MYETTE POINTE — What do the 2002 Los Angeles Lakers, 2000 New York Yankees, 1998 Chicago Bulls, 1982 New York Islanders, 1978 Montreal Canadiens, 1974 Oakland A’s and Dicky Fitzgerald of Charenton have in common?

They are all three-peat winners.

Fitzgerald wrapped up his third straight Angler of the Year title in impressive fashion by winning the Louisiana Bass Anglers regular-season finale Oct. 1 in the Atchafalaya Basin.

The three-peat comparison with great sports teams is fitting because he’s an all-around outdoorsman (Fitzgerald left Wednesday to hunt deer on his lease in Illinois) as well as a sports enthusiast who was a three-sport letterman at Hanson Memorial High School.

“I don’t even know what to think about it. Every year had such a different turn of events. Awesome is all I can say,” Fitzgerald said a few days after clinching the title.

He won three tournaments this year but, more importantly, was consistent with “a whole bunch of solid finishes, you know?”

What was different about this year in Fitzgerald’s third run to AOY?

“Some days it was just tough as you can imagine. Water (Atchafalaya River) stages this year were really challenging in the Basin. The marsh never really turned on and neither did the lake (Lake Fausse Pointe). I was lucky to stay with consistent finishes and compete,” Fitzgerald said from his State Farm Agency in Morgan City.

Plus, he said, there was beaucoup fishing pressure in many of the areas he fishes. Sometimes there were as many as eight tournament boats around his 22-foot long Sportsman’s Fabrication aluminum console boat built by Casey St. Romain of Morgan City.

But he prevailed more often than not.

“I just think in those situations you just fish your strengths and it’ll tend to work out,” he said.

It worked out in the regular-season finale out of Myette Point the first day of October when he fished with Greer Billeaud of Lafayette.

They came back after the safe daylight start with a winning five-bass limit weighing 13.33 pounds.

Fitzgerald, who celebrated his 53rd birthday Oct. 5, said they caught the fish on soft plastics in the Verdunville area.

Runners-up in the last tournament were Louis Daigle and his 13-year-old son, Jessie Daigle, with five bass for 12.68 pounds. The younger Daigle also boasted the day’s biggest bass, a 4.11-pounder.

Cody Pattillo, fishing alone, finished third with a limit weighing 12.31 pounds.

Fourth place was nailed down by Mike Louviere and Vernon Colson, whose five bass weighed 11.66 pounds.

Fitzgerald’s AOY title came at the expense of his good friend and fishing buddy, Bubbie Lopez of Centerville.

For the third straight year, Lopez finished second in the bass club standings to Fitzgerald, 845-725.

Unlike 2020, when he staged a comeback to finish ahead of Lopez, Fitzgerald had the lead going into the last tournament in both 2021 and 2022.

“He took the lead in August. He had a 35-point lead on me when September rolled around and we got picked together … But unfortunately I caught the flu and had to miss the tournament, which gave me a 0, so I had no chance of catching him,” Lopez said.

Fitzgerald and Lopez won the bass club’s tournament March 19 at Lake Sam Rayburn. The three-peat champion said that was his most satisfying win of the year.

There was beaucoup boat traffic at the time because there was a Texas high school tournament and one or two other big tournaments underway.

After they finished second in the tournament on a windy day May 18 with 14.27 pounds, Fitzgerald and Lopez put it all together in the second-day tournament to win with 19.57 pounds, including a 6.72-pounder.

“We figured out the fish were a lot shallower than most people thought. Once we figured that out, we had areas to do that (fish shallow),” he said.

That win helped propel him to yet another AOY.

“We both have four AOY titles since we started in the club. His three back-to-back-to-back are very impressive and has never been done before in the club. He probably would have more if he wouldn’t have taken a break to watch his daughters compete in sports as they were growing up,” Lopez said.

“We are both competitive in the club. We scout and fish a lot together, as you know. My rule of thumb is if we scout in his boat together I don’t go on his fish and vice versa. But we do swap spots throughout the day if we choose to do so, especially this year me not having my boat since April. So we used his boat a lot this year.

“We fish good together. We’ve been friends forever,” Fitzgerald said.

Rounding out the Top Six for 2022 are Johnny Hester, 636; Cody Pattillo, 607; Tony Sinitiere, 541, and Mike Louviere, 539.