Results

62nd International Masters Angling Tournament (2025)

Los Suenos, Costa Rica – In the tradition created by John Rybovich and his dock partners 62 years ago, the Masters anglers are first drafted into the International Masters Anglers club and then get the chance to truly prove their skill, man vs. fish. The rules of the game have changed little in the past six decades as anglers set the hook and then their boat goes dead in the water. 

“One thing is certain,” says long time angler Sam Peters, “you either love this format or you think we are crazy!” 

Two anglers per boat fish 7.5 hours per day and the first angler hooked up controls the boat but may only direct a spin in one direction or the other. Backing down on a sailfish is a disqualification and boat assist has only been recently added to the rules to take advantage of the exceptional marlin fishery in Costa Rica. Tournament Chairman and last year’s winner, Lach Cheatham explains “Anglers are scored on fight time with a scale that takes them from a 30 second fight through overtime which is longer than 10 minutes. Dead boating a marlin now earns the angler double the points.”

Heading into the tournament fishing from Los Suenos was very good with the Triple Crown event scoring thousands of releases. Spirits were high at the angler meetings and official boat draw where anglers are randomly assigned to the 16 boats participating. In addition to rotating sides of the cockpit every hour anglers follow strict rules regarding calling their rods out of action, dropping back behind the teasers when setting out and awaiting a second bite in the first minute of play on a fish. Captains time everything with a stopwatch and report the fight times as part of their communication with radio control. “The radio was all lit up this year,” says Tournament Director Heather Maxwell. “The fishing was the best I have seen and confirming catches was hectic and exciting.” 

At lines out on Day Three the anglers had logged 499 sailfish, 1 striped marlin and 8 blue marlin releases, one blue marlin fought dead boat style by Charleston angler, Dennis Coleman. The anglers collectively scored over 30,000 points for the week and the friendly team bet was won by Dale Creamer’s Even Team (once again). 

A steady but fast pick is the name of the game to success for the anglers and they did not disappoint. Pat Healey fished a great Day One to earn high angler honors with nearly all of his releases under 3 minutes, and half of them under 2 minutes. Boats are scored on the number of fish and the Ohana, with Capt. Luke Hickney, pulled off the Day One High Boat with Pat and freshman angler, Andrew Dean’s scoring 19 fish overall.

Day Two came early as anglers enjoyed breakfast dockside before taking 3 allotted rods filled with 30# test to their assigned boats. The day turned out to be just as fast paced with the hot bite starting just after lunch. Radio Control logged 186 sails and 2 blue marlin with notable catches by John Temple who released 10 sails and Stephan Pfiefer who scored 100 points on a 10 second fight! Chris Lazzara took top angler honors on the day with 755 points and Capt. Ben Horning and crew aboard the Fish Tank earned top boat day two with 19 fish on time. 

The final fish day told the tale on the coming awards with Shon Craig earning the Pete Boinis Award for the fastest fight time in the tournament – 9 seconds flat! Angler Tommy Hancock secured the Most Fish Released overall, 22 in total, and Trey Wills won the day with a score of 632.5 points. Wills and Keith Beaty added 13 fish to Team Galati’s score and Capt. Tony Carrizosa and crew captured the high boat of the day, the Top Boat Overall (46 total) and High Boat Captain.  Second Place boat honors went to Pura Vida and Capt. Rudy Arguedas adding 12 fish for a total of 44 and Capt. Andy Helms secured Third Place boat overall with 10 releases Day Three for an overall score of 43. 

At the awards presentation, Chairman Lach Cheatham had the honor of presenting the top angler trophies. Burton Gray of Springfield, Virginia earned 1425 points overall to win Third Place Angler as well as the coveted High Point Freshman Award, arguably the hardest to win as anglers only get one shot at it. Hailing from Isle of Palms, South Carolina, angler Tommy Hancock converted his “most fish” into 1505 points and secured Second Place Angler honors.

Our 2025 Master Angler became a member of the Leader Wire Club, established in 1963 it included the original charter members of the Masters. Since that time, only tournament winners become members and are presented with a gold leader wire tie tack signifying the honor. Angler, Alex Stavola of Jupiter Florida made his move Day Two adding 720 points to a 500-point score Day One; fast times Day Three (two under 1 minute and several more under 3) added 500 more points for an overall score of 1720 points and the W!

Congratulations to all of our anglers and thank you to our boats. The Masters Tournament was, and still is, a dream. John Rybovich’s vision to fish without a team and without the aid of a boat, but to pull that off takes quite a village. We are grateful to them all!

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62nd Masters Boat Draw by Day