Des Westmore was born on the Isle of Wight and despite work taking him around the world, he has never moved away.  He began sea angling in 1976 - living on an island surrounded by sea it seemed rude not to.   In the early days he fished with his father.  Neither had ever fished before and by his own admission they struggled to catch fish and just went fishing for the sheer enjoyment of it.  A turning point was the purchase of the Guinness Guide to Saltwater Angling by Brian Harris.  Des feels this was a ground breaking book in the seventies and that it is still relevant today.  Another pivotal step was to join a local angling club.  Both these actions sped up the learning curve and ensured that angling was to become a life-long hobby.  Being a member of a club eventually led to being involved with both the club and also the local division of what was then the NFSA, culminating in becoming chairman of both his club, and the NFSA divisional committee.  Notable angling achievements in this time were gaining an NFSA bronze medal for a shore caught sole and a gold medal for a shore caught stingray.  Older anglers may also remember the Abu awards scheme for which the stingray also gained a silver award.

Des is an aerospace airframe design engineer by trade which might explain his compulsion to pull things to bits to see how they work.  Even with over twenty-five years of design office experience, Des is still amazed, and often in awe, by the ingenuity of anglers and their approach to problem solving.

It was Des’ work that took him away from home during the mid-nineties, a period when unfortunately he did not fish at all.  On returning home, as well as finding time to start fishing again, Des also found time to start a family.  The prescription drugs his wife took for morning sickness during her pregnancy also found another use; they cured Des’ sea-sickness which had blighted his boat angling activity for years.  With his new-found sea legs, Des started fishing with legendary Lymington charter Skipper Roger Bayzand aboard Sundance.  Over the years Roger became a friend as well as skipper and Des still keeps in contact with him now that he has retired and moved to Australia.  Unfortunately he has not yet gone to visit him.

These days Des fishes almost entirely from boats.  Not actually owning one himself means that they are either charter boats or ones owned by friends.  He enjoys catching any fish on sporting, balanced tackle but his favourite fish is bream.  He also likes to catch flatfish but they are, all of them, his jinx species so hitting the mark when flatty-bashing is especially sweet.

He has also become very partial to eating fish.  Des can now don a chef’s hat and is no mean cook in the kitchen when it comes to fish.  Well, he hasn’t killed anyone yet.  He feels that, although conservation measures should be practised at all times, we should never shy away from the fact that a portion of the fish caught by sea anglers is killed for the table.  For Des, this is a very big part of a hobby that he would term “Sport-fishing”. 

As well as sport-fishing, Des’ other interests include writing, photography and travel with his family.  He is lucky to be able to combine all of these and has had travel and angling features published in the UK and on line.  He also does a lot of work with the RNLI.

Des is married to Marilyn, his long suffering wife for the past twenty-three years and has one daughter, Bronwyn.

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