Going for gold in Glenfinnan

A guided stalk in the Highlands leaves Jamie Tusting with memories to last a lifetime as he goes in pursuit of a red stag

- Jamie Tusting

My great-grandfather lived in a golden era of fieldsports, around the turn of the last century. When he wasn’t pheasant shooting, he would venture off around the world on hunting expeditions, for weeks or even months at a time, and would inevitably come back with tales of adventure.

He loved his fishing too, frequenting the trout streams of England regularly, and once a year would take a trip to Scotland for a fishing and stalking adventure. These weren’t just quick jaunts to the hills and back, instead heading off for several weeks into the Highlands on great marauds across the hills and in the rivers.

He would hire a train carriage, which was left in an old siding at the station near his house in Bedfordshire, have it loaded up with all his kit, including his own car, and then have it taken up to Scotland on the East Coast Main Line. Every few days, his housekeeper would be despatched to the station to collect salmon and venison off the train, which had been sent south by the northern adventurers.

This was really the height of romantic fieldsports, true Edwardian splendour. Nowadays, the romance of trips to Scotland is quite different, with a long trudge up the A1 and M6 to eventually cross the border, perhaps stopping off for an average coffee at Hamilton Services or, if you’re really pushing the boat out, Tebay.

An ancient landscape

But that romance starts to return once you’ve crossed the Clyde, headed up the side of Loch Lomond and reached the majesty of Glencoe, its vast hills and towering waterfalls typifying an ancient landscape, unchanged for centuries.