You may be able to compliment your own food supplies with a little fishing here and there but you will need to acquire a license to do so, they are inexpensive (£10ish last time I went fishing a decade or so ago?) but limit your total take from a given area.
£27 per annum for a coarse and non-migratory trout licence but this is only required in Scotland for the Border Esk region.
The right of access in the Cairngorms National Park does not include the right to fish - this is based on permits and other required permission. In addition, wild trout are generally regarded in the UK as too precious a natural resource to be used as food. Catch and release is the norm for wild fisheries and is stipulated in the rules of many syndicates and clubs.
As folk have said here, it is not practicable to try to live off the land in the UK. Even areas that are national parks are managed by commercial interests for hunting and fishing, and the rules for what you may take and use are extremely restrictive. So restrictive that in practise you cannot use them in the way you were hoping. Nor are fires allowed in the way they normally are in the US, because of the danger of setting fire to peat and/or woodlands. In general, there are no fireplaces on campsites, for instance. Use of a stove is therefore obligatory.
That said, may I apologise for the behaviour of some of the posters on this thread. You are clearly someone who wants to come from abroad to experience the delights of our land, and I encourage you to come and do so. Given that that is the case, there is no cause for people to abuse you in the way they have done because you are not familiar with the way things are done here. While there is a minority of people like that in this country, most folk are friendly and helpful to incomers.
To those who have abused Matt. Are you sure that you wouldn't/don't fall foul of normal behaviour in other countries when you go abroad? Many Brits stand out in most of Europe because of their behaviour, which folk in many other lands find unacceptible.
There are plenty of people doing survival training in the Cairngorms - tbese guys and these guys for example, and the Scottish Outdoor Access code does not prohibit fires - you are just expected to be careful. There are many different ways to enjoy the mountains of Scotland.
Matt. So as not to misunderstand the answers to your questions. Scotland still has hundreds of beautiful mountains,glens,rivers and freshwater Lochs.Until recently banned to only but the privileged classes. The rivers and lochs are still full of fish.The miles of beautiful moors and mountains still have deer that need "culling"to keep the population down,hare and grouse to be "killed".Wild duck on the marshes.Rabbits in their hundreds are shot to stop infestation. But all this is reserved for the privileged, or the those able to afford the licences, permits or whatever for"their" sports. We do have "open"access in Scotland, always had ,but today's access and exit is by a gate/stile in a nine foot wire mesh fence.Not easy with a backpack,OK if you want to walk where the landowner would like you to walk. Still we should'nt grumble, the rest of the UK.don't even have those privileges, and not a mountain in sight. Cheers
Like what Waldo said, though the 9ft high fences are not all that prevalent (they can normally be climbed using one of their support poles and if you think getting over one with a backpack is hard, try that and a dog!) and are largely absent from the region you are interested in.
I've met one or two poachers in my hikes, including one who kept a hunting rifle buried near a bothy! However, even they won't try to live off the land.
I still can't decide whether the OP was serious or trolling. He says he's only got info about the Cairngorms from the internet, but there's a fair amount of geographic detail in his post. But if he's got info from the internet, surely he realises that there really isn't a need for bear bags in the UK. And you don't have to trawl far on the internet to discover the 'no fires, leave no trace' philosophy, which isn't just limited to the UK.
I thought that too (the bear essentials discrepancy) but as he had a smiley face on his initial post, I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and the topic provoked some interesting responses. All in all better than the usual 'what pair of waterproof pants' threads
Some of it read like a spoof, particularly the bullet proof bag bit but that does not particularly excuse the abuse he got. I guess if he was real, he is not going to bother, the local hominid fauna can carry on enjoy their role-pl...err, sorry, wildcamping...
Walks with Dog. Genuinely, just how do you get a large dog"say a lab.", over these obstacles, even a ladder stile must be a nightmare with, and for such a large dog.They are not all agile pups.Cheers.
My dog is a large collie (not the same as a lab: labs tend to pack more weight) and he wears a dog harness with a handle on the back.
He weights about 25kg and I can just about hold him & carry him up with one hand using the harness. It's a struggle, nothing graceful about it and, damn, dose the wire bite into your fingers!
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