Trinity Waters Open, Sunday 19th February 2012

Misha has planned a few opens this year and after my last two visits, which haven't been at all successful, I wanted to get back down to Trinity and make amends. I have two rig trays, full of floats for use at Trinity, from 0.75 up to 3g, well today I had my trolley wheels, but my Trinity rigs were in the garage 35 miles away. The wind was blowing hard up the lake into the corner peg 22. It was going to be hard to present a bait in the worst affected pegs.

Of course, because my floats were at home, I drew 26, right in the teeth of the wind, from me up to the corner (which Misha drew) there was a Huntspill-esque chop on the lake. Searching around in my box I found a couple of MW diamonds that were about 1g, I made one up on 0.14 with a 0.12 hooklength and a 16 63.13. I set up a waggler and because the wind was so bad, a straight lead. I cupped in a few micros and dead reds at 12m on the all-in, that was as far as I dare go, but it proved to be a waste of time, as I couldn't hold the rig still, the presentation was dreadful.

The waggler, even with 2' of line of the bottom moved through at a pace so quick, it wouldn't fool a suicidal motherless minnow. I fed some caster as far as I could with the catty and tried the straight lead over it, whilst that was out, I set up another MW diamond to fish at 5-6m at the bottom of the shelf, to try and catch roach, as I could see how tough it was fishing, with everyone struggling for a bite. I fed pinkies at 5m and even that didn't result in a bite.

After a couple of hours, I had one roach (very small) and was feeling a bit chilly in the wind, so I went for a walk down to see Andy Hembrow and Kev Perry, who were getting odd fish, but the contrast in the wind was amazing, they were fishing 14m+ easily. As a positive move I went into the cabin and bought a cage feeder, a big one. I went back and made up some groundbait, then chucked the big feedr out 1/2 a dozen times, before switching back to the straight lead, I also cupped 4 big balls in on the 12m line.

The tip went round and my first skimmer was netted, then another, then a roach, next the tip wrapped sharply round and a carp was the culprit, very carefully played and thankfully netted. One more small skimmer and then the bites dried up, but the wind was finally dropping the chop was reduced to a ripple and I dropped the pole rig over the groundbait. The presentation was Ok and a couple more skimmers and a bream came to the net, I topped up the groudbait and then lost another big skimmer, that seemed to spook them, as I had no more skimmers, but added a couple of 4oz roach to the net.

After 2 hours I was nearly ready to go home, but the groundbait approach changed my fortunes and my 12.01 was enough to win, thats the lowest weight to win any match I've fished here. In fact there were only 2 carp caught, mine and Ian Walvin on peg 7 had one. Still it was nice to get back to winning ways at Trinity. I caught all my fish on a white maggot tipped with a fluro pinkie over groundbait.

1) Chris Fox 12.01 peg 26
2) Paul Locke 11.00 peg 13
3) Kev Perry 10.02 peg 32
4) Nigel Bartlett 8.07 peg 17
5) Ian Walvin 8.06 peg 7
6) Andy Hembrow 5.05 peg 30

Silvers

1) Paul Locke 11.00 peg 13
2) Kev Perry 10.02 peg 32