Oh yeah! That fine shadow edge is so often critical!

My partner had the same experience as you last evening. He only managed 3 crappies for the hours we were out while I released more than a dozen from ALMOST the same exact spots. He was experimenting with a new piece of tiny hardware quite a bit of the time, though, learning it. His end of the evening waldo caught on it paid for all as far as he was concerned. All my crappies last evening came on jigs and various plastic tails, and they weren't fast and furious for me either. It seemed like if I caught one or maybe two crappies on a tail pattern the rest had seen all of it they wanted and I had to switch out. Most of those switches came up empty anyway.

Moored and even anchored boats can provide just that touch of a shaded edge necessary, as can swimming platforms. Far too many crappie fishermen do not look for that kind of overhead shade and just plain miss out.

It definitely also pays to move until you make contact regardless of whether one is on foot or in a boat. For us a lot of that initial contact is ticks and nibbles, very often sunnies, from which we try to sort out the one timers hoping they are crappies. Very often they are when those one timers are in the bottom layers, although they may not cooperate too well, in which case we move.

If they aint biting where you are, why waste any more time there!