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I've got plenty of time under my belt fishing dannys, so here are my thoughts.
You want them to work slow, making a wake. You need to tune your plug to do this. The quick head down snapping action that most have out of the bag (and requires a moderate retrieve to get going) has great eye appeal and works fine for aggressive fish, but is too energetic to convince a large fish to chase.
Tune your plug by bending the eye down and tweaking the lip angle to get a slow s-shaped swimming motion at the lowest speed you can stand to reel. Up sizing your hooks to sink it lower in the water also helps getting it swimming sooner and with a more subdued action.
Next, fish it by day until you get the retrieve speed right. Particularly with big spinning tackle it is very easy to retrieve dannys (and most other plugs) too fast in the dark when you tend to fall into a comfortable cranking speed.
Pause often during your retrieve. At night, twitch once, pause again, then restart. Often that is when the hit comes. By day, try ripping or popping the plug ("calling 'em up" is how my son describes it). There is a trick to this. You pop a danny with its side, rather than its face. Try to pop it when it is coming at you and you either get a a violent dig, or a dig and tumble. Instead, pause in your retrieve and drop your rod tip to give the plug slack and let it veer to one side and stop so it is facing 90degrees away from you. Let it sit then give it a hard short rip (too long a tug will make it tumble). As you yank it back facing you the side of the plug will create a splash/chug. Pause again, then restart your retrieve.
As far as size goes, think medium in the spring (herring size) and large (bunker size) in the fall. Also, fish big dannys with confidence particularly when there are peanut bunker around. Something about the smell of bunker in the water triggers bass to key in on bunker of any size.
As far as conditions, I like water calm, current gentle, and a little bit of turbidity. Fish will come up from 18 feet to hit a danny if water clarity is decent. Too clear though and you have trouble. They'll follow it back to your feet but not take unless they have competition chasing it. Then I go to a spook/pencil/popper to get 'em mad and give them less time to look things over.
As far as color, white is always good by day, yellow (or fluro green) is fine too. Easier to see what your doing with light colored backs on your swimmers. I do well with purple dannys at night, but have to keep reminding myself to slow down, even with conventional reels. I like large blue and white ones in the fall.
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