I recently moved (seasonally) to a lake that has a relatively small Crappie population, but some real slobs. The local fishermen suggest that it's not really worth pursuing crappie here and that they're considered a bi-catch when you're fishing for Spotted bass or other species. I don't accept that and have vowed to figure the lake out and learn how to fairly reliably go out and catch at least 8 or 10 Crappie when I needed or wanted to. Folks do occasionally plant some brush, but it's not like the other nearby lakes that have tons of brushpiles and other cover for Crappie. It's a deep lake and there are tons of docks on the lake, but they're almost all floating docks (requirement of the energy company that controls the shoreline). It's a river run reservoir in the southeast and I'm typically down here from Dec 1 until April 30th or thereabouts.

My question is how to handle the floating docks and whether they really hold many Crappie (compared to the anchored docks with pilings on most lakes). The docks all have some cable system of anchoring them, but very few have any anchored posts or other structure. So, is the shade provided by the docks enough to hold Crappie? I've only caught a handful of Crappie on the lake so far (including some really, really nice ones), but as of now, I've only caught ONE on a dock. Do I need to just work harder and find a honey run of those docks that might reliably hold Crappie or should I ignore the docks and look for brush elsewhere? I do feel like I'm a competent dock shooter with small jigs, so I don't think it's an issue with my technique or inability to present a jig.

Just really curious what the dock guys do with these floating docks, particularly on a lake that only has floating docks.