Significant ABU Friends
CO ERICSSON ABU's Vice President Marketing (70's)
VALE CO Ericsson, a leader and friend to so many around the world, 90 plus years to contribute to life, sadly missed by myself and other ABU fans.
Over recent years , 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!
CO has now passed
from this life, and I am releasing the rest of his travelling
fisherman photos that he sent me to share. Click
here to enjoy!
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.
Vi's
Y
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.
CO
had great connections with Fishing Royalty in Australia, viz Vic
(McSEA ) McCristal
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!