Scottish Country Sports Tourism Awards 2026: River & Green Nominated for Best Sporting Agency
We are absolutely thrilled to say that River & Green has been nominated for Best Sporting Agency 2026 in the Scottish Country Sports Tourism Awards, with the winners announced at The GWCT Scottish Game Fair on 3 July 2026.
Eighteen years of putting trips together one guest at a time, and recognition from within our own industry still means a great deal. We are delighted.
What the award is
The Scottish Country Sports Tourism Awards are run by Country Sport Scotland, part of BASC, the British Association for Shooting and Conservation. They exist to mark out the businesses doing right by Scotland’s sporting visitors: good service, responsible practice, and money that finds its way back into rural communities. Alongside Best Sporting Agency there are categories for estates, accommodation, fishing providers and the Women in Country Sports Award, so the programme covers most of the people who actually make a sporting trip happen.
The Best Sporting Agency category
This category goes to an agency delivering standout sporting experiences in Scotland to a wide range of visitors. The judges are looking for variety, real care over customer service, and a business that puts something back into the places it sends people. We are glad to be measured against that. It reads a good deal like the brief we set ourselves back in 2009.
When and where it happens
The result comes on 3 July, the opening day of The GWCT Scottish Game Fair at Scone Palace in Perthshire, which runs from 3 to 5 July 2026. It is one of the biggest days in the Scottish sporting year, and if you happen to be over for it, a day at the fair is well worth folding into the trip.
How River & Green works
A nomination is not a win. It is, though, a fair moment to explain how River & Green works, and to let the fit with the category speak for itself.
River & Green started in 2009. Since then we have built and run more than 600 sporting holidays for over 3,000 guests, many of them travelling from North America and mainland Europe to try Scotland for the first time. Nothing is off a shelf. Every itinerary is drawn up around your interests, your dates and your party: deer stalking, salmon and trout fishing, grouse and pheasant shooting, golf, luxury touring, or some combination of all of them.
The thing that probably sets us apart is that we do these sports ourselves. Founder Ian Walls has been fishing for salmon and trout across Scotland for more than 50 years and is still out there doing it. And we rely on a long-standing network of estates, ghillies, stalkers, golf clubs, hotels and drivers, nearly all of them small rural businesses. Book through us and the spend lands with them, which is close to the heart of what this category is asking for.
What it says about Scottish sporting tourism
Country sports reach corners of Scotland that ordinary tourism tends to skip. A week’s stalking or fishing fills beds in glens miles from any town, keeps keepers and ghillies in work, and gives estates a reason to look after the ground for the long term. Awards like this one put a spotlight on that, and on the operators who do it properly. Whatever happens on 3 July, being on the list is something we are glad to share with every estate and guide we work alongside.
“Since forming the company 18 years ago, I’ve always believed that a successful enterprise involving country sports must be built on the foundations of exemplary customer care, engagement with the rural economy, nature conservation and a commitment to quality in everything that we do. It is a great honour to be recognised by such a distinguished and worthy organisation as BASC. I consider it a testament to these principles and the hard work and dedication of all our staff and partners throughout Scotland.”
Ian Walls, Director, River & Green
