I have not been on the forum for a while so, sorry for the late response.
I have been very lucky that I have found a lot of land with deer on it without too much trouble. If you do a good job "taking care" of all the vermin like rabbits, foxes etc, farmers will talk to each other and say that this guy has done a good job and it snow balls from there. I have in excess of 2000 acres of land within 5 miles of my house that I can shoot on 364 days a year for free.(Xmas day is prohibited).
Scotland is still private land, IE you will need to have written permission to shoot either from a privately owned individual or from the Forestry Commission which is a Government Run department like your DOC. With the Forestry Commission stalking you either need to take on a lease for x number of years or go as a paying client. So it is still hard to get low cost shooting.
I am a member of 2 different syndicates in Scotland, one is 2500 acres and costs £800 per year and the other is 1200 acres and costs £500 per year.
Cheers
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