It was eventually going to happen to me too

My FW and I headed up to Lake Pepin early this morning. Put in at Hok-Si-La. Maybe a dozen rigs already parked. Was good be out. My first outting since the salmon GTG! Fishing was frustratingly tough for us. So we pulled in and called it quits about 1130. Went to my rig and ‘low-and-behold’! there is was, the busted tail light! No note, nothing. DNR guys sitting on chairs and I asked if they might have seen who might have hit my trailer? Ah, nah, we never noticed….ok…thanks.

After over 36 years living up here, guess it was just my turn. (they even cleaned up the broken lens cover, saw nothing laying around!)

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So maybe it happened someplace else.

Similar thing two weeks age at P2 494 landing. Came back at dark to find the tail light wire unplugged from the light socket – and the whole light was missing ??? ….That was a new one to me.

no Y-dog, was there when FW and I left home.
and Split, that really sucks! at least I had part of a light to travel with..

Very unfortunate. Seems like eventually it happens to us all…Some of us more often. I want to believe that most of the time it’s an accident and people simply don’t realize that it happened. But honestly I think the morels of many have gone down the tiolet. Too often no one sees it happen so they just drive off.

Twice I had to use electrical tape to rig my lights back on at 1 am so I could drive away. Sucks

splitshot wrote:

Similar thing two weeks age at P2 494 landing. Came back at dark to find the tail light wire unplugged from the light socket – and the whole light was missing ??? ….That was a new one to me.

Sounds like somebody else with a missing trailer light and found its replacement on your trailer. Had that happen to the front turn signals on a Toyota pick-up that I used to have. They took them off as my truck sat parked behind my garage. Guess it was common for that model…even junkyard replacements ran me $150ish per unit. OEM was north of $300 IIRC.

flatfish wrote:

My FW and I headed up to Lake Pepin early this morning. Put in at Hok-Si-La. Maybe a dozen rigs already parked. Was good be out. My first outting since the salmon GTG! Fishing was frustratingly tough for us. So we pulled in and called it quits about 1130. Went to my rig and ‘low-and-behold’! there is was, the busted tail light! No note, nothing. DNR guys sitting on chairs and I asked if they might have seen who might have hit my trailer? Ah, nah, we never noticed….ok…thanks.

After over 36 years living up here, guess it was just my turn. (they even cleaned up the broken lens cover, saw nothing laying around!)

Hey flatfish

I used to frequent that landing back in my guiding days. I think I might have another potential explanation for what might have happened. If memory serves, there’s a pair of fairly large rocks at the back of the washout hole of the left lane (as you look down the ramp to the water) that can come into play when the water gets low. It has been so long since I have thought about this to be honest I’m not even positive it was the left lane. But there were rocks. Trailer lights got broken.

Anyway, in high water these rocks are a non-issue as the trailers never get deep enough into the water. In low water, like we have now, trailers get backed in further and those rocks be waiting to claim another set of trailer lights on the passenger side of the trailer.

Years ago a couple buddies and I tried to wade in and move those rocks but we couldn’t get them to budge. If you stay tight to the dock you won’t have an issue. But if you get a little wide… crunch. And there wouldn’t be any broken taillight pieces to pick up from the lot as they’d never make it out of the water.

Of course I could be completely wrong. Someone might have moved those rocks a long time ago. But back in the day those rocks were a known issue during low water.