A while back I was lucky enough to be able to spend some time reading the original 1884 editions of “The fishing gazette”. In 1883/84 George M. Kelson ran a series of text called “On the description of salmon flies, Major Traherne’s Patterns” where he presented (as far as I know) 18 patterns by Major Traherne, but also describes the steps involved in tying a salmon fly.

These text have not been easily available, and when I had a chance to read the 1884 editions I got some pictures and have transcribed the text and added a new “book” to flypattern.org where I will publish the 12 chapters I have from this series.

If you have the first four, or the No.18 of these, then I’m interested to get in touch with you to see if I can get my hands on them!

The book is listed on flypattern.org under “The fishing gazette: On the description of salmon flies” and the first pattern published today is “No. 5. Tippetiwitchet”