This is a tried and true method.

You might try using a 1/4 oz. Beetle Spin (black with the yellow stripes.) That's a small bait, but almost guaranteed to get you some bites. Many years ago, a buddy and I caught well over 50 bass (on the small size---about 3/4 lbs) in just a few hours while on Jordan Lake in a boat fishing coves.
Maybe head 20 miles north and try out Falls Lake.

Good luck. I lived in No. Raleigh for 20 years. Only 3 miles from boat ramp off of six forks road. Fished several years in my Bass boat there. While I was primarily fishing for bass, when I was using smaller sized baits you would think an occassional crappie would take it.

I'm sure there has to be crappie there, but all that time, i never caught any.

Well, yeah there is a "stop" on that seat as far as (trailering down the road). There is a button just above the pedestal floor that locks the pedestal in place. I don't like that feature and have "crippled" that feature for my seat in the front end of the boat.
It is needed however for the rear boat seat that my wife uses because going down the road without the "lock" feature causes the wind to blow the whole seat either left or right as far as it would go. So I maintain the lock for that reason only. Once we have launched and are fishing, I will tape over the button or somehow keep it from engaging so that she can rotate either left or right as need be.

We're certainly not fishing in conditions that would fling her over the back end.
There for sure seems to be clearance for my boat steps versus the boat bow. I made several measurements before purchasing the whole set up. I had to hack 8" out of my winch post because it interfered with the middle step of my stairs. Also had to relocate my trailer jack. Now all seems OK but have not yet tested it all out.

The caster wheel is there obviously for support given the length of the cross bar. I'm doubting any problems with tracking the wheel as it makes an arc from left to right as however she want to cast.......out the left back side or the right back side. She not even 130 pounds soaking wet so not likely to strain the welded and caster supported setup. However, I do have a fishing buddy that goes maybe 250 pounds plus. So I do have some concern when/if he joins me for some bass fishing and occupies that seat.

The fishing boat I bought several months ago, needed some "mods" to be like I wanted it to be.

First of all, in my opinion was a very poor engineering of the rear boat seat location. I did want to maintain a shorter boat length overall so as to be able to keep the boat in one of my garage stalls and not have to pay for storage fees monthly.

So this model plants the rear boat seat pedestal right smack up against the big motor. This causes multiple problems, you can't trailer down the road without removing the seat and pedestal to allow the big motor to tilt up for trailering. Not only that, you can't even "slightly" trim it out.......like if you're trolling near the shore line and happen to come to a halt cause the big motor has bumped up against a submerged stump or log.
Usually when that happens, you just hit the trim switch and tilt it up some and then you can use the trolling motor and keep going.
Well, you couldn't trim the big motor more than about 4-5", and bang it is right up against the seat. In addition, my wife when seated rearward to fish would have her feet right into the big motor hoses and drain well.
I might add that this boat came with NO forward mounted trim switch so that while I was up front in my own boat seat, I could reach down and hit the trim switch.
So I designed a seat pedestal modification and purchased a caster wheel. Took my boat and design to local welder guy and for $80, he fixed it up as I wanted.
Here is a picture of my new set up and also the trailer steps I bought to save my old azz when climbing into the boat during a launch and/or re-trailering to leave

So I also purchased a trim switch for the front end and now that is installed as well.

Good for you, not all the bow eyes are the same and in my case, not enough room for the winch strap hook once the Drotto latch was engaged and then "barely" room to add the safety chain.

Well, they removed my Drotto so I could trailer back home with the winch secured and not the front of the boat bobbing up and down as it was before I realized they didn't hook up the winch strap because it would not fit in the eye along with the Drotto.
So, eyeballing your picture, your bow angle looks very steep and appears to allow for the Drotto to catch hold of the very top edge of the "eye", which leaves room for the winch hook and also the safety chain hook.
My observation was that the Drotto on my boat appeared as flush as could be and as said before, it just didn't/can't/won't allow enough room. The winch hook MUST be used to cinch down the front of the boat for trailering. We looked at optional stainless hooks that could add an extra cinching loop, but the diameter of the stainless hook would also not go thru the remaining space in the "eye".
Thought it would be the "deal" for me as an old guy trying to avoid any extra leaning over the front and other hassles to launch and reload, but it turned out not to be.

I'm now exploring getting a credit to return the Drotto.

Well, there is half ass logic in your answer, as if you had reversed those sentences, meaning after loading the boat, then release the Drotto, then OF COURSE you would again then have room to hook the winch hook and also the safety chain up.

However, next time at the lake launch, you now have the Drotto sitting there "unlatched", it is the forward movement of the boat being loaded that "triggers" the drotto jaws to close around the eye. While the Drotto comes with a lever to "unlatch" the jaws when launching, not so sure it provides a way to (relatch) again while the boat is solidly in place on the trailer butted right up against the bow eye.
My Marine Boat Shop source had installed a few of these before with less than good results. He said mine was the last one he would agree to install. Too many problems, by the way he checked the next size up on bow eyes and the bolt spread is wider and thus you would have a hole in the bow where the smaller eye had been and also, the thickness of the eye material is heavier on next size up and Drotto jaws won't accept that larger size.

If you Google Drotto and read all the associated replies, there are several different boat owners that found the Drotto system would not work on their boat trailer and boat hook up.

This Drotto was mounted correctly as I saw it. I had been going to install it myself, but since I was having a new trolling motor installed and going from a 12V system to a 24V system for it and also the install of a new shallow water anchor........I asked them to go ahead and install the Drotto as well since the original Boat Shop where I bought the boat had the boat too far forward on the trailer and it needed to be moved back to be in the right position.
The damn iron hook on the winch strap is quite large and "meaty", so there was no room left to get it hooked back in place. The Drotto is NOT made nor supposed to be used to hold down the boat while being trailered down the road.

Thanks, I will be checking that out this weekend.

If you are not familiar with the Drotto setup, go to this site and check it out.

https://www.boat2trailerhookup.com/product/drotto-boat-latch-3-34-with-roller/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI4IPr7KfO-QIVMTizAB0syAjjEAQYASABEgK2ZfD_BwE

I bought one to attach to my new boat and trailer to ease the launch and also the loading again of the boat. As it turns out, my set up cannot use this device. The boat "eye" where you attach the winch rope is also where this device latches to the boat. That "eye" must be big enough to contain both the latch jaws and leave room for the winch hook as well.
Mine could not do that. I spent over $330 including shipping for it. Will sell it for $200 (plus shipping). Let me know at moscooter@aol.com

SOLD.................

I appreciate your attempt to help. But your bringing up a scenario that drives me crazy. Everybody wants to see a picture............I'm old school from way back where you looked at ads in the Wanted column and the item was described and if you were interested, you went to look at it.

Now days, you could advertise a claw hammer for sale...........Some jerk would want to see a picture of it.

As I said, it's a brand new trolling motor and if one is interested and knows anything at all about such things, they can easily google the Minn Kota site and see exactly what that model looks like and all the info about it.

The boat is stowed away right now in garage. Trying to line up a local Marina to install the stuff I mentioned. Did have it at one place a few weeks back for over two weeks and they were so backed up they couldn't get to it. I had to take it out of there so we couid use the boat on our one week trip to the lake.

As to a picture of the motor, i listed the Model number of the boat in the ad. All ya gotta do to see what exactly it looks like is google that Minn Kota model and bingo............there is your picture of it.

I will look into that. Kinda odd, but even though the boat came with just a 12v trolling motor, the on board charger in it is ( 3 Banks). So it has leads for the main motor and also two trolling motors.