5/20 Windy Trolling report

One of my employees and his 15 year old son made the 3 hour trip with me this morning from Indiana to the Catawba Launch. The forecast by Friday afternoon/evening was looking doable, but certainly not great, with 15-18 mph sustained winds from the WNW. My thought was make a slow trip until we get on the east side of South Bass, then we should get some wind relief and calmer waters. I had the privilege of meeting Capt. Sam "Porkchop" Downing at the launch and we chatted just a bit. After looking at my relatively small boat he commented, "Your going to get beat up out there". He wasn't wrong. But we did manage to get to the east side of the Bass islands and found some calmer waters. After seeing a few marks, we started by making a troll from near Perry's and headed SE with the wind. We were pulling all larger cranks, bandits, SPRO 120, Reef Runner 800 and one Precision Walleye Crank. After trolling over 1/2 mile without a bite, I decided to head further north. On the way, north of Perry's we saw 1 boat that was pulling boards close enough to the island that they were probably fishing 18 to 20 fow. I found it hard to believe they were trolling in that shallow of water! However, after we saw them land a couple fish in just a few minutes I told my guys, "I really don't have a better plan, so let's give it a try!" On our first pass we brought in one, and we just kept trolling north and south, picking up one or two on each pass. We discovered they liked red headed wonderbread, and we actually down-sized our lures a bit. The best lure of the day was the Reef Runner 600 "Little Ripper" in Wonderbread Red. Trolling speed was 1.8 - 2.1, but I don't have a Fish Hawk, so whatever that is worth. The higher sets seemed to do the best, probably running 12 to 15 feet down. Most of the time we were fishing 20 to 25 fow. We finished the day with 8 decent eyes, 19 to 26 inches.
We also caught a couple catfish, the first was maybe a couple pounds, but the second one was a 13 pounder. I took some pictures to find out for sure what kind of cat it was, and confirmed that it was a Channel catfish.
In spite of a slow start and windy conditions, my guys said they had a great time, and they will definitely enjoy some great fish dinners with their family.