UK Shooting and Stalking summary
When organising holidays to far flung corners of the globe it is all too easy to overlook the beautiful countryside at home and the superb riding and field sports opportunities on our own doorstep. Wild and Exotic have been organising field sports here in the UK for 18 years, long before the formation of Wild and Exotic as a company. Our offices are close to Helmsley on the edge of the North Yorkshire Moors, surrounded by glorious countryside that is home to some of the finest bird shooting in the world, as well as being a spectacular landscape to explore from the back of a horse. We can arrange bespoke riding holidays across the moors and dales, driven and walked up shooting, roe deer stalking, and trout fishing on the River Rye and her tributaries. We also offer a few days grouse shooting each year, and find our guests particularly enjoy shooting grouse over pointers in August, when the purple heather is at its glorious best.
Wild and Exotic UK Shooting and Stalking sample itinerary
Wild and Exotic have access to some of the finest shoots in the British Isles, and have been arranging shooting for discerning clients since 1989. We have long standing relationships with some of the best pheasant, partridge and grouse shoots in the north of England, but can also arrange quality shooting within driving distance of London. The service we offer extends to recommending and booking suitable accommodation, arranging insurance, four-wheel drive vehicles, and a supply of cartridges and guns if required.
The steep wooded valleys of North Yorkshire have established a reputation for quality driven birds complemented by old fashioned hospitality in the evenings at whichever hostelry you choose to stay. Wild and Exotic can arrange single days driven partridge and pheasant shooting for up to 10 guns with a bag size of around 100 birds, right up to 3 consecutive day’s shooting where the expected bag is in the region of up to 400 birds a day. Driven grouse shooting is harder to come by, however we are able to arrange a limited number of days on the North Yorkshire Moors each season, normally between August 12th and mid October. We can also arrange grouse shooting over pointers in August, a fascinating sport where the small size of the bag is more than compensated for by the excitement of watching a specialist breed of dog at work in glorious surroundings – and the challenge of a long day walking on the hill. A team of 4 guns is ideal for this form of shooting.
If comparatively large bags and peg shooting do not appeal we can offer exciting rough shooting for mixed bags that might include duck, pheasant, partridge, rabbit, snipe and woodcock. These days are usually for a team of not more than 6 guns and often take place on the marginal hill ground surrounding grouse moors and are long on exercise, fun and camaraderie. On the east coast of Scotland north of Aberdeen we work with a specialist goose shooting guide who will exhaust the keenest team of guns with action packed flighting at dawn and dusk and even by moonlight.
Wild and Exotic also arrange both red deer stalking in Scotland, and roe deer in Yorkshire. Long weekend breaks hind stalking in the Scottish highlands in November have proved particularly popular, as have classic weeks of the rut in early October. Please do contact us to discuss any of these UK shooting and stalking opportunities.
United Kingdom general information and map
Capital: London
Try not to miss: The sunny south west of England where you can gallop for miles on end across open moorland following a pack of hounds across Dartmoor or Exmoor. The shooting is also spectacular in north Devon and the county is home to a number of wonderful trout, salmon and sea trout rivers. Travelling north through the West Country, the Home Counties and the Midlands to the wild and beautiful landscape of the Welsh borders, there is prolific and varied shooting to suit all tastes and budgets. Wild and Exotic can arrange big driven partridge and pheasant days or much smaller rough shooting opportunities where the bag may be a fraction of the size, but the rewards equally great. The Peak District, Pennines and North Yorkshire Moors offer the opportunity to shoot that most emblematic and celebrated of all game birds, the wild red grouse. We can arrange a small and comparatively inexpensive day pursuing grouse over pointers, or obtain a place for you or your entire party of 8 guns on a driven moor where the expectations are to shoot significant bags of grouse.
A uniquely sporting paradise awaits the visitor to Scotland; a land of beautiful glens, rugged mountains and superb salmon rivers, not forgetting an unspoilt and spectacular coastline where if you know where to look, the beaches rival those of the Caribbean. The highlands of Scotland are home to wild red deer, and a day in pursuit of elusive stags or hinds in the company of an experienced stalker remains one of the most challenging and rewarding of all fieldsports. Although we publish no details of individual Scottish estates on this website, Wild and Exotic enjoys close connections with many of the best, and has a profound understanding of what they offer, including the realistic opportunity of achieving the iconic McNab – a stag, a salmon and a brace of grouse on the same day – which our Managing Director achieved at his first attempt on our recommended highland estate.
Why UK: Without doubt, the United Kingdom is the spiritual home of all fieldsports and to enjoy day’s hunting, shooting or fishing here is to gain a privileged insight of where it all began. Sir Isaac Walton’s Treatise on Angling spawned a sport that is now enjoyed all over the world targeting a list of species so numerous and diverse that the great writer would surely turn in his grave. Shooting game birds also started in the seventeenth century on these islands with sporting dogs and muzzle loaders, and it could be claimed that every scent hound in the world includes English foxhound, harrier or beagle blood that can be traced as far back as the early eighteen hundreds. The British landscape has evolved over the centuries in tandem with hunting, shooting and fishing, and to this day remains a uniquely perfect landscape in which to enjoy a wide ranging and diverse selection of field sports.
