Wally Marshall had a vision to put on the biggest crappie tournament in the world and he with the help of many crappie fishing supporters put together the first ever $100,000 Mr. Crappie Invitational and Expo in Hot Springs Arkansas Oct. 4-6. One hundred teams were invited to participate in the first-of-its-kind crappie tournament with the first ever Crappie Expo and World's Largest Fish Fry. Lake Hamilton hosted the professional crappie fishing tournament with the professional teams vying for the largest first-place payout in the history of crappie fishing at $40,000.
Lake Hamilton proved very stingy during the three-day tournament due largely in part to the extreme heat-wave that gripped the midwest most of September. Still in late summer patterns, the crappie were few and far between. But the team of Tony and Mike Sheppard of Murray, Kentucky figured out how to catch quality each day by targeting white crappie relating to brush on deep humps and black crappie relating to brush on points in the Little Mazarn arm of Lake Hamilton.