Tommy Butler learned at an early age that to catch big fish, you need to fish deep water.

"I quit school when I was 12 and started fishing for a living," said the 29 year-old diver.  "Over the years, I just went farther and farther out.  I fish places nobody else goes."

For years, Butler's buddies, all avid spearfishermen, listened to his stories about monster amberjack and grouper that could swallow a dog.  They watched him bring in fish after fish, just waiting for the chance to accompany him offshore and hunt the blue water.

"Then the St. Pete Open Spearfishing Tournament rolled around," Butler said.  "They were sick of never winning anything, so they asked if I would take them and put them on some fish."
So Butler and crew headed for the open gulf last weekend in the 36-foot Mother Fisher, a boat he built.

"I had some spots that I had found over the years that I knew would be holding some fish," he said.  "They are in deep water ... it is diving on the edge."

Hunting fish at depths greater than 100 feet is inherently dangerous.  The deeper you go, the more you risk decompression sickness.  There is no room for error.  A small miscalculation, a momentary lapse of judgment, can mean the difference between life and death.

Spearfishing tournaments like the St. Pete Open draw hundreds of entrants every year.  Most divers work more moderate depths, but a few, the hard-corp elite, are willing to risk their lives for a few seconds in the winner's circle.

"They are warriors," Butler said of the breed.  "They work all week long just to dive.  Why?  For the glory."

Butler stopped his boat 110 miles southwest of John's Pass and dropped his divers on a spot where a freshwater spring boiled 200 feet below.

Diving that deep on compressed air is not recommended for recreational divers.  The nitrogen in the mixture muddies the mind.  Time seems to stand still.  A simple task can become a major mission.  But through training and experience, the body can learn to adapt.

"I normally dive on air at 150 feet or less, so this was a little deeper than I was used to," Ritchie Stine said.  "When we hit 180 feet the water turned black and we couldn't see which way was up."

Stine and the other divers turned back, but Chris Fletcher kept going, through the dark water to the spring below.

"A few minutes later he came up laughing and holding a 70-pound amberjack," Butler said.  "He said there were fish like that all over the place.  The other guys couldn't get back in the water fast enough."

This time, it was Stine's turn.  When you shoot a fish in deep water, especially a bruiser like an amberjack, you want to make it count.  You try to kill it outright, because even a one-minute fight can use valuable air that might just be needed during decompression.

"I saw this big one go by and fired," Stine said.  "It just rolled over dead.  I like to think it was a good shot.  But I guess I just got lucky."

The Mother Fisher would try two more spots before heading home, but the divers discovered they weren't the only hunters who knew about Butler's honey holes.

"I saw what I thought was a big black up against the wall down about 200 feet," diver Mark Sweazie said.  "But it was dark and as I got closer I realized it was a bull shark, about 12 feet long.  I looked around and saw there were three more right behind it".

"I've been diving for over 10 years and have never seen anything quite like it.  They were big and bad and I didn't stick around to see what they were going to do."