The Mastry Engine Center sponsored fishing team, under the command of Captain Tommy Butler from the boat "Reality Check", swept the top five awards in the annual Old Salt's Grouper Fishing Tournament Saturday, February 21st.  Team members included Captain Tommy Butler, owner and captain of the boat, Sean Gatesman, first mate, Captain Rick Myrick from Mastry Engine Center, Captain Lee Edrington, retired GTE employee, and Chris Furr of Chris' Mobile Marine.

Captain Tommy Butler is the most knowledgeable member of the team, with over twenty-five years of continuous fishing experience on the west coast of Florida.  Tommy carries on a local family tradition of commercial fisherman spanning three generations, but with a unique twist.  Tommy defies any preconception you might have about commercial fisherman.  Tommy is "thirtysomething" radically-minded individual who approaches his profession from the "extreme" perspective, utilizing the latest in materials and technology to expand the envelope of his trade.

A good example of stretching the envelope is Tommy's Butler-Tech boat.  This boat is Butler-Tech boat.  This boat is a 45 foot, 6 ton race-boat inspired bull of his own design, with a six-person aviation style fully enclosed cockpit.  Driving this serious fishing machine are twin Yanmar inline 6 cylinder turbocharged 350HP diesels coupled to a pair of Mercruiser Speedmaster sterndrives, purchased from and installed by Mastry Engine Center.  Capable of exceeding 50 knots at full throttle, this boat will cruise comfortable and economically all day at 35 to 40 knots over most sea conditions.

Leaving the dock at 1:30 AM, the captain and crew were fired up over the day ahead of them.  The team probably had a combined total of seven hours of sleep between them.  Nonetheless, the adrenaline provided the stimulus to stay awake for the three hour cruise in the dark through the five-foot seas to the first fishing stop, seventy miles offshore.

At 5:00 AM we dropped our lines and began the fight.  This stop is where Lee caught the first respectable black grouper of the day, which placed fifth in the competition at a weight of 19.60 lb.  We were equipped for battle with 9/0 Penn reels and seven foot custom rods, using 125 pound test line with 200 pound test leaders.  Bait included frozen Spanish sardines, live pinfish and couple dozen large squirrel fish for the big boys.  After two hours with limited success, we agreed the "Mackdaddy" big fish were in deeper waters, so we headed west for our second stop of the day.

We make a quick 30 minute trip west to our most productive stop of the day, eighty miles out.  This is where we produced Chris Furr's 34.86 lb. second place fish, Captain Tommy Butler's third place 22.26 lb. fish and Sean Gatesman's fourth place 19.84 lb. blackie.  Along with this fine harvest of fish we managed to boat another twenty 10 lb. to 18 lb. black grouper were stowed in the commercial fish box located midship.  In fear of seriously depleting the grouper population of this spot, we spared the rest of the fish and continued west to even deeper waters.  It was now 11:00 AM.  We all believed that an even bigger fish was needed to win the grand prize.

As we pulled up to our final fishing spot of the day at 11:30 AM, Captain Rick Myrick was feeling good about his odds.  This first bait he dropped (a large squirrel fish) produced the first place 38.99 lb. black grouper.  Ironically, the rest of the catch from this location produced 300 lbs. of Amberjack, which were promptly deposited in the 5000 lb. capacity fish box.  At 1:00 PM we decided we were done, and headed for shore.  Being over ninety miles out, we didn't want to jeopardize our chances at the prize money.

Arriving at the dock an hour and a half earlv we waited for the other competitors to dock.  After a long 45 minute wait, we decided to set the standard of the dav.  Tommy jumped into the large fishbox and began to unload the catch of the day.  Each member had marked his best fish prior to putting them into the hold.  Tommy had to unload all but one layer of fish to retrieve all of the identified grouper.

The growing crowd of onlookers were standing in awe at the vast quantity and size of the fish spread across the deck of the Reality Check.  "Comments in the crowd please me as much as the reward money," says Tommy. "This is the usual amount of catch for me on my expeditions.  The key is quickly getting far offshore into very deep water, where the big guys are.  My boat's hull design, combined with the Mastry Engine Center two 350HP Yanmar/Mercruiser sterndrive packages, allows me to quickly get to the best offshore fishing grounds with relatively economical fuel consumption."  Each Team Mastry member presented their largest grouper to the weighmaster for the judging.  The suspense grew as the fish were hung on the scale.  After all the weighing was complete, Team Mastry was triumphant with their win over the first five places in the tournament, netting a total prize winnings of $1700.  Team Mastry plans to enter as many tournaments as allowed.