Maryland’s Dixon Tops Co-Angler Division

HUDDLESTON, Va. (March 31, 2025) – Boater Broderick Luckey of Lynchburg, Virginia, caught a five-bass limit weighing 21 pounds, 14 ounces, Saturday to win the MLF Phoenix Bass Fishing League (BFL) Presented by T-H Marine on Smith Mountain Lake. The tournament was the first event of the season for the BFL Shenandoah Division. Luckey earned $5,683 for his victory.

Saturday’s tournament was the start of a huge weekend for Luckey. On Sunday, he went back-to-back, getting the win in a Piedmont Division tournament that was also held on Smith Mountain Lake. Here’s what’s even wilder: In March 2024, Luckey fished a Piedmont Division derby on Smith Mountain, and he won that one too. He’s three-for-three in his last three Smith Mountain Lake BFL events.

You can read about Luckey’s Sunday victory here. On Saturday, his Shenandoah Division win was all about timing the prespawn transition.

“In practice, I kind of saw that fish were moving,” said Luckey. “Fish were transitioning. So I knew that I needed to try to fish ahead of them instead of trying to find where they were currently and trying to catch them where they were currently. So I found areas where they were, and I tried to take my best guess as to where they were going. That ended up working out really well.”

Luckey started off going to the backs of pockets and working his way back out toward the main lake, hoping to intercept the fish along the way. Eventually, he was able to find fish on docks, wood and other areas. The key was covering a lot of water.

“The fish are really spread out,” he said. “There’s not a lot of fish in one place. I covered miles and miles today both scoping and fishing shallow, just trying to get a read on what the fish are doing. The majority of my better fish came shallow, but my good limit fillers came scoping.”

Luckey caught his winning fish on a minnow bait, a big swimbait and a Yamamoto Senko. A key moment for him happened right at the end of the day, when he landed the 7-pound, 14-ounce bass that won him the Berkley Big Bass award of $745 on the boater side. With 17 pounds in the livewell, Luckey skipped his swimbait up under a dock and that big girl followed it out. He spotted her coming and gave his swimbait a couple twitches, which triggered her to bite.

“She crushed it right about 2 feet from the boat, and I led her around to the net with about 15 minutes to go,” Luckey said. “It was the best fish catch that I have ever had as far as excitement and an unbelievable event.”

The top 10 boaters finished the tournament:

1st:        Broderick Luckey, Lynchburg, Va., five bass, 21-14, $5,683
2nd:       Billy Kohls, Huddleston, Va., five bass, 20-6, $2,719
3rd:       Chad Green, Moneta, Va., five bass, 20-2, $1,646
4th:        Matt McCluskey, Ashburn, Va., five bass, 18-0, $1,152
5th:        Greg Stallings, Dry Fork, Va., five bass, 17-14, $988
6th:        Ron Rousseau, Raleigh, N.C., five bass, 17-10, $864
6th:        Stefan Ward, Wirtz, Va., five bass, 17-10, $864
8th:        Eric Johnson, Partlow, Va., five bass, 16-14, $741
9th:        Ben Reynolds, Callands, Va., five bass, 16-13, $658
10th:     Marvin Reese, Randallstown, Md., five bass, 16-12, $576

Complete results can be found at MajorLeagueFishing.com.

Joe Dixon of Bel Alton, Maryland, won the co-angler division and $2,453 Saturday, after bringing three bass to the scale that totaled 12 pounds, 1 ounce.

The top 10 co-anglers finished:

1st:        Joe Dixon, Bel Alton, Md., three bass, 12-1, $2,453
2nd:      Johnnie Hopkins, Greensboro, N.C., three bass, 10-10, $1,226
3rd:       Robert Wedding, Welcome, Md., three bass, 10-8, $816
4th:        David Deciucis, Chester, Va., three bass, 9-14, $572
5th:        James Dehart, Roanoke, Va., two bass, 9-12, $861
6th:        Brandon Miskell, Vienna, Va., three bass, 8-11, $450
7th:        Jason Hinger, Timberlake, N.C., three bass, 7-12, $509
8th:        Mike Coleman, S. Chesterfield, Va., three bass, 7-6, $368
9th:        Phillip Ragland Jr., Rustburg, Va., three bass, 7-5, $327
10th:     Dan Garner, Littleton, N.C., three bass, 7-2, $286

James Dehart of Roanoke, Virginia, earned the Berkley Big Bass co-angler award of $370, catching a bass that weighed in at 8 pounds – the largest co-angler catch of the day.

In addition to winning the event, Broderick Luckey of Lynchburg, Virginia, has the early lead in the Fishing Clash Shenandoah Division Angler of the Year (AOY) race with 250 points, while Joe Dixon of Bel Alton, Maryland, leads the Fishing Clash Shenandoah Division Co-Angler of the Year race with 250 points.

The next event for BFL Shenandoah Division anglers will be held April 19, at Kerr Lake in Henderson, North Carolina. To register for the event as a boater or a co-angler, visit MajorLeagueFishing.com or call (270)-252-1000.

The top 60 boaters and co-anglers in the division based on point standings, along with the five tournament winners of each qualifying event, will qualify for the Oct. 3-4 BFL Regional tournament on the James River in Richmond, Virginia. Boaters will fish for a top award of a new Phoenix 819 Pro with a 200-horsepower Mercury or Suzuki outboard worth $50,000, while co-anglers will compete for a top award of $20,000.

The 2025 Phoenix BFL Presented by T-H Marine is a 24-division circuit devoted to weekend anglers, with 134 events throughout the season, five qualifying tournaments in each division. The top 60 boaters and co-anglers from each division, along with the five qualifying tournament winners, will advance to one of 12 BFL Regional tournaments where they are competing to finish in the top three, which then qualifies them for one of the longest-running championships in all of competitive bass fishing – the BFL All-American. The 2025 BFL All-American will take place May 29-31, 2025, at Lake Hamilton in Hot Springs, Arkansas, and is hosted by hosted by Visit Hot Springs and the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism.

Proud sponsors of the 2025 MLF Phoenix Bass Fishing League Presented by T-H Marine include: 7Brew, Abu Garcia, Athletic Brewing, B&W Trailer Hitches, Berkley, BUBBA, Deep Dive App, E3 Sports Apparel, Epic Baits, Fishing Clash, Grizzly, Humminbird, Lew’s, Li Time Batteries, Mercury, Minn Kota, Mossy Oak, Mystik Lubricants, Onyx, O’Reilly Auto Parts, Phoenix Boats, Polaris, Power-Pole, Precision Sonar, Strike King, Suzuki Marine, Tackle Warehouse, T-H Marine, Toyota, WIX Filters and YETI.

For complete details and updated tournament information, visit MajorLeagueFishing.com. For regular Bass Fishing League updates, photos, tournament news and more, follow MLF5’s social media outlets at Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

About Major League Fishing
Major League Fishing (MLF) is the world’s largest tournament-fishing organization, producing more than 250 events annually at some of the most prestigious fisheries in the world, while broadcasting to America’s living rooms on CBS, Discovery Channel, Outdoor Channel, CBS Sports Network, World Fishing Network and on demand on MyOutdoorTV (MOTV). Headquartered in Benton, Kentucky, the MLF roster of bass anglers includes the world’s top pros and more than 30,000 competitors in all 50 states and 20 countries. Since its founding in 2011, MLF has advanced the sport of competitive fishing through its premier television broadcasts and livestreams and is dedicated to improving the quality of life for bass through research, education, fisheries enhancement and fish care.