Made In The USA gives us a tour of the Ross and Abel manufacturing floor to get a glimpse of their entire process and meet some amazing teammates.
Made In The USA gives us a tour of the Ross and Abel manufacturing floor to get a glimpse of their entire process and meet some amazing teammates.
Very nice. Never really been “in the market” financially to buy Abel reels, but do own one though, an original Model 3 in Henry Ford black with perfrorated spool that came into my hands by memorablly highly amusing means in mid 1990s.
Buckle in for a brief story.
So, I was on Tiierra del Fuego, fishing the Rio Grande for several weeks as the annnual guest of an upper-middle reaches ranch-owner who at the the time, together with an Alaska-based American business partner, was in the process of setting up a small, select sea-trout-fishing-lodge.
It was only on the year of my third visit to the lovely place with its 18 miles of fishing that they began to get some international clients, including a lovely elderly American gentleman who was just starting flyfishing and was doing so in the sometimes gale-force winds of TDF, fishing for its giant sea-trout.
He had a brand new Sage 8-weight single-hander and and just as reel with him, an Abel Model 3, which some New York or Cali flystore had sold him along with some Simms waders and a Patagonia SST jacket.
I remained at the ranch HQ and didn’t fish when clients were visiting, so only heard heard about what exactly happened over the next few days over meals in the kitchen with the pair of guides who had been there when whatever had happened happened.
The Gentleman’s Day 1 – Smashed rod within minutes of starting. Returned to ranch HQ only an hour after setting out. I lent him one of my Sage 8-weights. ….which he had also smashed by the end the day.
Day 2 – So I loaned him another. This survived Days 2, 3 and part of 4 before he trod / danced a jig on it after landing a very good fish, with me loaning him yet another. By this time, I only had one 9-foot 4-piece Sage 8-wight left – so I lent it to him, AND – IT – SURVIVED!
Day 6 or 7 (or Saturday morning or whatever the weekly turn-round departure day was) – After a fabulous week of fishing, the lovely old gentleman tipped his guide very well and thanked me warmly and profusely. He left me something, too – several hundred $s so that I could go down to Rio Grande town that same day and buy myself a new 8-wight Sage (to make up the pair plus a two-handed that I normally took to the river), plus his virtually brand new, except for his beginner’s week, Abel 3 reel.
I still have it. It’s had a few fish in the years since.
[No time for a re-read and edit, so please accept above as posted]