A Major League Fishing tournament was cut short Wednesday due to a tragic boat wreck in which three people died and three others were injured. The fatal wreck involved two boats and occurred on Alabama’s Smith Lake at 7:03 a.m. on April 16, according to local law enforcement.
Officials have identified the three individuals killed as Joey M. Broom, 58, of Altoona, Alabama; John K. Clark, 44, of Cullman, Alabama; and Jeffrey C. Little, 62, of Brandon, Mississippi. In a statement Wednesday afternoon, Major League Fishing confirmed that tournament angler Flint Davis was one of the boaters involved in the crash, but did not specify his role in the incident. No officials have released details yet about who was injured.
“This is a heartbreaking moment for our entire organization,” MLF executive vice president Kathy Fennel said in the prepared statement. “Our deepest condolences go out to the families and friends of those affected by this tragedy.”
In the announcement accompanying Fennel’s statement, MLF said it was canceling the third and final day of competition on Thursday.
Details behind the crash are still emerging, and MLF says its organization will not release any more information at this time out of respect for those involved. But according to initial reports from the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, the fatal crash occurred in the Miller Flats area of Smith Lake. ALEA says a center console vessel “was struck by a Nitro bass boat.”
In a TikTok video posted the day of the crash and before any victims were identified, Alabama Bass Council president Allen Johnson shared some additional but unconfirmed details around the incident. Johnson claimed in the post that a center console vessel was being operated by a striped-bass guide who had multiple anglers onboard. According to Johnson, the bass boat came around a corner and collided with the center console vessel, running over the vessel and then going airborne.
“It threw the driver of that [bass] boat 50-60 feet away, and knocked the other guys out of the boat,” Johnson stated in his video.
ALEA Lt. Jeremy Burkett told AL.com that the three men who died — Broom, Clark, and Little — were all onboard the center console vessel, and that Broom was pronounced dead at the scene. The agency said Clark and Little were thrown from the boat, and their bodies were recovered from the water near Miller Flats. It’s unclear if either man was wearing a life jacket.
Neither ALEA nor MLF have confirmed who was operating the two boats, but a Facebook photo of the Nitro bass boat that was recovered from Smith Lake shows Flint Davis’ name on the side. Authorities have not clarified if anyone was onboard or if Davis was fishing solo in the three-day event, which was the third stop on the Tackle Warehouse Invitational circuit. Davis, who lives in Leesburg, Georgia, confirmed his involvement in a post he shared to his Instagram stories Wednesday.
Related: Pro Bass Anglers ‘Could Have Been Killed’ in Crash While Speeding Back to Weigh-In
WBRC reports that Broom was a councilman in Snead, a small town in Blount County, and that he was well-known in his local community.
“He always had a smile on his face. No one ever had a bad thing to say about him,” Snead mayor Tim Kent told the local news outlet. “He always put the town of Snead and its people first. They are deeply saddened and shocked. He will be missed.”
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