First thing is to SEARCH for piles that are good for different winds. There are lots that are great for a west or south wind. Eastand North are a bit harder to come by but definitely not impossible. The only thing hard about fishing the east side of the lake is dealing with boat traffic.
Locate your pile, mark it on gps. Situate your boat to be idling into the wind when trying to get back over it with the big motor. When you see the pile come into view on your sonar wait until it leaves right edge of the screen to throw your buoy out. When I say throw, really, just place it off to whichever side of the boat your transducer is on. Don't go crazy throwing it to far away from the boat.
This will keep your buoy upwind and you downwind, so your buoy always stays in front of the pile. That will keep you from running it over constantly with the trolling motor. After you've throw the buoy out, you should be able just to wheel around again with the trolling motor going into the wind back towards the buoy and see the pile come into view about 10ft behind the buoy with your sonar up front. DO NOT ANCHOR! All you're doing when you anchor is destroying the pile that your fishing.
Remember, if your using sonar, it's taking a reading in a cone shape below you, so just because you see s little something on the screen doesn't mean you are in the "heart" of the pile. You want to find the sweet spot where the pile is the absolute tallest on the screen. That's where you should be physically feeling brush with your jig. When you feel it, make a mental observation of where it is related to your buoy and keep the boat there.
In my experience, the best piles there are over 6 ft tall. Don't waste a lot of time on a pile if you aren't getting bit within about 4-5 minutes of fishing a pile. MOVE! By the way, use crappie nibbles. They love them there. I've stopped at Walmart at 5am to get some before because I was out. They're that important. For jigs, Chart/white is always a great color there. Blue and white when it's cloudy.
If all else fails, if there's a blue and white ranger out there. Just follow him around.
