Daren Welton recently got back onto his syndicate water Monks Pit for what was meant to be a weeks fishing, this was unfortunately cut short by 2 days due to work commitments…


I was fishing with my old mate Mo and to say we were looking forward to it was an understatement! He managed to get on to the water for the full week and wasted no time in putting a few decent mirrors on the bank, texting me while I was flat out at work when I should have been there with him. This just made matters worse, although I was happy for him I couldn’t help feeling slightly envious!!

When I eventually got back to the lake the fish had started spawning in the main bottom bay and the Bailiff had closed off all the surrounding swims, one of which was the ‘Point’ a swim that commands a lot of water and one that I had been quietly preparing for this trip. I was starting to think that the carp gods were telling me not to bother, but being a bit of a stickler I decided to make the best out of a bad situation.

I’ve found in situations such as these when the fish are spawning in certain areas that finding a corner well away from all of the activity can still produce. Let me make this quite clear that under NO circumstances would I angle for spawning fish but just because certain fish are having a go does not mean that all of the fish are.

One such swim on monks that was well ‘out of the way’ was the Swamp, this was up the other end of the lake and in a corner. The options you have in this area are amazing, everything from deep water marks to reedy bays with shallow areas.

I decided to fish the deep water spots to start with and keep an eye on the shallower areas baiting these every day, this builds up the fish’s confidence being able to feed on these spots without encountering any lines and on pressured waters such as these that can become a nice advantage...

With only two nights remaining I was still wondering when the fish were going to turn up, normally this area always has resident fish present and you can normally winkle one or two out.

I got onto the XC weather site and checked out the forecast for the next 48hrs, a gentle North Easterly was due to arrive around 11pm that night. With this in mind I decided to swing the rods round into the shallower reedy bays that were to my left that I had been baiting though the course of the session.

With all the traps set that evening I had a nice little social with Mo, Cod and Chips being the order of the day which was much appreciated and by 9pm I was nicely settled in the swamp eagerly awaiting that wind...

Well unexpectedly that wind turned up and the forecast was spot on and I ended up having 6 takes from around 1am through to 4am which had me smiling from ear to ear. The fish as anticipated had turned up on the new wind. Little solid bags of ground up NV bolies and Multi-stim pellets was producing the goods with low volumes of Aquastim added to give some liquid attraction out and around the bags.

After resting the swim for the best part of the next day, I repeated what I had done the night before and went in with the good old solid bags again. Again from around 1am through to 4:30ish I had another 6 takes which by monks standards is good, the fish that turned up on that original wind stayed in those areas, with the spots already prepped and baited when they did decide to have a munch I was already in place and waiting.

I ended up with 8 fish, losing 4 on just the shear nature of the snags in this swim, 2 20’s, 4 upper 20’s and 2 30’s to 33.6 and I was more than happy considering my start to the week...

With the conditions we are all experiencing at the moment you really need to maximise your fishing and try to get out there whenever you can, all my local waters are fishing their socks off at the moment.

Till next time, happy hunting.
Daren.