. As such they tend to consider the process daunting and they shy away from it which makes the outfitters job tricky.

As a result I now choose to take on the job of the taxidermist and mount skulls myself and then ship them through and experienced courier.

I should add that this is for European mounts. The estates simply are net set up for camping and shoulder mounts as a rule, so my advice is always to go with a skull mount where possible.

Rgds,
K

Why do Scotsmen wear kilts? Their sheep can hear a zipper a mile away!

quote:

Originally posted by Fallow Buck:
Guys

A little bit of info regarding the shipping of trophies.

The problem is that taxidermists here are not really used to exporting items especially to the USA. As such they tend to consider the process daunting and they shy away from it which makes the outfitters job tricky.

As a result I now choose to take on the job of the taxidermist and mount skulls myself and then ship them through and experienced courier.

I should add that this is for European mounts. The estates simply are net set up for camping and shoulder mounts as a rule, so my advice is always to go with a skull mount where possible.

Rgds,
K

Or learn to cape your own; it isn't that hard.