Not sure what lake you frequent, but in the spring it is a pretty universal pattern. The shallow bite will begin to ramp up as the water temps hit and hold in the mid 50's. Leading up to that temp, you will find crappie in various stages of readiness to spawn so your focus should be on following creek channels from the mouth of the creek back toward the head of the creek (or progressively shallower water). Look for structure, primarily wood, and you should find crappie in, around and suspended near it.
When the crappie are in spawn mode, the bite can be as shallow as inches of water, but in virtually all cases it will be oriented to woody cover, tree limbs, stake beds, stumps, whatever. Bait placement must sometimes be precise, right next to the cover, to get bit. Use tube jigs and tight line or use a slip bobber and a long B&M crappie rod to keep your distance from disturbing the shallow fish. Tube colors don;t matter as long as chartreuse is in there somewhere. I use black head, red body, chartreuse tail tube and Berkley Crappie Nibbles. Good luck.
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