It's a weird sport from a human perspective.

You get folks who just do it as a hobby (because it's not that expensive), die hard folks who live it (but aren't that wealthy), plus ultra-wealthy folks (who are generally jealous of the former!). I think it's the peace and tranquillity that attracts.

Add to that, that at least in the US, Trout Unlimited is without a doubt the most politically-connected pure sportsperson lobbying organization.

"At either end of the social spectrum there lies a leisure class."

What you described is also true for skiing, scuba diving, mountain diving and any number of other outdoor pursuits.

Apparently in the US there are about: 7M fly fishers [1], 9M skiers + snowboarders [2], about 3.2M SCUBA divers [3], 14M "active camping households" (3 or more times in a year) [4], and 48M hikers [5]. To pull a few outdoor activities, because I was curious.

Fly fishing feels more like bird-watching to me though: in that it's relatively easy and cheap to do, but not a thing you would ever do accidentally.

[1] https://outdoorindustry.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/2018-... [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/376710/active-skiers-and... [3] https://www.dema.org/store/download.aspx?id=7811B097-8882-47... [4] https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170315005391/en/Cam... [5] https://www.statista.com/statistics/191240/participants-in-h...

Hunting/fishing in Europe is traditionally something the landed gentry did and priced accordingly. It's all orders of magnitude cheaper in the US and Canada.

I’d suggest fishing in Scotland is expensive because of American money driving up prices.

Ownership of "sporting" estates in Scotland is pretty varied:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-47963208

NB Doesn't matter who owns it, we can still walk over it!

Are Americans buying land in Scotland specifically for fly fishing? Not that I don't love visiting Scotland, it just seems unnecessarily expensive and far when Montana offers vast areas of (to my knowledge) world-class fly fishing without an international flight.

It very much depends on the type of hunting or fishing though - coarse and sea fishing is a very popular activity. Mind you - you can go fishing in some very nice spots for relatively small amounts of money:

e.g.

http://www.glensherup-fishery.co.uk/