HUDDLESTON, Va. (April 4, 2022) – Boater Luke Nichols of Union Hall, Virginia, caught five bass Saturday weighing 24 pounds, 6 ounces, to win the MLF Phoenix Bass Fishing League tournament on Smith Mountain Lake . The tournament was the first event of the season for the Bass Fishing League Piedmont Division. Nichols earned $4,266 for his victory.
“I had fished weeks prior to the tournament, and this one just started out differently,” Nichols said. “I would fish in the morning and pull my boat out at noon because I knew what I wanted to do. I got on a deal on a jig that’s typical for the beginning to middle of March, but not this late in the year. But it’s been unusually cold, and the jig bite helped account for two key bites in the morning.”
Nichols said he focused on pre-spawn staging areas and used a Garmin Panoptix LiveScope System to locate and execute casts on specific targets the bass were holding on. Nichols said he caught his bass on green pumpkin jigs he learned to make with mentor and Bass Fishing League veteran Chris Dillow of Waynesboro, Virginia, who has seven Major League Fishing wins to his credit. The homemade jig, along with a swimbait, produced 10 keepers during the course of the day.
“I got a couple of big bites in the morning on the jig, and later in the day I got a few big bites on some key areas on the swimbait, but the bites were kind of scattered,” Nichols said. “The 7 pound, 11-ounce big bass of the day came at 2 o’clock. It was probably one of the most epic bites I’ve ever had in my life. I’ll never forget it. It was very aggressive and visual. I watched it attack the bait. My co-angler and I took a five-minute break after that and we said, ‘That’s one of the craziest things I’ve ever seen.’
“When it’s your day, it’s your day,” Nichols added. “I just feel blessed. It was God-type stuff that took place out there.”
The top 10 boaters finished the tournament in:
1st: Luke Nichols, Union Hall, Va., five bass, 24-6, $4,266
2nd: Chris Brummett, Lynch Station, Va., five bass, 19-4, $2,483
3rd: Jonathan Bailey, Peterstown, W.V., five bass, 17-13, $1,256
4th: Chad Green, Moneta, Va., five bass, 17-5, $879
5th: Ben Hudson, Lynchburg, Va., four bass, 17-4, $753
6th: Steven Coleman, Monroe, Va., five bass, 16-10, $690
7th: Drew Sallada, Hurricane, W.Va., five bass, 16-8, $628
8th: Jim Jarvis, Timberville, Va., five bass, 16-7, $565
9th: Mickey Bergeron, Amherst, Va., five bass, 16-6, $502
10th: Johnathan Crossland, Chapin, S.C., five bass, 16-0, $717
10th: Robert Grike, Dumfries, Va., five bass, 16-0, $417
Nichols had a 7-pound, 11-ounce largemouth that was the heaviest of the event in the Boater Division and earned the day’s Berkley Big Bass Boater award of $500. Ricky Grant of Callands, Virginia, won the Strike King Co-angler Division and $2,080 Saturday after catching three bass weighing 11 pounds, 9 ounces.
The top 10 Strike King co-anglers were:
1st: Ricky Grant, Callands, Va., three bass, 11-9, $2,080
2nd: David Deciucis, Chester, Va., five bass, 10-11, $920
3rd: Seth Brogan, Montvale, Va., three bass, 9-13, $612
4th: Michael Luckey, Roanoke, Va., three bass, 9-12, $429
5th: Michael Poling, Amherst, Va., two bass, 8-15, $368
6th: Nathan Reeves, Lynchburg, Va., five bass, 8-12, $437
7th: Jeremy Shifflett, Elkton, Va., five bass, 8-6, $307
8th: Victor Riveras, Newport News, Va., five bass, 7-14, $276
9th: William Lisenby, Centreville, Va., three bass, 7-9, $245
10th: Mark Whitman, Elon, N.C., two bass, 7-0, $215
Grant also caught the largest bass in the Co-angler Division, a fish weighing in at 5 pounds even. The catch earned him the day’s Berkley Big Bass Co-angler award of $240.
After one event, Nichols now leads the Bass Fishing League Piedmont Division Boater Angler of the Year (AOY) race with 250 points, while Grant leads the Co-Angler Division AOY race, also with 250 points.
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