I think my local lake is just over fished, had someone tell me a month or so ago, that they guides have left this lake...Normally I fish a variety of lakes, but this year I been fishing one lake that is closest to my house because of gas prices. Will probably fish another lake this weekend, plus scout for ducks!

to expound a bit on what Ron said abt the graph pics, sometimes those bright roundish blobs we can see on brush or timber can be decieving. alot of times what they are is zebra mussle clusters. on one particular lake I fish, especially in one area, the mussles are really bad and Ive been mistaken several times, thinking it was crappie, but it was not. keep this in the back of your mind when looking at stuff on livescope.

I love this Walmart fish fryer, it cooks my crappie dinner so nicely..

this time of year can be tough, its a transition cycle..baitfish are gathering is small to medium sized pods.. sometimes just sitting on or near the bottom, out in open water, with no cover or structure around them. they will move from area to area, and crappie are following them around , so the crappie are very scattered and in a roaming /feeding mode.
last week we went to waco, there were fish on almost every brushpile in 9 to 13 feet..
we went this sunday, just a few here, a few there and not biting. we checked brush in all depths, we checked mid depth drop offs and ledges, we checked deep ledges, we checked the bridge. all not holding many fish., there is not alot of timber on waco in mid depths or deeper water. historically I know that crappie will start gathering at the mouths of main river channels and start going up these river channels following baitfish. with the lake being 12 feet low, its not as predictable as to where they will be found. next trip out I will go to the entrances of main lake river channels and see what I can find. I will focus on any timber I can find at the entrances of these river channels . you just have to systematically break the lake down and try many different areas.
with the lakes being very low, the crappie may gather at these main river channel entrances, but no go into them. if schools of baitfish arent going into the river and creek channels the crappie wont go into them in mass.. , a hard cold front may come thru, drop the water temp drastically, and they leave the entrances to the channels and go out to deep ledges in the main lake. the crappie will go where the bulk of the shad are going.. The shad will go to the most nutrient rich , oxygen rich , plankton laden areas they can find that they find a suitable temperature. I dont believe water temp affects crappie location very much at all as far as thier comfort level , but it greatly affects shad.
usually this time of year, the winds are coming out of the north predominantly, this year, they are very unpredictable, many times changing direction many times in a few hours. this affects where the plankton and daphnia will be on a lake. you just have to put the time and work in to find out where they are . when you find them they may be there today but not tommorow. if u go to navionics webapps you can study your lake and find high probability areas to go check. put together a game plan, and go execute your plan. dont get distracted by what other people are doing, you may see 5 boats fishing brushpiles,. so you think , hmmm they must be on the brush, therefore I will do what they are doing. then you realize, nobody else is catching any and you dont either. They are doing what many anglers do, they sit there and hope the fish come.. HOPE IS NOT A STRATEGY..
pay attention to bird activity, especially gulls , terns and cormorants.. they keep tabs on the daily shad locations and like to rest on banklines near where they are feeding on shad.