Toward the end of the previous century, one man carne to the fore and has dominated Atlantic Salmon fly design ever since. He is George Kelson - and some of us respectfully choose to call him "Mister," because of his eminence. An opinionated, arrogant man, he offended many not so gifted as he, especially because he was generally right. to make matters worst, he would come back with the biggest bag of fish. This was long before the days of catch-and-release, you understand, so a fisher could not exaggerate his catch and not have to prove his prowess.

Mr. Kelson wrote two books, plus many magazine articles in his time. The Salmon Fly is he one he is best known for. So simply named, it is a marvel of complexity and critical thought; also it lists a great many patterns. The Flyfisher's Classic Library in Devon, England, is soon to reprint it in a fine edition. The Tips is his second book and it is so rare that I have never seen it, but I am told that. it contains very little that is important in terms of patterns, fishing techniques or tying techniques. Only last year The "Land and Water" Salmon Flies was published by The Flyfisher's Classic Library, and it is an important volume for us who tie.

The introduction by R.J.W. Coleby is excellent, for it both respects Mr. Kelson's work and does not try to hide the domineering, bullying nature of the man who may will be the most important figure in [Atlantic Salmon] flyfishing and its literature. Born in 1835, George Mortimer Kelson grew up in a privileged family with a medical background and a high expectancy of performance. Coleby says, "He seemed born to comepete." He excelled at Cricket, distance swimming and Steeplechase. Once he said, "I have passed my life amidst amusements of many kinds." Then he discovered fishing. During his seventy years of pursuing salmon, he caught an estimated three to four thousand. In one average season on the Usk, he caught 92. From an early age he wrote about fishing, first for The Fishing Gazette and, towards the end of his career, for Land and Water. His articles appeared weekly or bi-weekly and were accompanied by precise drawings of the flies he collected, codified or originated. They were reproduced b yy then state-of-the-art printing methods, at first in black and white and eventually in color. It is from the color cards that were printed and sold separately by the magazine that Coleby has put together his excellent book.

In The Salmon Fly, Mr. Kelson inspires us to tie the complex flies whose style he largely originated and promoted. at the same time, he confuses us. For a hundred years now, anglers have read his instructions for mixedwinged salmon flies - the ones he called "skins." he said they were easy to tie. (Yes, easy for Leonardo!) Those of us who have had trouble marrying and setting ordinary salmon fly wings have studied the illustrations and reread his instructions with wonder and dismay. The winging can be done but it requires much practice and the best materials available.

Yesterday's flies have wings of married strips of dyed swan; today's utilize colored goose shoulder instead, which, when pro erly selected and matched to the same size and shape feather from other birds, marry nicely. Speaking of marrying nicely, Speckled Bustard is sometimes available legally, molted from birds kept. in captivity, say, at a zoo. (When Kevin Snyder had these and I asked him how well they married, he replied, "You can marry them to a Volkswagen.").

Mr. Kelson tells you that one of his wings will marry with a few strokes of the fingers. Well, maybe, but not for me. The trick is in learning to discover the natural curl in the feathers and learning how to select and match it to feathers from other, dissimilar birds. This can take years of frustration to master.

Once you get into the craft, books like Mr. Kelson's are a great help. They will show you what the fly ought to look like - at least conceptually, for these are but illustrations. For the real McCoy (no, I don't mean Mike, but he will do), you must turn to photographs. They are better at showing how today's tiers have solved the ancient problems of fly design and the ordering of materials, say, in a wing.

The art of tying the Atlantic Salmon Fly has undergone a recent renaissance. It epitomizes what can be done with feathers, fur and iron. We know it to be a rich, complicated, satisfying activity. It can occupy many a long winter's evening and extend well into the following morning.

What is so special about a Kelson skin? Other fulldressed salmon fly wings are comprised of fairly wide bands of different materials (most often dyed goose shoulder), all married together and given a nice hump or backward curl. His, instead, are comprised of only a single fiber or two from each material or color, but the slender bands are repeated over and over, until a full win is produced. Thus, a typical wing might consist of fibers of goose shoulder in red, blue and yellow; speckled bustard; peacock wing; golden pheasant tail and turkey. If you tie such a wing with single fibers of each, it won't be nearly wide enough to comprise the full height of a salmon fly wing. so you repeat the process. You start a second set of single fibers in exactly the same order as before, but the wing still isn't bulky enough. So you do it again, and most likely, again. When you have four or five such units married together, they will comprise a full wing One wing. You will need two, of course, one for the other side of the fly, which is the mirror image of the first. So you begin your intricate construction again.

The shape of the wing is most important and most Kelson skins I've seen do not fit the template of the drawings that accompany the text in both his books. Mr. Kelson would not have permitted inaccuracies of the smallest detail, so we must assume the wings are exactly the way he wanted them tied. Smaller individual fibers are used for the lower portions and, as the built wing progresses toward the top of the fly, they get longer.

The wing is then "humped" for curvature. I've often thought that the way this is done is the signature of a tier and is as distinct as fingerprints. (How easy is it to spot a Ron Alcott fly, for instance?!) Humping is done with the fully married wing extended horizontally and the same fingers of both bands inducing a curve in the wing's shape that will be duplicate on both sides of the fly and follow the flow of the body back to the tail, but not much beyond it.

But let Mr. Kelson speak for himself: "As the pioneer of this system, perhaps I may say without egotism that, amidst the many changes which have occurred of late years, not only in the formation, but in the method of making certain flies, 'mixed wings' ... have met with the greatest approval and success. I personally worked out this style of winging, and made it generally known among my immediate friends on finding how well it answered in actual use." p.93. But then he improved upon it in the succeeding years and "has reduced the whole business will within the management of a beginner at ,jly work. [Italics his.] You can get the flavor of his personality in his writing style, I think.

And on the method itself: "Humping is a scheme by which a superb shape of wing is secured - a good curve given to the upper fibers, whilst the lower ones run almost. parallel with the shank of the hook and close to it. The 'hump' is produced by holding the wings with a good grip of the fore-fingers and thumbs - those of the left hand gripping just on the head side of the middle part of the feathers; those of the right hand, close to their tying point. The wrists, at first elevate tot he top of the dotted curve in the diagram, are now slowly depressed, and the fore-fingers and thumbs of the respective hands, at first touching each other at the side edges of their nails, draw wider and wider from each other, as if hinged at their extreme points. p.97.

I have yet to see a wing shaped as in his illustrations. Instead, the wing fills the curve of the golden pheasant topping and forms a perfect ellipse with the tail.

When you try to duplicate it, you will feel Mr. Kelson's mind taking over yours, your fingers and your wrists. Try it. Dead since 1920, at the advanced age of 93, he returns not only to haunt, but to help you. His words prove good and useful. If you give him your mind, you will soon be tying skins just as he wants you to. Of course, you will not be good for anything else.

At the Three Salmons Hotel on the River Usk, in Wales, the greatest of the great used to gather for a day or two of fishing. Wales was considered to be England, and the river, the best around for salmon in numbers. Among the great angling writers who traveled there for the annual slaughter were Francis Francis, (A Book on Angling, 1867), Sir Herbert. Maxwell, (Salmon and Sea Trout, 1898), Dr. T.E. Pryce-Tannatt, (How to Dress Salmon Flies, 1914) and, of course, Mr. Kelson.

A vise and a cabinet full of tying materials from which the fisher was supposed to promptly replace what he had used up was consequently filled to overflowing; it was available to everybody. They tied without a vise, for the most part. Think of the heaps of Bustard, Indian Crow, Toucan, Ibis, Jay, etc. The men ate, drank and talked as they tied flies. I suppose they exchanged lies with that blithe lack of challenge that Steelhead and Salmon fishers will show each other in public. That is, nobody screamed out, "Lair, Liar, Pants on Fire!"

Mr. Kelson dominated the gathering - whomever was present. He invariably caught the most fish and had answers for all the questions nobody had thought to ask. He waited for them like a Barracuda. An imposing figure, he is pictured in both books in a Derby hat, wearing a short woolen jacket that is the forerunner of today's fishing vest. He displays stocking foot waders with nailed brogues. He is bearded, his long mustaches neatly groomed and curved in sweeping bicycle handles.

He showed the others the right way to tie flies. They never forgot it. Dr. Pryce-Tannatt, the kid, listened closely. When it was time for his own book on flies, years later, the method of listing fly recipes was Mr. Kelson's, as were many of the dressings. There have been several Kelson resurgences and we are in the midst of one right now. All over the world, tiers are challenged by his methods and the complexity of the patterns that are his legacy. In my neck of the woods, the Pacific Northwest, live a growing number of men and women who could sit down al. the table at Three Salmons Hotel and show the famous fishers a thing or two with feathers and thread. Among them are Steve Gobin, Mike McCoy, Greg Hunt, Kevin Perkins and John Olshewsky. They are members of the Salmon Fly Guild, a unique group, where tiers in a field famous for its secrecy willingly share tips and techniques - well, up to a point, that is. If you share, you learn, and may pick up some tricks that will lift your craft to another level.

I search my own experience for something like those marvelous evenings at that hotel on the Usk. I recall many good times spent sharing a meal and a bottle with other fishers, some of them writers. I recall the big spaghetti feast put on by Trey Combs and B.J. Meigs at Clark's on the Skagit. The season closed on some exceptional spring fishing. We gathered in relief. Among those present were Harry Lemire, Jerry Wintle, Walt Johnson, Jim Vincent, Don Roberts, Alec Jackson, Joe Butorac, Les Johnson and Mike Kinney, plus wives and live-ins. All are first-rate tiers and fishers.

That was a heady collection of talent, all right, but it did not come close to equaling one evening at the Three Salmons Hotel in Usk, where Mr. Kelson drank and dined... alone.

Note: This is an author-abridgement of an article that appeared originally in the Volume One, Number Four issue of Steelhead Fly Fishing Journal, December, 1994.