A DAY’S shooting for £50, a week’s fishing for £20.

It’s hard to believe, but that’s what it was in 1959.

That was the year that marked the beginning of the journey that we are still on 50 years later. So how much has changed since then, when our total sporting commission for our first year’s trading was £10 pounds 5d?

Sport in the highlands has changed very little over the last 50 years. Stalking is very much the same, there is probably less tweed on the hill, fewer ponies, and rifles are a little more high tech but basically the same.

Grouse shooting is carried out in exactly the same way. Some sportsmen now favour fast handling over and under 20 bores rather than the more traditional side by side twelves however, both are equally as efficient in the right hands.

One thing that has changed significantly over the last 50 years is the price (and there was no VAT in 1959):

• Rhidorroch was only available by the fortnight at £594 – today it is available from £3000 per week.
•  Inverpattack Lodge, Ardverikie, was £75.60 per week – today it is available from £7000 per week with 15 stags.
• Red stag stalking was £65 per stag – today £375-£400 per stag.
• Hind stalking was £18 per day – today charged at £165 per day.
• Roe stalking offered by the week with 10 outings and an expectation of three to five bucks for £125 plus trophy fees – today, it’s anything from £1500.
• Sika stags were charged at £48.60 – today charged at £200 plus.
• Driven grouse – a day for eight guns with an expectation of 60 brace was £680 or £85 per gun for the day – today, nearly £10,000 per day.
• Salmon and sea trout fishing for a week’s on the Findhorn for two rods was £65 – today it’s charged at £600 plus per rod per week.
• Wild goat stalking was an exotic – available by the day and for periods of four days, at £54 per day – still available today on limited basis but little call for it.

Fishing has, however, experienced some notable change. Carbon fibre rods and multiple tip lines have replaced split cane and silk, and hair and synthetics have replaced fur and feather in fly patterns. Neoprene waders and goretex jackets now make light work of spring fishing.

Salmon and sea trout conservation is very much the watch word today and ‘catch and release’ in some shape or form is encouraged on almost every river in Scotland. It is heartwarming that this initiative has generally been embraced wholeheartedly by the fishing community and rarely are there issues now about releasing fish.

So, time have changed and so have prices. For landowners and those with fishing rights, the last 50 years has shown that the only way is up!

• CKD Galbraith’s glossy 50th anniversary 2010 brochure is complemented by a dedicated sporting website at www.sportinglets.co.uk.