Shooting in Scotland

Scotland is famous for the quality of its sporting bird shooting and the professional way in which sporting days are managed and conservation practices are undertaken.

Shooting in Scotland is generally understood to mean wing or bird shooting and pursuit of the smaller mammalian species of rabbit and hare, generally with a shotgun but sometimes, in the case of rabbits, an air rifle.

Quarry Species

• Red grouse and black grouse are amongst the many quarry game species in Scotland. Red and black grouse are unique to the United Kingdom. Due to their scarcity, black grouse are generally not hunted. However, red grouse which fly low and fast over the purple heather-clad hills provide what many regard as the most challenging sporting bird anywhere in the world. 
• Other ‘wild’ quarry species are the waders, woodcock, and snipe. Both have erratic fast direction changing flight and provide a challenging shot to even the experienced gun.
• Ducks and geese provide another challenge to sporting tourists visiting Scotland.
• The fast flying, wild and wary species is the wood pigeon is a major agricultural pest which number in the millions across the UK.
• The pheasant and partridge are the mainstays of UK shooting. These birds offer the sporting gun ‘walked up’ or driven shooting opportunities.

Finally, we have ground game, namely rabbits and hares. Scotland offers an array of testing quarry species that are managed in a modern conservation-minded manner by professional gamekeepers throughout the country.

If you are new to shooting and would like to try, visit a clay pigeon ground near you where you can learn how to shoot and how to feel comfortable and safe with a shotgun under your control.

Alternatively, you could try your hand at simulated game shooting, which recreates a full driven day but with clay targets.