Trip #141 – Sherborne Lake – Tinca Time

I had a good feeling about today, today was going to be the day that I was going to break my duck and catch that elusive big bream. As usual my alarm was set for 5:30am, and with the car packed and a McDonald’s breakfast in hand I arrived at the lake at the chime of 6:00am. There were two local anglers ahead of me, frequent lake go-er Terry and another angler I had seen on my first trip. Terry also making good on our previous conversation, provided me with two Boss Box side tray attachments, for which I am very grateful. Thanks again Terry!

We had a quick chat about where was fishing well, “down in the low pegs” I was told, so, car unpacked and trolley loaded, I made my way down towards peg 10. As expected, Terry had taken up position on peg 12, with the other angler on peg 11. As usual my feeder set up for this lake would be,

• 1 x 13ft Feeder rod, 13lb J-braid, 12lb shock leader on a twisted loop pattern, down to a 4lb fluorocarbon hook link.

I would also be using a specialist barbel rod as my bait up rod. I was trialling a different groundbait today, so I mixed that up and let it settle while I set my station up. With my distance sticks set, I would be fishing a long line at roughly 47 metres. I started with 10 quick successive casts pre baiting the swim before casting out using a 6mm wafter. Line bites came very quickly but as I was using a slightly larger size 16 matrix finesse feeder hook to steer away from the smaller fish, I was yet to have a full positive indication. This didn’t perturb the little pests and before long I was reeling in a Roach of few ounces, followed by a Rudd of a similar size. Time to switch up the bait, switching to worm I hooked into a similar sized Roach, followed by another Rudd, the bites were immediate.

My bait was getting swarmed, as soon as it entered the water, I could feel the fish attacking it as it dropped through the water column. I added more water to the ground bait in an effort to make it sink quicker and switched my hook link, from a size 16 matrix finesse feeder to a hair rigged size 16 Drennan super specialist with a bait stop. I flattened the barb as there really is not need with these hooks. Switching to corn and then double corn I started to pull in a better stamp of fish, with Roach and hybrids seeming to appreciate the larger bait.

I went as far as triple corn, all hair rigged but somehow the little fish moved in and managed to pick the hair clean. I just want to talk briefly about this lake, there is so much wildlife, I couldn’t resist using the Merlin app to see what I could hear.

This lake is a bit of an enigma, over 50 acres in size and absolutely full of fish… and their fry, as well as some truly monstrous Carp. As previously mentioned, it is slightly frustrating that the gates stay shut to the far side until 9am, which makes that half the lake not fishable (certainly at the times that I would like to arrive), and I’m not complaining, but I am keen to catch one of those monster bream that reside in the lake.

Neither of the anglers to my left had caught anything of size. The problem with so many fry on the lake is that having your quiver tip positioned even remotely close to the water will result in them trying to eat it.

I continued to pull in Roach and Rudd up to 3/4 of a pound for the next hour or so, cycling through baits, make little to no difference unless a pellet or boilie of over 10mm was chosen (which simply couldn’t of been eaten because it was too big!). For that reason and because I had previously caught a few hybrids on double corn, I stuck out this approach for the rest of the day.

At one point I did achieve a truly positive bite and managed (to my surprise) to bring to the net a lovely (and surprisingly thick set) Tench somewhere in the region of 4-5 lbs.

I was really pleased with this, the lake does hold some really big Tinca’s with reports this year of fish over 7-8lb coming out. So, this currently proved to be my biggest fish from the lake (to date). Still no big bream. I fished for another hour or so and could see the other anglers packing up. In truth the sun was coming out and it was set to be a scorcher. I decided to pack up at 1:30pm having fished for over six hours. Frustratingly my last cast cracked off, which I was really surprised at as I hadn’t noticed any issues with the braid at all. Still an enjoyable day, and one I will remember, as I haven’t caught a Tench of that size in years.

So, what did I learn? I think there needs to be a level of wind on the lake to encourage the bream to feed, there were reports that bream had come out the previous day on a much windier day. Given that we are just approaching July I think I will give the lake a miss for a couple of weeks, wait for the Bream to start reappearing and winter bulking around September. There are also several other lakes and rivers I want to fish over the coming weeks, and after watching this video, I have my sights on catching a top water Chub!

This lake seems to be going from strength to strength, and I can understand why the match anglers seem to focus more on pole and whip fishing for the Roach and Rudd. Ultimately, if you’re seeking a natural coarse fishing venue with abundant silverfish action and the chance of a surprise big Tench, Sherborne Lake is a fantastic choice.

For my previous rating please click here.