Virginia’s Williams Paces Co-Angler Division

HENRICO, Va. (Aug. 25, 2025) – Boater Broderick Luckey of Lynchburg, Virginia, caught 10 bass weighing 41 pounds, 10 ounces over two days to win the MLF Phoenix Bass Fishing League Super Tournament (BFL) Presented by T-H Marine on the James River presented by Suzuki Marine . The tournament was the fifth and final regular-season event of the season for the BFL Piedmont Division. Luckey earned $3,931 for his victory.

A tournament resume with four career BFL wins would be an impressive feat that not many anglers can claim, but even more remarkable is Luckey’s feat of winning four events in one season. Luckey’s winning stretch began at the end of March, with back-to-back victories at Smith Mountain Lake on a two-tournament Saturday and Sunday double-header. He earned his third event of the season in July at the James River, then did it again on Saturday to earn No. 4.

“It has been a crazy season,” Luckey said. “This one was my first win with MLF in a multi-day event, which is really cool.

“We started off in practice, and there was a flood tide from the hurricane,” Luckey said. “The water was way up over the docks. Just crazy conditions. Wind was blowing 30 miles per hour, and it blew a bunch of water in, and I was unsure of what would happen during the tournament. Thankfully, on Day 1, the tide started pushing back out and returning to normal.”

Luckey said he made a long run to the Chickahominy River to work a vibrating jig through hydrilla flats and also found some groups of large bass on offshore structure, although the offshore fish were wary and proved difficult to coax into striking. Luckey rotated between the hydrilla flats and the offshore structure to grind out bites.

“I knew I only need five,” Luckey said. “I was fishing for five to 10 bites a day. I left my fish alone at 11:30 on Day 1 to try to preserve them for Day 2.”

Luckey landed 15 keepers on Day 1 and “eight or nine” bass on Sunday. Beside the vibrating jig, he also employed a drop-shot rig, jerkbait and a jighead minnow to fill the livewell.

“After Day 1 knew if I could get those fish to fire again, I would have a good shot to win,” Luckey said. “I had about 18 pounds around 9:30 on Day 2, and I thought I should have a pretty decent chance. Then, an hour before I had to leave, I culled a 2 ½-pounder with a 4 ½-pounder. As soon as I got that one in the boat, I felt pretty confident I had just sealed the deal. I knew the guys that caught 20 pounds on Day 1 would have to catch a really big bag Sunday to catch up with me.

“I didn’t get much sleep the night before because I was thinking about my gameplan and how I was going to execute,” Luckey added. “I kept running it over and over in my head to try to make sure I had made the right decision. It felt good to get the boat back to weigh-in and get the fish away from the water so I wouldn’t drop them. I was worried about everything that could go wrong, and I wanted to make sure those controllables were controlled. So, yeah, this one felt fantastic.”

The top 10 boaters finished the tournament:

1st:        Broderick Luckey, Lynchburg, Va., 10 bass, 41-10, $3,931
2nd:      Ryan Lachniet, Gum Spring, Va., 10 bass, 38-6, $2,328
3rd:       Brian Laclair, Denton, Md., 10 bass, 27-8, $1,278
4th:        Jeff Hamilton, Henrico, Va., 10 bass, 27-4, $894
5th:        Kevin Chandler, New London, N.C., nine bass, 25-1, $766
6th:        Sam Westbrook, Clarksville, Va., 10 bass, 24-14, $702
7th:        Jason Barnes, Concord, N.C., 10 bass, 22-10, $789
8th:        Matt Floyd, Virginia Beach, Va., 10 bass, 22-10, $1,075
9th:        Jeff Miskell, Vienna, Va., 10 bass, 22-2, $511
10th:     David Perdue, Wirtz, Va., nine bass, 21-13, $447

Complete results can be found at MajorLeagueFishing.com.

Ryan Lachniet of Gum Spring, Virginia, caught a bass that weighed 7 pounds, 12 ounces, and earned the Berkley Big Bass Boater award of $412.

David Williams of Fredericksburg, Virginia, won the co-angler division and $2,166 Sunday, after bringing six bass to the scale that totaled 19 pounds even.

The top 10 co-anglers finished:

1st:        David Williams, Fredericksburg, Va., six bass, 19-0, $2,166
2nd:      Richard Williams, Sutherland, Va., six bass, 16-15, $1,008
3rd:       David Deciucis, Chester, Va., six bass, 16-12, $640
4th:        Brian Durham, Dinwiddie, Va., six bass, 15-11, $447
5th:        James Roten, West Jefferson, N.C., six bass, 13-7, $383
6th:        Tony Toombs, Drakes Branch, Va., six bass, 13-0, $351
7th:        Derek Stanley, Fuquay Varina, N.C., five bass, 12-10, $319
8th:        Dean Gibbs, North Chesterfield, Va., five bass, 12-4, $493
9th:        Alvin Hicks, Alexandria, Va., six bass, 11-6, $255
10th:     Cornell Badra, Clarksburg, Md., four bass, 8-6, $224

Dean Gibbs of North Chesterfield, Virginia, earned the Berkley Big Bass co-angler award of $206, catching a bass that weighed in at 5 pounds, 5 ounces – the largest co-angler catch of the day.

With all five events in the division now complete, Thomas Milton of Chester, Virginia, won the Fishing Clash Piedmont Division Angler of the Year (AOY) race with 1,293 points and earned the $1,000 payout, while Derek Stanley of Fuquay Varina, North Carolina, leads the Fishing Clash Piedmont Division Co-Angler of the Year race with 1,318 points and earned the $500 award.

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 Lake Norman Presented by Mando Deodorant in Huntersville, North Carolina. 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.

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 Sport 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, Discovery+, Discovery GO, Animal Planet, Outdoor Channel, VICE, CBS Sports Network, World Fishing Network, RFD-TV and Game & Fish TV, 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.