Sounds like a fun hobby! Used to collect fly rods when I was single. Got married and had kids and now I just have some really nice fly rods to leave any future grand kids since I haven't used them in years.
When I was young I used to fish a local pond that only had a few crappie in it, but they were of good size. I caught quite a few of them on a 1/8 oz. Big-O crank bait in shad color fished on 4 lb. line from the bank. If you have any ponds with crappie where they hang around shallow stumps give the UL crank baits a shot.