One of the best areas you can find is a section of a lake that is full of very dense weeds.  The key remains finding some wood within the thicket of weeds.  If you have a hard time getting your boat into an area that is a good place to start.  If you merely fish in the weeds themselves you are likely to catch large members of other species of pan fish like Bluegills and Rock Bass.  If however you can find some standing or fallen timber within these hard to reach areas you may truly find a school of very large Crappie ripe for the taking.
 
Your equipment must also be matched to the type and size of fish you seek.  You should not spool heavy line on your reels however.  Two pound test line is optimal but please do not use line over four pound test.  Crappie reach large sizes by avoiding fishing lines and are very wary.  You should use larger bait however.  If you are a live bait fisherman try minnows you would normally use for bass or even large ribbon leeches for bait.  The normal crappie sized minnows will attract too many small pan fish.  The truly large Crappie wants to feed less often and make larger meals that its smaller sized kin.  If you are fishing with artificial baits you should increase the size of your jigs by at least fifty percent over what you normally cast.  You can even consider other lures you normally would use for bass.
 
This in a nutshell is trophy Crappie fishing. If you follow the principles given here your chances for success will dramatically improve.

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