Knox and Kokosing

The weekend proved to be a mixed bag. I didn't plan to go fishing Saturday, but my wife decided to go to Knox County with my daughter, who was judging a 4-H dog match. So I figured "why not go?" and headed north as well. Since I wouldn't have a lot of time on the water, I decided to visit Kokosing Reservoir, a small lake I never fished before.
In the three hours or so I had to fish, I worked around most of the lake (except for the dam). The lake is shallow -- the deepest water I found was 8 feet (towards the dam), a despite having the electric almost as shallow as it will go, spent a lot of time kicking up mud or even digging into the bottom.
Still, I found some fish around the shallow cover (nothing big) and caught four on hand-poured Senko-type baits, so I considered it a decent evening n a new lake. April would be a better time to visit, especially if the water is a little high.
Since it was dark, I turned on the lights and the trailer lights went out again. After I lost the lights coming back from Rush Creek Thursday, I thought I had fixed them. Obviously I hadn't found the right problem.
With the help of another fisherman I tried to find the real problem, but couldn't and had to drive home without trailer lights.
But the worst thing was what I discovered when I crawled under the back of the truck to check the wiring there. Didn't find any problem there, but it slowly dawned on me that I wasn't seeing something I should -- my spare tire was missing! The cable that holds up the tire was cut, clean as a whistle. Someone had stolen the spare.
I don't know if someone stole it while I was on the water or if it had been stolen earlier, either at Rush Creek or at home. I did hear from a fellow member on the OGF site that he had had some problems with thefts at Kokosing and I've alo heard of some problems at Rush Creek, but there were a number of people around at both sites, so who knows?
Sunday, I simply redid all the trailer wiring connections and that fixed the main light problem, so my daughter, Lindsey, and I finally took off on our planned afternoon fishing excursion to Knox Lake.
Because of the trailer work, we didn't get there until 6 p;m., but we caught fish.
I caught two 17-inch and one 15-inch bass, as well as some smaller fish, while Lindsey boated a 16-incher. All the fish hit hand-poured Senkos from Bob's Outdoor Supply in Newark. She was using the black/blue flake I've been catching most of my fish on recently and I used a green pumpkin/purple flake version.
All the fish were very shallow except one, and it was in only about five feet of water.
Not a bad afternoon, especially since I got to fish with Lindsey, who has been fishing with me for 20 years Unfortunately, she doesn't have the chance to go with me very often these days, so I really enjoy it when it happens.