swavesey lake on the fen drayton complex

After doing 72 hours on the wooly chasing that possible 50lb common and another blank, this place is fishing well hard this spring, but you've gotta be in it too win it!

At the end of the week I had a 24hr tuition which was cancelled so I decided to have a look around fen but didn't really fancy it so I thought go have a look at Swavesey just down the road.

I haven't fished this lake for many years, me and Marky used to fish it early spring before the fen fish started moving.

nothing was seen, so I went back to fen for another look, talking to a few members, not much had been seen.

While sitting having a chat with Matt Gosling, Peter turned up for a walk round Fen, I meet him at the Wooly and he was interested in fen, so I said to go have a look, anyway peter was on his second walk round this week.

He said he loved the place and wanted a ticket.

He then informed me he had just seen five carp cruising in a corner at Swavesey, I didn't need telling twice so I wished matt good luck and said enjoy your walk round fen Peter, plus thanks for the info.

I then got in the van a went back for another look at Swavesey.

Anyway I went straight to the corner and as i approached the area I could see a black shape in the crystal clear Margin, the fish looked about twenty eight to thirty pound.

The wind was blowing into this area so i thought they would stay about, hopefully.

I quickly unloaded the van and got four rods ready asap, but while doing this I keep an eye on the area and saw several other fish patrolling the marginal shelf.

Then came the white nightmare, this pair of white swans are very friendly as I was about to find out!! They came out of the water to be fed! Flaming public feeding them had made them tame.

This meant I would have to fish in deeper water, just out of there feeding depth.

Next thing was to get bait in a bucket as I am going to walk and place the rods by hand. I was going to fish two rods on the choco malts and try the other two rods on red fish for the first time. I crumbed some baits up ready in a bag, gives the zone some extra attractive pulling power.

Next thing was to get my chesties and four buzzers ready.

I grabbed a rod with the bait bucket and a buzzer.

Flaming swans thought I had came to feed them!

The plan was spread the rods around this corner in about 5 to 7 feet of water, to stop the swans picking my hookbaits up.

As I started to wade out and place the first rod, I had to keep an eye out for Mr Carp, as I didn't want to spook them too much.

So when the coast was clear i would wade out and place each and once place a few baits whole and crumbed were introduced over the area just out of reach of the swans.

Then it was time to set up my home for the night, I am using the visions Kenwick ST Shelter, great for this time of the year and over nighters, quick and very easy to setup and pack up.

Now it was time to sit back and watch them, they were doing laps, coming into this corner and going along the margin, I knew they would see the bait and get a taste of it from the crumb, so hopefully some time later I would get a take from these tricky old carp.

I then rang matiz "Matt Gosling" up and told him I was on them, he said I would catch by the morning, anyway I wished him good luck and then sat down and watch the sun set.

All of a sudden the wind went calm and then an hour later a new wind started to blow into the opposite corner, this was about 9.30pm so a move was called for, so I quickly packed all my gear up and then got my barrow out of the van and loaded my gear straight on to it.

by 10pm I was in the swim and by then the wind was blowing lovely into this reedy corner of the lake.

Hopefully the rigs would be ok? carp gods were defo on my side as the hooks were perfectly sharp still so all I had to do was re-curve the chods.

first rod out and baited with red fish, just as I was gonna cast the second rod a fish rolled over heavy at roughly 35 yards slightly to my right so I cast that rod out to the general area.

By 10.45pm all rods were out and my house was setup.

Time tolay downon my new vision wideboy bedchair and listen for anymore carpy activity.

I must off drifted of the sleep as the next thing I heard was one of my buzzers near the reed bed screaming at me, it was an absolute one toner, this carp weren't happy at all.

I quickly put my boots on and grabbed my headlamp and legged it to the blue LED signalling which rod i had the take on.

I turned the buzzer off and quickly put my vision head torch on ready.

I then picked the rod up and this carp was still ripping line of the spool at an alarming rate.

it must off taken well over 60 to 70 yards of 20lb X line.

I applied some pressure to try and slow Mr Carp down, this worked and he started to kite round so I grabbed the net and walked 25 yards down the bank to land him.

All he did over the next few minutes was to fight on the top but staying in front of me, while this was going on I heard two other carp roll, so they were still fish about, hopefully a chance of another.

Next thing he was ready for the net and slid in there on the first attempt.

Torch on...and as I looked into my net there lay a stunning chunk of a common.

I got all the bits ready, sack, weigh sling wetted etc.

No more action, so time to pack up and head off home for the weekend.

Until next time

Be lucky.

Uncle Jim