Author: Callum Harris

Dorset Gold

I should have bought a lottery ticket last weekend: On Saturday’s low tide, I bounced a bait in a shallow area I’ve often completely overlooked. A quick and delicate twang on the tip signalled somebody was home, though they’d avoided the hook… A stronger rattle led me to recast and I reeled in to find […]

Itchy Feet

After being blown off the rock marks in East Dorset and Portland by some unexpected 20 mph plus winds, I ended up doing a bit of impromptu LRF – or lerfing – around Weymouth this weekend. While the fishies were abundant, it was definitely a case of quantity over quality, with none of the more […]

June 16th

It’s been a quiet couple of months down the coast for me, sadly – and by quiet, I mean I haven’t been out much. I’ve had a handful of fish from some old favourite Dorset haunts, but nothing of note. With a busy year on the work and family front, it feels like I missed some […]

Don’t linger

Quiet paths. Lonely stonechats, November gloom. Sneakily, late autumn is my favourite time of year to be by the Dorset coast. You can’t argue with the verdant furore of spring, of course, but there’s something to be said for the melancholy of a dank autumn day. Slow days with soft light, dark vignettes licking the […]

An Inky Interlude

It’s no secret to say that it’s been an exceptional autumn for squid on the British south coast – that cat is already well out the bag. Dad and I have made a couple of trips to Weymouth to get a piece of the pie, paying a visit to the Stone Pier in both late […]

Cuckoo country

I had my suspicions that a shore caught cuckoo would end up being a tricky customer, and unfortunately, they were! The trouble is that cuckoos generally like to live in deep water, and that isn’t something that’s super abundant within casting range of the Dorset coast… I would guesstimate that most of my favourite Dorset […]

Pembroke pottering

All things considered, Pembroke was kind to me.  A really monstrous Ballan wrasse didn’t make an appearance (and nor did a Cuckoo) but I had the pleasure of fishing some lovely wild places – and I only saw two other anglers the entire week I was there. I met some friendly faces along the way […]

‘Let him cook’

I’d love to know the origins of the rock cook’s name, but a search hasn’t thrown anything up. I wondered if cook had some second meaning in Old English, or Cornish – but it looks as if it simply means to cook and always has done, so I’m stumped! Whilst I didn’t observe this petite […]

Off the Mark

Most people in England saw the New Year in with a prolonged spell of heavy rain, but we were lucky to have escaped the soaking and spent much of January in Poland – staying with family, enjoying the odd mountain walk, and, I should mention, getting married! The week of the wedding was Baltic, with […]

The New Normal

We’re three months into being first time parents and the novelty is just starting to wear off… We’ve survived the initial shock and we’re now settling into a new normalcy. It’s been brilliant, but the adrenalin’s ebbed away and I’m starting to feel it. In recent weeks I’ve learnt a new level of tiredness – […]