I launched the boat, but the trailer wasn't budging. In turn, I had to unhook the trailer and manually lift the trailer up over the edge (mind you this is a 24 foot dual axle trailer, thank goodness that water "lightens" up things), then reattach the trailer, lock it in 4-wheel drive and pull her out. After that exciting start to the day, I putted out to the channel markers and managed to bump bottom only a couple of times before finding deep water.By 0900 I was in the area I wanted to troll and lo and behold, I didn't troll 10 minutes before the gag below (lil over 24 inches) came aboard. Within 30 more minutes, I landed two more keeper gags, but "keeper" is a relative term. They were turned back to fight another day. I missed a couple more over the next 30 minutes. After that I tried my hand a bottom fishing and caught a boat load of grunts and one very stout Cobia (over 35 inches at the fork). Ironically, due to the constant stealing of bait by the grunts, I had switched to a lighter rod/reel (Penn 209) and that's what I caught the cobia on. As you can imagine, it was one heck of a fight. I manged to gaff him in the mouth and land him, take a few photos with my phone, and then release him. Unfortunately I didn't have my regular camera, in turn, I don't have a picture that I can upload to the site (I haven't figured out how to upload BBerry photos).
I headed back to the ramp around 1300 and was concerned to see that no water had come in and in fact, it looked a little lower. I was very cautious about backing the trailer down and had to do several in the boat/out of the boat moves to winch the boat up tight. A big "thanks" to the two Georgia fellas who who watched this happening and didn't offer up a hand. Speaking of hands, on one of my cranking trips, I had to let off the crank to straighten out the strap and when it came loose the handle put a whoppin on my left hand.
I'm sure some of you fellas have been in that boat before and can relate.Besides the challenging start and finish of the trip, overall it was a great day. The weather was beautiful, the seas were great, and I made it back home in time to go sit in a deer stand this evening.
The gags were caught in 35 foot of water with stretch 30's (mullet color and fire tiger).
Ya'll have a good Thanksgiving tomorrow.
Scoop
you just catch the trailer with the anchore, pick up the trailer with the anchore and tie it off to a cleat, then pull forward with the truck "hopefully enuff that you don't have to get back in the water to release the boat from the trailer" 
The strap was still hooked up. The trailer and truck stopped but the boat didn't. The handle whipped around missing his head by an inch but clipping his collar bone and wrist I don't know how many times before he fell off. At first I thought it hit him in the head and that he was a goner. The boat didn't stop until it reached the end of the strap with a huge jerk. The handle spun so fast that it broke off and flew into the parking lot. We got the boat back on the trailer, and then off the truck and they headed to the ER with a broken collar bone and arm. The girlfriend was on the phone as they pulled out cussing the boat dealership up one side and down the other for giving them a "messed" up boat and trailer.