MYETTE POINT – Despite being on the winning team three of the last five Louisiana Bass Anglers tournaments in 2024, Bubbie Lopez realizes his hot streak was too late to capture his fifth Angler of the Year title.

The accomplished Centerville bass angler will take the strong finish, just the same, particularly the regular-season finale Oct. 27 held out of Myette Point Landing in the Atchafalaya Basin. Lopez teamed up for the umpteenth time with Dicky Fitzgerald of Charenton and won with five bass weighing 13.41 pounds, including the biggest bass of the day, a 5.80-pounder.

The winners had a 1-plus pound advantage over the second-place father-and-son team of Louis Daigle and Jesse Daigle, whose limit weighed 12.26 pounds. Louis Daigle used the clutch runners-up showing to wrap up the 2024 AOY title.

Tony Sinitiere, who made a late charge of his own in his bid for AOY by winning a tournament here Sept. 29 with Lopez, finished third in the last LBA contest with 9.36 pounds. Sinitiere, who also had a win by himself on May 11 out of Franklin Landing, finished second in the AOY standings behind Daigle and just ahead of Lopez.

The Elite 8 qualifiers from the Louisiana Bass Anglers are Daigle, 805; Sinitiere, 735; Lopez, 667; Johnny Hester, 667; Levi Louviere, 655; Cody Pattillo, 630; Travis Harmon, 610, and Fitzgerald, 572.

Lopez, lead operator for Perdido energy, and nine other boats confronted an extremely low Spillway when they went out at safe daylight on Oct. 27. The Atchafalaya River stage at Butte La Rose was under 3.0 feet that day.

The tournament’s winners took the challenges and tribulations of extra-low water in stride.

“I know the spots that normally pay off this time of year. For this last one, we didn’t even scout. We just went fishing,” Lopez said, noting their prime spot was in the Charenton/Myette Point area.

Lopez, 58, and Fitzgerald, who caught about a dozen bass, had their five-fish limit before 8 a.m. But they were stuck on 8 pounds and continued to catch the same-sized fish, according to Lopez. They left to fish a few different areas before returning to their starting spot, where they ran into the nearly 6-pound bass that changed the game around 9:30 a.m.

Fitzgerald, 55, believed he had a sizeable gaspergoo on the business end of his line, Lopez said, pointing out he didn’t reach for the landing net until the fish, a 5.80-pound bass, jumped with the white Chatterbait in its mouth.

“I said, ‘That ain’t no ’goo!’ I haven’t seen a bass like that in the Basin in a long time. That fish would be close to 7 pounds if it was the spawn,” Lopez said. “I wasn’t expecting something that big, that’s for sure.”

The long-time bass fishin’ buddies happily welcomed the outlier aboard after that midmorning excitement. The team still had unfinished business to attend to in the nation’s last great overflow swamp.

A flurry of six bites around 1:30 p.m., less than 2 hours before weigh-in, resulted in three of the right bites.

“Later on during the day we culled three of our little fish. We shut it down and we were on our trailer for 2 o’clock,” Lopez said.

He said bass they caught were around deadfalls and grass and all but one bit on a white 3/8-ounce Chatterbait.

Lopez and Fitzgerald, both born and raised in Franklin, aren’t done yet. They will fish the Louisiana Bass Anglers Classic scheduled to be held Nov. 9.