Trolling slow and shallow in Bete Grise for Lake Trout and Coho Salmon

Friday morning, Calvin and I got up at 6.30 to push off with a party of 5 on the Fishin’ Mission at 8 am.
The plan was to set lines near the irons and troll in shallow water for a short time before heading out to the Bear Bluff area. The forecast was calling for 25 knot winds out of the West-Northwest (off shore wind for our area). I knew it would be too rough to fish our regular off-shore spots, but the water temps were still cold enough for the fish to be in shallow waters. The internet was showing about 50 and the last time out, before the windy and rainy week, we were reading 49 on the surface. So, I was hoping we’d find fish close to shore.
About 10 minutes or less after setting the first line, we got a lake trout, and 56 minutes later, another one. We continued to circle around… with the wind, then against it and picked up a total of 7, with one of them in the 5 to 6 lb range. We released the larger 3 fish, as grandma Beverly wanted only the smaller, better tasting fish. (I also kept one for Margaret and I)
All of these lakers had their stomach stuffed with minnows, unlike our last fish which had empty stomachs.
Max, (15 year old) picked out a great lure, a “water melon” Silver Streak to drag behind my starboard wire dypsy that caught several nice lakers. One was a 5 to 6 lb lake trout that we threw back, since Bev only wanted the smaller fish. We also caught a few on a couple of my modified lures (see Link) that I had added some foil and blue halographics to make them more attractive. We dragged a couple of herring dodgers with spin and glows and flies, but no luck on them.
Calvin manned the rods while Max, Matthew and his father Matt caught the fish and I did most of the steerring. The wind was so strong that the autopilot could not correct fast enough when going into it, and sometimes, even with the wheel cranked all the way to port, the boat would not turn into the wind until I throttled up to 4 to 5 mph. Anyone who fishes dypsys, knows what happens when you go too fast. Well, it was tough to fish in the wind, but in spite of it, we had a good morning.
We then spent 1-1/2 hours on Lac La Belle, but had no luck there, except for a small perch that Calvin caught.
See more photos on my facebook page and Gallery.
In the end, we brought back 4 nice lake trout after releasing 3, even nicer ones to catch again. No Coho to show this time, as they don’t seem to be in yet.