"Of all the fish that fall victims to our skill, salmon are the most interesting by reason of their size, strength, and gameness, the difficulty of their capture, and the romantic scenery of the districts in which, during their periodic returns to fresh water, we have to seek them."

-Major John P. Traherne (1)

"Major Traherne is the master of infinite elaboration (2). There are no salmon flies in creation requiring so much patient work to dress well as Major Traherne's." (3)

-George Kelson

George Kelson began his continuing series "On the Description of Salmon Flies" in the Spring of 1884 in THE FISHING GAZETTE; the first eighteen patterns he discussed were flies invented by Major John P. Traherne. Kelson tells us that he had not intended to proceed to publish salmon fly patterns until he had fulfilled his promise to the public by bringing out "Standard Colours" of material which would permit everyone to dress their flies precisely in accordance with Kelson's prescriptions.

Kelson's promise to provide "Standard Colours" commercially was never to be fulfilled as originally stated. In reality, Kelson's knowledge of dyeing was that of a contemporary of Jones and Blacker, that of an era forty years gone. Chemistry and the technology of dyes had advanced rapidly in the second half of the 19th Century, and Kelson found himself unable to compete on the same ground with normal commercial dyers of the 1880's. In the end, in the Spring of 1886 after he had left THE FISHING GAZETTE to become editor at LAND & WATER, Kelson took advantage of the latter publication's tradition of supplemental illustration, and produced a series of chromolithographed card illustrating salmon flies, which the public was informed were to be taken as the fulfillment of Kelson's long-standing promise to provide "STANDARD COLOURS".

In the opening paragraph of the first article "On the Description of Salmon Flies", Kelson tells us he has decided to proceed with these articles, even in the absence of the "Standard Colours", as it is possible to discuss Major Traherne's flies which characteristically are tied using only natural material.

Kelson's decision to commence his lengthy series of essays on the salmon

fly with Traherne's patterns was clearly based not only on that consideration. Undoubtedly, George Kelson found it fitting to begin with Traherne's patterns because their complexity of design and artistic excellence would make the powerful impression on the GAZETTE's readership that he desired. These eighteen patterns would dazzle his readers, as they had the salmon in the Shannon and the Tay.

Kelson could appreciate the impact these patterns would have upon the angling public, as he was himself still under their spell. At the Berlin exhibition of 1880 Kelson was alone in exhibiting a case of twenty salmon flies tied by himself. He displayed the same case of twenty flies at the Great International Fisheries Exhibition at London in 1883. It was his dissent as one of twelve jurors with the disposition of awards at this Exhibition that led to Kelson's friendship with Robert Marston, editor of THE FISHING GAZETTE; and, after Kelson's judicious cultivation of Marston, to Kelson's various series of articles in THE GAZETTE.

At London, Kelson's case of salmon flies was not alone. Several of the tackle houses and commercial tyers exhibited salmon flies as part of their various wares, and also another amateur exhibited "a case of. salmon flies." The other amateur fly dresser was, of course, Major Traherne, and the natural suspicion is that the contents of the case he exhibited were the same eighteen patterns, which Kelson published in THE GAZETTE in 1884 and 1885.

It seems probable that Kelson and Traherne met and formed a friendship, at the London Exhibition in 1883. It is possible to imagine that they might have encountered one another previously on the Welsh River Usk, which was not far from Traherne's home in Glamorganshire, and with which Kelson is much associated. A series of patterns for the River Usk constitutes a prominent portion of George Kelson's own creative legacy in salmon fly dressing. The frequency of gestures of civility towards each other, however, directly following the International Fisheries Exhibition, is significant and indicates that their relationship was at that time in its formative stage.

The two men could not have been more unalike. Born in Kent, just outside of London (practically a Cockney), the son of a surgeon, a self-made man who had made his fortune as a London merchant, Kelson was a pushing, thrusting, get ahead sort of fellow. Every detail of his life manifests the insecurity of the nouveau riche. A fiery, red-headed gamecock, a ruthless self-promoter and boundless egotist, Kelson made enemies and stirred up controversy everywhere. His ever-present bowler hat (proudly worn, no doubt, to bring to mind his achievements on the cricket field) infallibly marked him as a member of the mercantile/clerical class (gentlemen wore toppers). Kelson fell as far short in his morals as his manners from the Victorian ideal of the English Gentleman, as Surtees's grocer of Great Coram Street, John Jorrocks, M.F.H.

Major Traherne, nine years Kelson's senior, was born a member of the landed gentry. His family was armigerous, tracing its descent from an eponymous Welsh Prince who ruled Gwynedd in the Eleventh Century. For two hundred years before his birth his ancestors had been land owners and office holders. His grandfather had made a particularly advantageous marriage to one Frances Popkin, an heiress, who brought into his family her surname as well as the estate at Coytrahen. John Popkin Traherne was born August 28, 1826. He was the eldest son, and. therefore heir to the estate, which came to him in 1859. In 1845, he obtained a commission as Ensign in 39th (Dorset) Regiment of Foot. He served with that regiment for nearly six years, and resigned by sale of his commission in 1851. He served, subsequently, as Major in the Glamorganshire Militia, retiring in 1865. As might be expected, Traherne occupied the sorts of County offices reserved for those principal landowners who were not of the peerage: Justice of the Peace, Deputy Lieutenant for the County, and finally High Sheriff in 1863.

In contrast to the fiery Kelson, Traherne was not only a gentleman by birth, but a genuinely gentle and kindly man. He alone of all the angling celebrities of his era was able to remain friends with the quarrelsome and contumacious Kelson right up to the time of his own death in 1901. In the photographs of Traherne that have come down to us, in Kelson's book, and in THE FISHING GAZETTE, he looks out at us, past his muttonchop whiskers, the very picture of the decent, stalwart, phlegmatic, and reliable British gentleman of the old school - Dr. Watson, to the life! And, in his relationship with the volatile Kelson, Traherne's role was clearly that of the faithful Watson ministering to the all-consuming ego of the ebullient Holmes. Kelson's sins were many and scarlet, and when he was well and truly taken through the mill by Marston in the famous "Little Inky Boy" controversy of 1907-8, the reader could not but feel that he had it all coming to him. Still one's heart goes out to poor Kelson when he writes in extremis, replying to Marston's latest and only too telling attack, that if only Major Traherne were still alive to defend him . . .

Had Traherne still been alive in 1908, it is likely he would have intervened to still the furor Kelsonicus, and would probably have succeeded since both his moral character and his tremendous knowledge and experience of salmon fishing commanded the respect of both combatants.

In 1886, in THE FISHING GAZETTE, Marston wrote a profile of Traherne's angling career, informed obviously by Traherne himself. He caught his first salmon in 1850, and from then until the time of his death fished, throughout the long British season, most rivers in the United Kingdom. Traherne either himself held a lease on, or fished regularly as a guest, the following rivers: in Scotland, the Naver, Thurso, Helmsdale, the Aberdeenshire Dee, Spey, Cuve, Annan, and the Kirkcudbrightshire Dee; in Wales, the Conway, Usk, and Wye; in Ireland, the Moy, the Galway Ballinahinch, Boyne, Shannon, Carah (Kerry), Laune, Lee, Suir, and the Blackwater (Cork). He had fished all of these, each for "several years in succession", by 1886. In addition, we are informed, Major Traherne leased several unspecified rivers in Norway for seven years. One of these was the legendary Namsen.

After 1886, the River Reports in THE FISHING GAZETTE indicate that Traherne continued his lease for some years on the Stanley water on the Tay, and fished the Boyne and the Lee regularly. His principal salmon fishing focus in the last twenty years of his life, however, was certainly the three mile stretch of water which he leased at Killaloe on the River Shannon. It is depressing to contemplate the fact that it is no longer possible to fish Major Traherne's water, which was submerged beneath a hydroelectric project by the Irish Government in the Twentieth Century.

The Shannon possessed the peculiar characteristic that apparently no fly could be dressed too brightly for its salmon. In fact, the brighter the fly, the better it worked. The accumulated historical evidence is that the elaborate "gaudy" style of salmon fly dressing originated in the West of Ireland, and most particularly around the Shannon. As the premier Irish salmon fishery, its environs had long been a center of angling commercial enterprise and export. The world famous O'Shaughnessy hook, preferred above all others for salmon fly dressing, came from a Limerick maker.

Through the Nineteenth Century, the "gaudy" salmon fly supplanted in fashion and use the drab local favorites on river after river. Younger tells us the development occurred early, circa 1830-40, on the Tweed, which rapidly itself became the leading site of salmon fly invention. On lesser, more provincial rivers, the process took place later. Taverner quotes John Waller Hills's account of the changeover on the Eden as late as the 1890's. As "gaudy" flies became popular on every river, Shannon flies grew more gaudy still (cf. Ephemera's "Three Graces", circa 1850).

Major Traherne's patterns represent the pinnacle of achievement in the Victorian Era of the Shannon style of salmon fly dressing, and it was his role to act as the vehicle of transmission to angling posterity of the Shannon school of fly dressing: through Kelson's articles on his patterns and Kelson's emulation of his style in salmon fly design. When today the most talented and creative salmon fly dressers, individuals like Paul Schmookler and Ken Sawada, invent "exhibition" or "artistic" patterns utilizing the rarest and most valuable of materials and requiring the greatest command of tying technique, the Shannon tradition lives on.

Only slightly less gaudy flies were the standard on the Erne, where Michael Rogan achieved world-wide fame as a salmon fly dresser by the middle of the century. Rogan may well have been an influence on Traherne as he, too, was famous for avoiding dyed material. Evidently, the peat-stained highly acid waters of the Erne bleached out the dyes of the period. The Erne was Ireland's second finest fishery, and, sad to say, it too has been completely eliminated by a hydroelectric scheme. The angler cannot but marvel that Ireland chose to destroy both of her finest salmon rivers.

Despite his love of the Shannon, Traherne seems to have departed from the usual local practice of "harling". Long, top-heavy actioned Castle Connell rods, made by John Enright right next door, were employed to impart action to flies towed to and fro across the river in peculiar high-ended boats, called "cots", which somewhat resembled Venetian gondolas. Traherne preferred less passive forms of salmon fishing, and employed a three sectioned greenheart rod with a more even action, better suited to long casts and spey casts. He lent his favorite rod to Farlow's so that they could duplicate its action for a "Traherne" model to be offered to the public at large.

Traherne's taste in salmon rods was worth heeding, for at THE FISHING GAZETTE Tournament in 1884, Traherne found himself, as one of the publication's favorite "experts", called upon to perform. Under weather conditions which Marston described at the time as "remarkably adverse", Major Traherne calmly proceeded to make what was for years the world's record cast of 45 yards and one inch. He used a spliced Farlow-made "Traherne" rod of 17 feet four inches. The cast was made July 26, 1884. How many of us today, I wonder, could equal that distance?

Traherne also held some of the records for fish catches, recorded without guilt back in that more generous age. On the Namsen, in August of 1864, Traherne caught 165 fish in fifteen days. On the best of those fifteen days, he caught 23 fish, 12 grilse and 11 salmon, the largest weighing 38 lbs. Writing in 1886, Kelson believe Traherne's Namsen score had never been equaled. Fishing from March 10 to March 25, 1885, on the Boyne, Major Traherne caught fish weighing 33, 28, 24, 22, 17, 18, 19, 19, 27, 19, 19, 26, and 33 lbs. The total weight was 304 lbs, an enviable average of almost 23 and 1/2 lbs. per fish.

Regrettably, Major Traherne did not devote himself to the writing of articles for the Sporting papers, as Kelson did. He did contribute frequently to the controversies which were ongoing in the letter column of THE FISHING GAZETTE. THE FISHING GAZETTE, the contemporary reader must be informed, had an editorial policy regarding letters from its readers, differing quite notably from any periodical we are familiar with today. The GAZETTE encouraged lengthy debate in its letter column, and on topics which called forth strong feelings on the part of its readership, the battle could rage for a year or two, issue after issue. Traherne participated in many of the principal symposia of the '70's, '80's, and '90's. He played a particularly prominent role in the debate as to whether the parr is, in fact, a salmon (in the 1870's many were convinced it was a separate fish: Traherne was proved to be right), and the debate on the practice "of striking from the reel" (i.e. setting the hook on a taking salmon while not touching one's reel, thus allowing the drag to apply sufficient, but not too much force, in hooking the fish).

His only book, "The Habits of the Salmon", published in 1889 was a study of the natural history of the salmon, and the was a valuable contribution to the understanding of Traherne's contemporaries, its conclusions were mostly accepted universally so long ago, that the reader today will probably not be very interested. It is interesting that Traherne believed salmon did feed in fresh water, and disgorged their stomach contents upon being hooked. He is presumably the source of that theory.

Of more interest to the contemporary student of salmon fishing and the salmon fly is his essay on "Salmon Fishing with the Fly", he contributed to Henry Chomondeley Pennell's "Salmon and Trout" volume of "Fishing", published in the Badminton Library series in 1886. It is typical of Traherne's modesty that he delegated the selection of salmon fly patterns at conclusion of his essay to his friend, George Kelson. Traherne's observations on technique and fly selection are still pertinent to today's readers. It is particularly interesting to find that though Traherne believed the color of the fly and its size influenced the angler's success, he believed that more or less any pattern of the same color would produce the same result. Traherne did not subscribe to Kelson's pseudo-scientific theories which posited a guaranteed result from the use of a specific fly pattern under specific circumstances.

He clearly tied his complex and elaborate patterns simply for the pleasure of exercising the technique which he loved and at which he so excelled. He wrote: "Fly tying is a most interesting, and I might almost say exciting occupation, and many a dull rainy day, during the winter months especially, may be thus pleasantly, and as far as salmon fishing matters are concerned profitably, passed. Doubtless a man will feel much prouder when he has landed a fish with a fly of his own making, than one he has bought, and I would recommend every fisherman who has the time to try his hand at it." (4)

But the Major did not dogmatically insist that tying one's own salmon flies was for everyone: "I have heard it said that a man cannot rank as a first class fisherman unless he can do so; but I think this is hardly fair. Many people's fingers are 'all thumbs', and they could not tie a fly in a year of Sundays, as the saying goes; other salmon fishermen are professional men with no time to spare from their duties... It might just as soon be said that to rank in the first class a fisherman should be able to make his own rods and reels." (5)

It is also interesting to find that Traherne, despite his own remarkable accomplishments in pattern invention, writes: "With regard to patterns of flies, my favorite is the Jock Scott, and if I were told that I was only allowed to fish with one pattern that is the one I should choose." (6)

Major Traherne died Monday, January 28, 1901, from a stroke. He survived Queen Victoria by only six days. In the obituary in FISHING GAZETTE, Marston wrote: "With the death of Major John P. Traherne has passed away one of the best of salmon anglers and most genial of men... his death has cast quite a gloom over Killaloe and Shannon salmon anglers, for during the many years he had visited the district he was as Mr. Hurley puts it, 'simply idolized and loved by every one."' Marston remembered Traherne carefully hand-tailing a kelt Marston caught on his first salmon fishing trip, on the Dee at Banchory in 1884, so that it could be released: "He hated the idea of using the gaff on a kelt". (7) It was typical of Traherne's sportsmanship, at a time when most anglers simply slaughtered kelts indiscriminately.

Of the eighteen patterns published in THE FISHING GAZETTE previously, Kelson gave the dressings of only three in his 1896 book, "The Salmon Fly". These were: BLUEBELL, TIPPETIWICHET, renamed GOLDEN BUTTERFLY, and CHATTERER. Also, dressings were given for two patterns which had originally appeared in LAND & WATER: BLUE BOYNE and FRA DIAVOLO. The illustrations to "The Salmon Fly" depict on Plate 6 a pattern, TRAHERNE'S WONDER, the dressing for which seems never to have been published. Nonetheless, the dressing has been determined from the illustration, and a tied example is illustrated in Bates's second book. One additional pattern by Traherne was published by Kelson in LAND & WATER, but not included in his book. The dressing appeared in book form only in Major Fisher's little known title, "Rod and River", misattributed to Kelson. On the theory no article should appear without a fly pattern, this pattern, PHOEBUS, is given below. Thus far, therefore, 22 patterns of Traherne's invention are known to exist. It is to be hoped that future research will find at least a few more.

NAME: Phoebus (See Cover Illustration)

Tip: Silver twist.
Tag: Blue silk.
Tail: Two toppings and a chatterer feather.
Butt: Black ostrich.
Body: Four sections: flat gold tinsel, each butted with black ostrich herl, and veiled with two or three yellow toucan beneath an Indian Crow feather; the toucan feathers should be longer than the Indian Crow, except at the frontmost where they should be the same; these veilings should graduate in length from tail to head; the veilings are put on perpendicular to the hook, as in the POPHAM.
Wings: Two large green macaw feathers, back to back, and two toppings

over all.
Horns: Blue macaw.
Sides: Two longish barred summer duck feathers, which should extend approximately half the length of the Macaw; Chatterer cheeks.
Head: Black ostrich.

Inventor: Major John P. Traherne

Source: Kelson in LAND & WATER, Vol. 41, No. 1066, 6/23/1886, P. 590. This pattern is also given in Major Fisher's "Rod and River", 1892. Fisher erroneously attributes it to Kelson.

Comment: "The prominent feature of its comeliness and undeniable symmetry, to the eye of an angler, is the deadly facility with which these wing feathers are endowed in very rough and rapid water, or on particularly windy days. The pattern is evidently intended for such water in very deep pools when it is as bright as gin, and the fine fibres on the body, showing to their best advantage, play prettily on either side of the wing." -GMK.

1. Major John P. Traherne, "THE HABITS OF THE SALMON", Chapman and Hall Limited, London, 1889, p. iii.
2. George M. Kelson in LAND & WATER, Volume 41, 5/1/1886, p. 406.
3. George M. Kelson in THE FISHING GAZETTE, Volume 8, 5/31/1884, p. 254.
4. Major John P. Traherne, "Salmon Fishing With the Fly" in "FISHING", edited by Henry Chomondeley-Pennell, in the Badminton Library, Longmans, Green, and Co., London, 1886, p. 204.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid., p. 205.
7. FISHING GAZETTE, Vol. 42, 2/9/1901, p. 92-3.

Copyright Q 1990 J.D. Zincavage.

The above article is an abridged excerpt from a forthcoming book.