Crappie Expo 2022 and current Palestine report!!

Anybody planning on heading to Branson? We leave the head that way Friday. Looks like the temps will be much more pleasant this year as well! 2 years ago that was the most miserable week of fishing in my life! When it wasn't cold and raining it was cold and snowing!! Wally puts on a heck of a show and it's cool to see so many folks passionate about crappie fishing! This is our last big one of the year until the Crappie Masters Elite series kicks off in Feb of 2023! Thanks to all the great folks that make this possible letting a couple E Tx rednecks chase their dreams! If you check them out tell them we sent you!

As for the Palestine report I've been on the lake some between tournaments and other commitments and the water has been cooling off and getting the fish more active. I've been starting with an 1/8oz hand tie in Bad Shad or Purple Passion with a split shot above it 8-10" and it they won't bite that I pull the split shot off and if they're still picky I switch to 1/16oz jigs. I'm trying to run a split shot above those. That combo stuck 50 in the box last trip! I'm fishing main lake timber in 12-24 FOW. I usually have a good dock bite this time of year but with the low water alot are out of play and the few that are still holding fish and water are getting beat to death. I have Wed Nov 16th as my earliest opening. I'm taking time to go hunting this fall and have other commitments so I'm only doing limited bookings right now. I'll have some dates in December as well as December was really good last year.

Tight Lines!!

Slew

I won't be making it but GOOD LUCK.....

Good looking mess of fish there Todd ! See you tomorrow !

Thanks! Y’all throttled em today!

Awesome

Headed out!! See if 6 tires can get us there and back!!

Good luck in Branson amigo.

Don't be keeping those tourney fish now....LOL

Gettem’ guys!!!!!!

Well that one was tough! We had one good day of prefishing and that was it! Never really put anything together here this time. Found good fish but couldn’t run into enough of them and make them bite. Made it through day one cut in 36th place and then fell on our faces day two! That’s fishing. Off to a good breakfast and to check out the expo! So awesome to see what Wally has done and to watch crappie fishing grow.

Next stop the Crappie Masters elite series trail stop to Cross Lake in Shreveport La in Feb! Thanks to all the fine folks that help us out along the way. No way we could do this without them!

Slew

What kind of pattern did you find up there? I am curious to see how most were finding them. I would think docks would play a role but not sure.

Would be great if Wally would post the results on the Expo website. Don't see anything on his FB page or anywhere else. I don't subscribe to any YouTube channels and don't see anything there either. Very poor PR for what's billed as the biggest payout tournament for crappie fishing.

It was nearly midnight I believe before the anglers even knew if they were fishing day three. The weigh in's are an absolute beat down to watch vs crappie masters in my opinion. I give him credit for putting on an absolute beast of a tournament.

There’s areas that could be improved for sure but it’s an amazing show that he works on all year! We head to Birmingham next year. I do t know what we’re fishing there yet but we hope to be there!!

Day 1








Day 2






Final Day 3 Championship Friday

how do folks qualify to fish this tournament? From what I gather its by invitation only? so what do you do. do you send a request to fish and see if you are selected or not? what is the criteria used for selection? sounds like it would be awesome to fish with alot of the best sticks in the game. thanks

If you bring along a good enough sponsor you can get in also. Also it seems to be a thing where you better have never crossed Wally also or no invite. The crappie masters elites is going to be a fun one to watch. Big entry fee's and big payouts!

I believe you have to qualify also? I could be wrong but I remember Wally putting on qualifier tourneys too

Top 25 and all prior winners are invited plus he does 2 qualifiers and some expo sponsors get an exempt team entry. Last year he did qualifiers at the Red River in Natchitoches, La which we won and one in Virginia. We’ve fished all 4 expos and until this year were one of 3 teams that made it to the final day every year. Only one team left that’s made all 4 years. Next year is in Birmingham Alabama but that all I know.

It’s pretty awesome to see an entire event that size dedicated just to crappie fishing! I’ve enjoyed it all 4 years we’ve been there!

I can just invision ronnie capps and steve coleman asking me how I caught all of my fish. at weigh in...

I get your drift. I guess its his sandbox and he decides the players and the game. Im sure theres thousands of people who would like to enter and he has to have a particular selection process. Being he is in the fishing tackle and equiptment sales business I imagine theres alot of discretion that has to be used on which companies are even allowed to sponsor, sponsors backing out, and alot of other politics involved. different states with different rules and logistical challenges , it has to be ALOT of work. Holding the event in different states gives more opportunity to showcase different products from himself and his sponsors to alot more people. The fact that there just arent alot of major crappie competiton events taking place across the country gives him a broad area to expand out to.
myself and others have tried to organize a 15 team crappie fishing event in one county, and its like herding cats.. just ridiculous.. somebody will call and say hey,, I got 25.00 and 5 boxes of Dude Wipes. but we need a space for a 10 foot banner...

Go fish a qualifier next year LP! You'll likely get invited. That said you still have the entry fee! This year it was $3k, most likely it will increase $500-$1000 this next year. Every year he raises the entry fee it's going to get harder and harder to get a full field of anglers IMO but it sure is exciting fishing for $100k first place!

There's no way we could do it at the level we do without a lot of support!!

I once saw a video where ronnie capps said they had won over a million dollars fishing crappie tourneys.. he then said it cost them over a million to do it.
I would be in for the fun, the camaraderie and to learn and meet new anglers.
I didnt realize the stakes were that high,, so you pay a 3.000 entry fee and can get eliminated after the first day...
BUT the second day your competing against fewer anglers, and even fewer the third.. very interesting.
with folks spending alot of jingle just to get there, and the 3 grand entry fee, maybe have everybody fish all 3 days and the best 7 fish in one of the 3 day periods wins,, because anybody can have a breakdown, a case of diarrhea, equiptment stolen ect.. or the best total weight over 3 days.. it would keep everybody in the game, as im sure most anglers that are eliminated go home, instead of staying in the hotel, or sticking around, to buy vendor items.
also as far as a level playing fields, locals would have a big advantage knowing the lake, and having a better idea of the current patterns. even if they arent allowed to prefish, word gets around in fishing circles.
being able to compete all 3 days would give anglers not familiar with the lake more time to learn the lake.

is this a 100 percent payout tournament,., ? with approx 88 teams at 3.000 per entry,, that is around 265.000 dollars in entries.

This is a big reason (along with the fact I do not enjoy how it is currently formatted) is why I don't care to tournament crappie fish. You can't make no money at it. If you take into consideration all the costs involved. You better be winning every tourney. The CAT state championship payout was 6.6K for first and that is alot but when you take into consideration the tournaments you have to enter to qualify (and do well in) to fish the state championship (hotels, gas, food and boat wear and tear/maintenance, bait, rods and reels, etc..) and then the same for the championship as well as the member fee involved, you really didn't make much winning that. For some, they don't care about the money and they do it because they love it and that is great but most pro's (I am not one) can't operate breaking even like that or even loosing money.

in tournament fishing in general , its a tough gig..alot of the bass fisherman, they drag a 90.000 boat pulled by a 70.000 truck back and forth the country all year,, plus hotel fees. food, gas, ect. then tourney fees.. very few ever make alot of money by winning tournament proceeds,, the way they make real money is by getting big sponsorships, that pay them to promote thier products, segments on television, writing articles in magazines and online. all the tournaments really do is build your professional name and a winning reputation. you become considered an authority at your craft..
take all of these bass fisherman who put thier name on different lures.. 99 percent did not invent, develop,. or improve these lures.. they made a deal with a lure manufacturer to put thier name on it. if they win a tournament, they say yep, I caught the winning fish on this lure, made by this company, with my name on it.. and it sells product.. what you are really doing is becoming a human advertising mechanism for certain companies in exchange for money.
. just like many other sports, such as NASCAR. you can immediate identify the car and driver by who thier sponsors are. Many athletes sign onto sponsor packages, so they will be wearing a hat with one companies logo, drinking a soda with another logo, and have 15 patches on thier shirt with various others.
for crappie fishing tournaments to really take off and rival bass tournaments there has to be a path to make alot of money,, a very large company would sponsor an event, and then many others would follow suit.
heres the problem though,, go to the fishing section at any sporting goods store, and look at the inventory,. academy for example.. 5 aisles of bass fishing tackle that range in prices from 1.00 to 26 dollars for a lure,, every shape, size, and color of worm a human can imagine, crankbaits, chatter baits, buzzbaits, umbrella rigs, deep divers, mid divers, shallow divers, blade baits, spoons, top water, and on and on to ad nausium.
then go to the crappie fishing section,, you have hair jigs, plastics, hooks, sinkers and crappie nibbles. many crappie fisherman prefer live minnows over jigs . so the point is, there just is not as much potential for sponsors to make huge amounts of money by endorsing crappie fishing products. the few common brands that have been in business for many decades, like bobby garland, yum, Arkie, ect pretty much dominate shelf space and have resources to supply a constant stream of product at very reasonable prices.. they have been there for generations, and thats what grandpappy used to use. every year we see many tackle company start ups, with some really good products, but most never amount to much, you wont see them in academy, wallmart, Dicks, cabelas, ect.. the shelf space is so valuable, your not going to get in without big connections. so my point is everything always lead to the money, and if the money is not there, its not going to happen.
going thru the list of names in the tournament, theres 2 teams that most crappie fisherman are familiar with Whitey outlaw, and capps and coleman. the rest of the names, unless they are from your hometown, nobody knows who they are. there just isnt alot of platforms for people to become well known. so the chances of most of the anglers fishing gaining any kind of notoriety that will project them into a position to make crappie fishing a lucrative endeavor is pretty much zilch.

It’s paid out 100pxt of what’s collected in entry fees. Crappie masters elite series is going to pay out more than what’s collected next year. It’s awesome seeing tournament fishing grow but as others have said nobody outside of maybe Hayden Jefferies made money this year. I love the roller coaster ride that’s tournament fishing and I don’t know a better way to become a better angler.

Without TV exposure, and a format that is viewer interesting, crappie tournament fishing will only grow a limited amount. Crappie tournament fishermen will continue fishing for their own money. Until LiveScope came along, watching a crappie tournament on TV (Crappie Masters) was like watching paint dry. The format has to change to interest viewers and hence sponsors.

That said; 15 yrs ago, who heard of crappie tournament trails, national tournaments, State crappie fishing organizations? Things have changed tremendously in 15 yrs with crappie fishing tournaments and crappie fishing in general. Just like bass fishing tournaments changed bass fishing, the same is happening with crappie fishing. The improvements in equipment, knowledge, techniques, and variety of tackle is impressive. That trend will continue.

And as Slewfoot has said many times, there's no better way to improve your crappie fishing knowledge than fishing tournaments. My knowledge base and techniques certainly improved after I started tournament fishing.

with huge companies like johnson outdoors, owning just abt everything in the fishing industry, , it would take somebody like them to lay the cabbage down to get more interest going,
with livescope being used by almost every crappie fisher,man that has the jingle to buy one, Garmin could step up and create an amazing platform, like the Garmin Livescope crappie series.
People would watch it , no doubt. especially if they put cameramen in the boat with the anglers to showcase the technology. Garmin seems to be a very innovative, think outside the box type of company, so who knows maybe Garmin will be the ones that make it happen.. People who have never seen the technology in action are blown away. This would be a path that leads to money, because when you see what it can do, you want it.. badly..lol
theres alot of other factors that come in to play when large companies try to do things,, humminbird, lowrance and Garmin have been in legal battles over technology, trade names, patents, ect perpetually..
The big business world is brutal, cut throat, nasty and ruthless.. start a tv show and just mention someones trade name without permission and you could end up in court facing a 12 man team of lawyers that will try to make your life miserable. this is why on many shows, they have a piece of tape covering brand names on hats, jackets, beverages, anything. quite ridiculous..
take Johnson Outdoors, they donate more than most companies can gross in 5 years.. they donated around 600.000 to the fisheries center in athens last year alone.. They are Titans in the industry.