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 Bass Fishing League Super Tournament (BFL) tournament 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
Ryan Lachniet of Gum Spring, Virginia, caught a bass that weighed 7 pounds, 12 ounces, and earned the 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 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.
https://www.bassresource.com/bass_fishing_123/bfl-james-82525.html
BFL News Archive