Cotswold Aquarius Trident 4/5 Rod Holdal

With rods and reels becoming more and more expensive, anglers are always looking at ways of best protecting their investments when in transit. Some anglers prefer to carry their equipment with the bare basic protection on a quiver, but there are still a lot of anglers that require full protection. When cotswold Aquarius asked UKMA to put their Trident rod holdall through its paces recently, we were only too glad to take a good look at it.

The Trident is a padded multi-rod sleeve that offers more than just the basic requirements to the angler. The Trident that UKMA was sent was the largest of the two models available – the 4/5 rod version.

When taking out of the box, the first thing that is noticed is the heavy padding that has been incorporated into the main capsule of the holdall. The amount of padding included is more than ample to protect fragile rings in transit from accidental knocks or bumps. Even with the amount of padding and the very heavy duty material used, the Trident is not that heavy in actual weight.

To enter the main compartment, Cotswold Aquarius have really thought about this and instead of utilising a single zip run, they have used a longer zip that runs up one side of the front, around the top of the holdall and back down the other side of the entry flap. A double puller system has been fitted to the zip so that the flap can be opened from either side individually or both pulled down to completely open up the main compartment for easy removal or fitting of the rods. Using a double zip run also puts less stress and strain on the zip when doing up a fully laden holdall.

On the inside of the 4/5 rod Trident, there are 5 seperate sections for rods – 3 of the sections are open with the remaining 2 sections being zipped and enclosed. The zipped sections are also well padded to protect the rods and reels. The open sections have velcro fasteners to hold the rods to the back of the holdall to stop them from rattling about in transit. Some holdalls are a very tight fit when fully loaded with 5 rods and big pit reels, but the Trident swallows 5 rods fitted with Shimano Power Aero reels easily without any struggling to do the external zips up, and also with no movement of the rods when lifted or feeling like the rods are under compression stress. 50mm ring set rods are swallowed up also without the rings being under pressure from tight fabric.

On the outside of the Trident, Cotswold Aquarius have thought of the main features that the angler would require. A large zipped and flapped pocket has been fitted to house a substantial amount of metalware – more than most anglers would take with them. The zip has been fitted centrally and is full length of the pocket to allow even the smallest bankstick to be readily accessible. The top flap has a plastic buckle clip that secures the flap down to keep rain out and also stop metalware from sliding out. Next to the zipped pocket is a large open top pocket that is large enough to house an umbrella, rod pod or folded down landing net head.

Located on the outer edge of the Trident is a slim open topped pocket that comfortably holds 2 landing net handles. When a landing net handle is place in the outer pocket, the holdall is stiffened up greatly and relieves any pressure on the contents inside.

Down the same side as the landing net handle pocket, a carrying strap and small carrying handle have been fitted. Both of these handles have been fitted with a large amount of padding that is good to see as a lot of holdalls have only the bare minimum of padding fitted that can make carrying for long distances a strain on the hands. even when fully laden with equipment, the Trident handles do not cut into either your shoulder or your hand and the padding actually makes the weight of a loaded holdall irrelevant.

All of the stitching is perfectly finished off with no loose ends of thread anywhere. There is next to no chance of the Trident holdall falling apart after only a few sessions, and it is plain to see that the Trident (along with all other Cotswold Aquarius products) have been made to last. The material that the Trident is constructed from is of the de facto standard Cotswold Aquarius material that is of the heaviest duty of angling luggage that we have seen. We have seen some luggage from Cotswold Aquarius’ original ranges that is still as good as it was when first bought after many years of hard use. This is testament indeed to UK manufacturing with no corners cut.