Glad I could help guys. I have 1000's of hours on this body of water. The knowledge does me little good if I cannot share it!

To answer the age old Minnow/plastics question. I will give you this:

When I first started fishing crappies, I was overwhelmed with all the different baits, lures, techniques and so on. I had very little success and had no idea why. I took the advice of one old timer and simply went with minnows. I didn't catch a ton of fish at first, but I did catch fish. I went back to the same spots I used the above techniques and guess what? I didn't catch any fish with minnows either! The conclusion was so simple that I didn't want to believe it. Simply put, there were no crappies where I had been fishing.

Minnows helped me locate fish. Whether it was big schools or little pockets. It helped me learn where they might be at during different times of year, high sunlight, clouds, rain, and so on. Once I learned where they were, it was a lot easier to target them. Since that time, I've switched over to mostly soft plastics. At times, they do catch more fish. Color, action, size all play a role in that. I have lakes where one color is dynamite yet they won't hit it on another lake. Chalk it up to visibility, water clearity and so on. I learned this from minnows.

My suggestion is the K.I.S.S method (keep it simple, stupid). The best bait to start with is a gold #4, #2, or #1 aberdeen hook with a bobber. In the spring, I prefer a weighted Thill bobber (has a weight on the end to ease in casting) I set this about 4 foot above my hook and minnow. I don't use any weights. I locate more springtime fish with this than any other method. As summer progresses, I will switch to 1/32, 1/16, or 1/8 oz colored jig heads. Sometimes I cast and retrieve, other times I verticle jig, other times I drift. Let the wind and line deflection dictate what weight you use to get your bait in the strike zone.

Lastly, presentation can be key as Yankee Doodler and I learned last spring at Croton/Hardy. The fish were in the tree tops of down trees that extended from the bank to about 14 foot of water. Although verticle jigging in the timber produced some fish, the best action was when we swung the bait out in a pendulum motion and let the bait swing away from the trees. You will loose some jigs, that is just the nature of the beast. Jigging timber in the summer time is awesome (especially on Hodenpyle). Yes there are a TON of trees. Choosing which ones to target can be difficult.... UNLESS you trust your electronics. Quickly you will be able to tell if there are fish in and around the timber. Look for "suspended" fish. These are usually crappies. They don't hang out on the bottom. Once you find them, try everything you can to entice a strike, and then move on. Sometimes it takes 5 or so before you hit an active pod.