MYETTE POINT – Of the four Angler of the Year titles pocketed by Dicky Fitzgerald, the fourth was the toughest.

The Charenton all-around outdoorsman did what he had to do in the Louisiana Bass Anglers regular-season finale on Oct. 14 in the ultra-low Atchafalaya Basin out of Myette Point. He fished with Greer Billeaud of Lafayette, who helped him clinch the bass club championship with a first-place finish in the last tournament.

Fitzgerald won three of the last four bass club tournaments to stake his claim to AOY. Despite missing two of the 12 tournaments, which were “dropped,” he had the lead for much of the year after a slow start.

“It’s just being lucky and appreciative. So many things have to fall in to win it once. So many things have to fall in place,” he said a few days after his last W of 2023.

Fitzgerald, who’s as passionate about deer hunting as he is about bass fishing, and Billeaud targeted canals and bayous along the G.A. Cut to put together a five-bass limit weighing 9.25 pounds, more than enough to turn back the runners-up team of Johnny Hester of Broussard, a former Franklin resident, and Jacob Shoopman of Lafayette, formerly of New Iberia. Thanks to a culling flurry in the last 1 ½ hours of the tournament, Hester and Shoopman combined to weigh a limit at 8.09 pounds to finish second.

R.J. LeBlanc and his father, Ronald LeBlanc, both of Franklin, finished third with five bass weighing 7.80 pounds, a weight anchored by the biggest bass of the day, a 2.73-pounder.

Franklin’s Louis Daigle and his son were fourth with five bass weighing 7.80 pounds.

To win an unprecedented fourth AOY in the Louisiana Bass Anglers, Fitzgerald said he had to finish fourth or higher in a tight race against his friend and frequent fishin’ buddy, Bubbie Lopez, Mike Louviere and Tony Sinitiere.

“It was a horrible day to fish, again. Something definitely has and been for the worst (with bassin’ success in the Atchafalaya Basin). Greer and I literally fished canals off the G.A. Cut all the way up and past Benoit (Bayou Benoit). Oh, we covered some ground. Oh, Lord, we just couldn’t find anything to hang our hat on,” he said, noting they hooked and boated just seven or eight keeper bass all day on spinnerbaits and soft plastics, and no more than one keeper bass in one spot.

“The bite really shut down after 10. I was thinking we had 9 pounds. That was it. No way we were going to win overall. Luckily, everybody had as tough a day as we did. We just had better (more quality) bites.”

The 54-year-old bass angler, who owns Dicky Fitzgerald State Farm in Morgan City, was proud of the latest extra hard-earned AOY.

He praised the tournament partners he fished with in 2023.

“One hundred percent. You learn from everybody you fish with. To me that makes you a better fisherman,” he said.

Fitzgerald also isn’t one to talk up his game, so to speak. He prefers to just put his head down and fish.

The bass club champion’s fourth straight AOY, however, does give him some bragging rights for another year, he acknowledged, but at the same time put a bigger target on his back. In the end, he said, it’s all about enjoying bass fishing with some of the top bass anglers in the area.

“We fish with a great group of guys. Anybody is capable. I know they’re just as happy for me as I would be for them,” he said.

Fitzgerald’s first win out of Myette Pointe was Aug. 19 with Billeaud. Just like on Oct. 14, it wasn’t easy pickin’s in the Spillway.

“Both of those out of Myette Point were tough days. Greer and I won the other one with 12.10 pounds. Those are tournaments you’ve got to do good in … where everybody else struggles. You can kind of sneak by,” he said.

Following the regular-season finale, he had an ominous take on the state of the bass fishery in the nation’s last great overflow swamp. Atchafalaya Basin fishin’ holes he has fished successfully for many years yielded few if any bass in 2023, a sobering development that challenged him and so many others through the last tournament of the year.

“Man, we just can’t get over covering so much water (to catch keeper-sized bass). It’s a real concern for me what’s coming in the next few years,” he said.

His experience was much better at Lake Sam Rayburn on Sept. 15 for a Friday bass club tournament he fished with Lopez. They culled to a limit that weighed 14.44 pounds that featured the tournament’s lunker bass at 4.21 pounds, all on Whopper Ploppers and Choppos around grass beds in 5- to- 8-foot depths.

The key bait for reigning bass club champ throughout the year “probably was a Chatterbait,” Fitzgerald said.