I wondered how your trout trip turned out .
Hate you had the trouble loading. Been there .
I used to trout fish the Chattahoochee River above Atlanta with my 15’ Alumacraft . If they opened a gate or two at the dam , loading became quite a challenge.
The traffic after we got loaded up was as bad or worse getting back to the highway .
We would motor up to the shoals and would drift down , mostly flycasting streamers , but sometimes would catch a few on drys .

Great news about the lakes .
I used to have permission to fish a couple of lakes , but because of circumstances lost them .
Fishing private lakes is where it’s at .
Hope you get sorted soon .