Significant ABU Friends

CO ERICSSON ABU's Vice President Marketing (70's)

Over the last few months , I  have just had the good fortune to actually meet via-email, chat on the phone and receive normal post communications with CO and below is a brief but  beautiful synopsis of his passion for fishing which naturally involved ABU.

Initally, some 40 years ago, I had the very good fortune to read of CO Ericsson in ABU's  Tight Lines magazines, that I pored over as a kid in the late 60's and 70's.

Next my friend Vic McCristal, spoke of CO in glowing terms, as a friend from the early days of his experience of ABU in Australia.

In the last few years, I took it upon myself, to ask good friend ABU ex-owner and President Len Borgstrom, if he could put me in contact with some of his best friends and ABU colleagues from this this classic period of ABU history, loosely referred by  me elsewhere  as the Good Old days or Golden years of ABU that I was fortunate to be part of as and end user as I was growing up and cementing the opinion that no finer fishing equipment could be found than ABU.

I have decided to share in full  here via scanning, with CO's permission, his actual response to my request for more detail of his life and fishing!

The reason I have done this , is that it captures the true essence of the man:

+ His absolute humility

+ His sense of humour

+ His wisdom of experience

+ His cultural/time era context

+ His accepting approach to life

+ His wonder and appreciation of nature

+ His superb memory of events, locations and friends

+ His genuine willingness to share experiences most of us could only dream of

+ His keeping the mind up to date with the communication wonders of 21st century technology

I do wish I had been able to share in  part of CO's memories of wonderful fishing opportunities from the past, but as is said, better late than never.

May many more enjoyable summers of fishing be ahead of you my friend.

CO's recent recollections from a lifetime of a fishing adventures, notable this time for the fisherman's persistence ,  true appreciation of nature, ice-fishing jigs and the ability to create a fly sufficiently good to deceive. Big is not always best, success under challenge is the key!

Throughout will be dispersed a selection of photos that CO used to illustrate a Rotary Presentation he gave recently.

Fishing the world , this man  (and his wife Vi) have done it. Europe, North American, South America, Australia, Asia, the Pacific and hopefully we'll find some images from his African adventures as Vice Present of ABU -Promotions!

Hi Wayne.

This is going to be a rather short story. But to me one to remember. I owe Erik, who is not any longer with us, a lot of thanks for what he taught us about Lappish people and regarding nature up North amongst the mountains.  I will try to send a photo  but might not succeed. Sometime I will however be visited by younger members of the Ericson family and they might be able to help.

Icefishing North in Sweden

Long ago my wife, Viola (Vi) and I had a friend far up North in Sweden who worked with  and for the Lappish people.  Amongst other things this gave him the  right to fish in Lappish waters together with helpers. A few times we had the pleasure to help him. (with the fishing!)

This particular time we went up in the middle of May from Spring and flowers in the South to ice and snow in the mountains. We stayed for a bit more then a week  in a small shack which he had at his disposal. When the police came and asked us what we did we told them  that we were together with Erik Lidström and all was OK. He also stayed rather close to us in another shack which he had rented and ever so often he took us for longer and shorter tours on snow scooter. We had one each and Vi just loved to drive one of them.

Most of the time we had good weather. That and the two snowscooters made us quite movable. So for example we one day when the sun was shining from a blue sky he took us for a long tour to a lake close to the Norwegian border. When we arrived we found the lake full of policemen. Fishing. Erik suggested we stayed at another small lake and fished for a while  and later joined the party. He himself went over to the "Police lake" I guess to explain who we were and why we were there.

We drilled two holes in the ice and started fishing. It did not take long  before Vi caught a nice Char. I would guess of about 1 lb. And soon she got another one of the same size. This made us satisfied and we went over to the other lake said 'hello' to the Police force and joined in fishing for smaller Char. The ones you normally get are around herring size.  Often there are too many of them so the lakes are in that case opened for fishing just to clear the lake from most of  the small fish in the hope that the remaining ones will grow to bigger sizes. I do not know if this works. I only know that we spent a wonderful time here in the snow together with our friend Erik.

CO

Just one more fishing story . This time one that did not end lucky for the fisherman but may be for the fish. It is an episode from Argentina. 

Vi and I were this time fishing way South in Argentine at a place by name Barilotche. Most of the time in a short,  and very rapid stream between two lakes. We sometimes also fished in the lakes but mostly in the beginning and end of the stream. This particular timed we fished in the upper lake just where the stream began and just above a bridge over the stream. We fished fly. No other method was allowed. Vi fished on one side and I on the other side of the upper part of the stream

Vi got a bite of what she thought was a good sized fish and since it was forbidden to use neither net nor gaff I waded ashore and went up on the bridge in order to try to help her land the fish  if necessary. What I saw from the bridge amazed me. What a fish! It is hard if not impossible to estimate the weight of a fish which is not put on a scale. Even with this in mind I guessed the weight of the fish might be  something between 8 and 12 kilos. A really big trout.

Vi handled it very well and prevented it from going down into the stream where it definitely would be lost. Over on the other side I waded out below the fish and outside it to be ready to try to throw it up on the bank. Should that have any chance to succeed Vi had to bring it closer to the bank. Vi therefore started to wade closer to he bank. Suddenly she slipped. Not much but the jerk on the line was enough to break the leader. The fish was gone. At first we could not understand or accept that the fish was gone.

We could not continue to fish but collected our things and went back  to our hotel. There we had a bottle of champagne reserved for an exceptionally lucky day. Instead we opened it  for an exceptionally unlucky one.

CO

Hi Wayne. 

Thanks for mail earlier today re Yellow fin. I am glad you liked it. This is a very different fishing episode. It does not need muscular force but a lot of stamina. At times I obviously have had that. This however is how I remember it many years after.

It was late afternoon. I had been up to one of the rapids in a river by name Kaitum River way up north in Sweden. Actually up in the mountains. I was slowly drifting with a weak current . The water was like a mirror and all was lazy. Me too. I rowed slowly and enjoyed the nature, the silence and the pleasant light.

Then I saw  fish breaking the surface further downstream. I quickly made my flyrod ready, put on a dry fly and let the boat drift a bit further down. Silently I put out the anchor and made a cast downstream. Not all the way down to the fish but a bit upstream, let the fly drift over the fish and waited  ready to react to a take. Nothing happened.  No fish even came up looking at my fly.  A few more casts gave the same negative result. 

Next step was to catch one or more of the flies I thought the fish was eating. This was a relatively simple matter and up went the fly tying boxes. Now came the hard point. Since there was no wind I had no problem with all the material in the boxes. The difficult thing was to make a fly the fish accepted. By now I had guessed the fish was Red Char and they can be very tricky at times.

I did my very best to tie a fly that resembled the ones I had caught.  This is much easier to talk about and to  describe than to actually do. At last I had a fly that I thought might do. So did not the fish.  Well I had all the time in the world so I tied another fly. In my eyes a bit better than the first one. But  the fish did not agree . No interest.

This went on for a while and I thought  I got better and better. What the fish thought I do not know but they refused my offers. So the estimate must have been rather low. But their interest was not all negative. One of them came up to one of my flies and had a look, but what it saw was obviously not god enough. 

I was near to give up but I also knew that this is Char species is very choosy. So I made another effort. This time on a smaller hook. That made it. That fly was almost immediately taken and I boated a Char of something around 1 lb (500g). Since I had some Graylings from this morning to eat I released the Char, packed up my equipment, pulled up the anchor and rowed for  three quarters of an hour down to the mouth of a small river where I had decided to put up my tent and stay over night.

I finished eating the Graylings, crawled in to my tent and into my sleeping bag and had a nights good sleep. Probably  dreaming of much bigger Char but satisfied with my afternoon result.

CO

Recently CO has shared this story abut his wife Vi who was an accomplished fisherwoman herself!

Hi Wayne.

Sorry Wayne, I do not know nothing about changing format on this computer, I barely know how to open and close it. Since I have not much to do and the articles are both very short I type it to you instead. Here we go with the Yellowfin. By the way, please correct any typing and spelling errors and other errors as well.

Next will be the Red Char capture.

CO at 90 is almost blind now so we must appreciate the effort and persistence he has gone to , in order to share this story by e-mail!

Vi's Yellowfin

The year was 1976 and my wife Viola (Vi) and I were on our way from  somewhere in Asia to somewhere in USA.  We had included a stay on Kona, Hawaii and also booked a days deep sea fishing. This time with Jeff Fay.

A few years earlier I had got a Black Marlin outside Kenya. Not very big. May be some 150 kilos. But a fish Vi meant was for  her. Since Vi was rather small the skipper thought this would be too much for her to handle so he asked me to take the rod. Vi did not like this and was quite cross. To avoid further argument over who should take the rod we always agreed on fishing order. This time the first fish was VI´s.

The morning went without much excitement. The sea was calm and the noise from the motors a made you sleepy. Soon after lunchtime this changed. There was a take and Vi took the rod, hooked the fish and sat down in the fighting chair. All according to good order. 

Vi was small but a very capable fisherwoman but this turned out to be a tough fight even for her. In its first run the fish took almost all line on the reel, A brand new ABU 30, Vi worked it  as best she could and got it almost up to the boat when it took a lot of line again. And so it went on for what seemed to be an eternity.  Not only the fish tired so did also Vi and after about an hour I asked her if she wanted me to take over. The answer was short and concise. "Yes, when I faint!"

This went on for almost three hours before we had the fish, a Yellowfin Tuna, on board

Time to head back to the harbour.  Jeff called the harbour and told them about our luck  so, when we arrived we were met by quite some crowd, the press and photographers. Vi was interviewed and photos taken. The Black Marlin was, at least for the time being, forgotten and both Vi and I were very happy.

The fish weighed 160 and a half pound and was well over the at that time by IGFA registered world record on  30 lb line. Jeff knew  that only a few days earlier another women had caught a still bigger tuna and was going to claim it so we did not do that.

We both enjoyed the success very much  and now Vi had go   for the Black Marlin. Next day we left Hawaii and were looking forward to next fishing trip.

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If you are a person that has significantly had an effect on design/development/testing of ABU equipment over the years please contact me  wayne@realsreels.com  if you wish your contribution documented for posterity and the immediate interest of the ABU fans worldwide!