Fish in your neck of the woods are going to be irritable and in different spawn phased - not all fish spawn at the same time, but crappie do school tight in the shallows in anticipation. Light jig heads 1/64, 1/32, 1/16 oz. plus soft plastic lure in any one of a thousand designs, cast a decent distance and can be worked slowly. Here's a Crappie Magnet grub added to a 1/16 oz jig caught many crappie the day it was used:
As you can see, one of the crappie caught was over 12"":
Hair jigs (in this case my dog's) also produce:
Here I cut off the parts of a Brush Hog and used the forward piece :
Beetle Spin and various grub designs should be considered:
Note the curl tail grub. It's been catching fish for decades with out without the B.Spin. In fact I caught a sunnie and crappie yesterday from the bank using one.
Even the claw off a bass craw lure caught fish:
Now I wouldn't say not to use a float with lure hanging down, but IMO you want to cover water a bit faster by fan casting from shore as far out as the lure will cast. Make sure it goes down beneath the surface hopefully at mid depth.
But also consider this: any lure shown above is capable of catching most species of fish, not just crappie.