Scottish field sports

Here at The England Project we pride ourselves in knowing a thing or two about hunting, shooting and, soon enough, fishing. I say soon enough because after a 25 year break I have decided that it’s about time I took it up again. I have dusted down my rods (sometimes being a hoarder actually pays dividends) and, having failed to locate the rest of my tackle, will be embarking upon a shopping trip or two to re-stock.

Browsing through various catalogues has led me to make the following observation; coarse fishing has become complicated. From what I can see I need about £24,000 worth of equipment before I have any chance of catching even a single stickleback. I have at most £200 to spend so will have to make up the shortfall of £23,800 by employing innate skill and instinct. I will land that fish.

We like such sporting activity here. Though I have not hunted for bird nor fish for many years this has been through circumstance rather than choice and I see less wrong with taking from the field than I do with harvesting from the factory. The former is mostly low level and done for sport or vermin control, the latter is on the industrial scale and is done for profit.

So, I am pleased to have received an email from John pointing me to the following article on what could be an upturn in the profile of such sports, albeit in Scotland. You have to start somewhere:

VisitScotland’s research-dedicated website now boasts a clutch of field sport-based organisations, the beginnings of a market research database on sporting tourism and, crucially, invites comment (rather bravely) and information.

This is heartening stuff for those who feared the organisation was gripped in the maw of parliamentary-driven political correctness, especially when it came to shooting, worth at least £100 million a year.

It seems to me that VisitScotland has been rumbled. They have not been playing all the strings that they have available to them and some people have been wondering why:

Despite VisitScotland’s protestations that field sports have always been on its list of areas in need of addressing, precious few people knew it. Indeed, not even VisitScotland staff knew it. This became hideously apparent when an Aberdeenshire organic hill farmer complained that the official website omitted to mention anything about the opportunities for roe deer stalking in Scotland and was told by VisitScotland that it "didn’t think in this day and age that sort of thing should go on a public website". To which a great many people said: Rubbish. Or words to that effect.

Political correctness in this context is nothing more than a bias against a few minority pastimes and such bias has no place in an organisation responsible for attracting visitors to a country that excels in the pleasures of such pastimes.

Let’s hope that this is solid improvement and that it continues to grow.

Posted by John at April 5, 2004 09:32 AM | TrackBack