Fieldsports Journal Magazine The Scottish Sporting Gazette Summer 2015 Special Issue

The Highlands and Islands are places of superlatives, where the landscapes are as stunning as the sporting grounds are fertile, and where the community life is as persuasive as the whisky is renowned.

We set out to explore the culture, sport and traditions that are intrinsic to these hills and isles, and were often rendered speechless by what we unearthed. From the spice of life on Orkney (page 76) to the soothing pace of Iona (page 56), the Highlands and Islands truly get under the skin.
No-one knows this better than Ian Lawson, a man for whom a trip to the Outer Hebrides sparked a passion that would fundamentally alter the direction of both his personal and professional life (page 12).

It is the sporting opportunities that entice people to return time and time again. Here, sportsmen and women are rewarded not by numbers but by unrivalled scenery and seclusion. Ask Simon Barr (page 26), whose highlight of the 2014/15 season was a day spent hunting snipe on the tiny and uninhabited island of Taransay – his bag just 1½ brace.

The Highlands have a power to astonish and surpass all expectations like no other place on Earth. Glen Cannich provides a perfect example (page 66).

Even the excellent photography of John MacTavish barely does its majesty justice. Another talented photographer, Léopold Amory, is inclined to agree, as he recently uncovered a deep reverence whilst watching the relationship between a falconer and his peregrine play out in the skies above the Cairngorms (page 106).

There is just something about the Highlands and Islands... there’s the natural beauty and mystery, true escapism punctuated by the most intriguing of characters and cultures, and the sport demands admiration and anticipation. There is nothing run-of -the-mill or as expected; this is a place of extremities and severity – we urge you to go explore it.