Sept. 25, 2024

S6, Ep 113: Fall Fishing and Musky Strategies: Ellis Ward's East TN Insights

In this episode of The Articulate Fly, host Marvin Cash catches up with Ellis Ward for another East Tennessee Fishing Report. Ellis shares insights on the impacts of recent weather patterns, including tropical storms and hurricanes, on fishing conditions. They discuss the benefits of these weather events for local water levels and how they affect fishing strategies.

Ellis provides updates on current fishing conditions, including water temperatures and recent catches, such as a notable 50-inch musky. He also delves into the intricacies of fishing during low water conditions and the adjustments anglers need to make. Ellis shares a humorous anecdote about a recent fishing trip with a client and the unexpected challenges they faced.

Listeners will appreciate Ellis’s detailed advice on how to adapt fishing techniques based on moon phases and barometric pressure, particularly for musky fishing. He emphasizes the importance of persistence and the right mindset, encouraging anglers to fish hard and make the most of their time on the water.

Marvin encourages listeners to send in their questions for a chance to win Articulate Fly swag and be entered into a drawing for cool prizes from Ellis. Don’t miss this episode packed with practical fishing tips, local insights and a touch of humor.

To learn more about Ellis, check out our interview!

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Transcript
Speaker:

Marvin: Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of the Articulate Fly,



Speaker:

Marvin: and we're back with another East Tennessee Fishing Report with Ellis Ward. Ellis, how are you?



Speaker:

Ellis: I'm doing well, Marv. How are you?



Speaker:

Marvin: As always, I'm just trying to stay out of trouble, and you know,



Speaker:

Marvin: it's kind of funny. I was joking with Matt last week that you screwed up the



Speaker:

Marvin: weather again, and it's gotten hot again.



Speaker:

Ellis: Yeah uh i i think that as much as i can curse the the forecast,



Speaker:

Ellis: mother nature is doing us a favor this week and we're getting i actually had



Speaker:

Ellis: a guy call me today and he's coming up here with some friends and just call



Speaker:

Ellis: me to ask some questions and see if



Speaker:

Ellis: the impending hurricane was going to make it not good for them driving up from Alabama.



Speaker:

Ellis: And I've had my eye on, there was a tropical storm, quote-unquote, like a week-plus ago.



Speaker:

Ellis: And it's, I mean, the tropical storm season is,



Speaker:

Ellis: again, to preface, I don't want to be whatever,



Speaker:

Ellis: insensitive piss someone off



Speaker:

Ellis: or saying that I like it when we get them because



Speaker:

Ellis: I know that I mean even



Speaker:

Ellis: what last month or whatever Charlotte got it got your son's school was closed



Speaker:

Ellis: like it it causes damage so but but by the time it's and this whole thing is



Speaker:

Ellis: about me we know that so by the time it's here it's,



Speaker:

Ellis: dissipated, it's spread over the mountains, it's filling up all the little creeks,



Speaker:

Ellis: and it's just been, you know, the third year in a row of really, really low water, and.



Speaker:

Ellis: That's really not changing outside of these depressions coming in.



Speaker:

Ellis: So, we have gray skies and precipitation on and off over the next week,



Speaker:

Ellis: including including, looks like a day or two of some more focused rain that



Speaker:

Ellis: won't just be the drizzly stuff,



Speaker:

Ellis: but we'll actually get some watering rivers and, you know, it'll kind of.



Speaker:

Ellis: It'll, it'll make things probably unfishable in, on the upper French broad for a little bit.



Speaker:

Ellis: Um, I was fishing Melbourne in middle Tennessee or near Knoxville a couple of days ago.



Speaker:

Ellis: And that, that water's at 65 and there's, there's fish moving and,



Speaker:

Ellis: uh, they managed to catch a 50 inch muskie.



Speaker:

Ellis: A couple days prior on the French Broad and that water is kind of in the 68



Speaker:

Ellis: zone and I've said it before you know it normally peaks around mid to lower 70s,



Speaker:

Ellis: which is just about on the upper edge of that comfort zone where you don't want



Speaker:

Ellis: to be fishing them anymore and,



Speaker:

Ellis: yeah so it'll we'll get with Some cooler temps, which has not been the case,



Speaker:

Ellis: and some rain, which has not been the case.



Speaker:

Ellis: Things will be in pretty good shape and in the fall here.



Speaker:

Marvin: Yeah, and I've noticed from your Instagram feed, looks like you've been fishing



Speaker:

Marvin: pretty full water when you've been out pulling streamers.



Speaker:

Ellis: Yeah, you know, I've been fortunate to have trips the last two Saturdays,



Speaker:

Ellis: and prior to that,



Speaker:

Ellis: basically I had the last three or four trips have coincided with some windows where we had water.



Speaker:

Ellis: And prior to that, um, had a, had a couple of tough, tough days in low water.



Speaker:

Ellis: Um, but, but push those boats towards the housing and, uh.



Speaker:

Ellis: Yeah, it's been, you know, it's, it's always interesting trying,



Speaker:

Ellis: trying to make anything and everything due to the needs of anglers. But, um, Um,



Speaker:

Ellis: It's been good in the last couple of days and this last weekend.



Speaker:

Ellis: I don't know if he'll be listening. I'll try to get him to, but shout out Bart



Speaker:

Ellis: for the second time on my boat.



Speaker:

Ellis: He just texted me on Friday. I was actually, I'm going to try to make this one



Speaker:

Ellis: fast, but it's kind of a funny story. I'm out fishing.



Speaker:

Ellis: Melvin, it's a couple hours away. I wanted to be there for a few days and ended



Speaker:

Ellis: up staying at a hotel near Dandridge.



Speaker:

Ellis: It's like an hour away, everything in Knoxville Crazy expensive And it's because



Speaker:

Ellis: of the Bristol races So client,



Speaker:

Ellis: Borrowed text me And says you want to fish tomorrow We worked that out and we're



Speaker:

Ellis: going to meet So we end up meeting and not until the end of the night Do I discover that.



Speaker:

Ellis: He's from Southwest Virginia He came down here and realized all the hotels Were



Speaker:

Ellis: super expensive and told me he stayed



Speaker:

Ellis: In some shitty Red roof inn near Dandridge and I was like, what now?



Speaker:

Ellis: So when he was texting me and I was like, yeah, dude, I'm in Melton. I'll be back in the area.



Speaker:

Ellis: We might be able to do a later trip, whatever.



Speaker:

Ellis: He was a couple rooms down.



Speaker:

Ellis: I don't know if that's small world or just two strange dudes doing the same



Speaker:

Ellis: strange stuff, but we ended up getting, man, we moved so many big fish And that



Speaker:

Ellis: was his, his second time streamer fishing.



Speaker:

Ellis: He's a all around great angler, lots of saltwater experiments.



Speaker:

Ellis: But the whole doing it from a boat thing, as you know, is a different animal.



Speaker:

Ellis: And man, it's been, when that water's up, it's been cooking recently.



Speaker:

Marvin: Yeah, that's neat. And we've got a question for you from Brenner.



Speaker:

Marvin: Brenner wanted to get your thoughts on, he's kind of getting musky fever like



Speaker:

Marvin: everybody else kind of in the southeast.



Speaker:

Marvin: He wanted to get your thoughts on



Speaker:

Marvin: how changes in moon phase and barometric pressure affect the musky bite.



Speaker:

Ellis: Yeah, I start to get hesitant with this one because there's so much information



Speaker:

Ellis: available and it does become overwhelming.



Speaker:

Ellis: One of the things that I want to avoid is.



Speaker:

Ellis: Stopping someone or instilling a low degree of confidence with moon phases that



Speaker:

Ellis: aren't quote-unquote active and you know that said,



Speaker:

Ellis: my booking like when i when someone calls me and say do you have a time in late november,



Speaker:

Ellis: or how's your schedule looking in october and i'll kind of i'll look through



Speaker:

Ellis: that two or three days in a row in October.



Speaker:

Ellis: So I'll look through, see where some of those blocks exist.



Speaker:

Ellis: And the first thing I do is, is go from my availability to the moon phase calendar,



Speaker:

Ellis: just because we'd never know what conditions are going to look like.



Speaker:

Ellis: That's kind of my tiebreaker because I've seen it with, I've seen it with trout too.



Speaker:

Ellis: And you know, mousing 100%, I'm not fishing someone when it's moonrise at 7



Speaker:

Ellis: p.m. and it's a full moon.



Speaker:

Ellis: We're not mousing. We have to mouse the following week or the two weeks after that.



Speaker:

Ellis: I will say that there is...



Speaker:

Ellis: There's an unavoidable correlation. And I really approached,



Speaker:

Ellis: this is my fifth year of fishing the French Broad, and the clinch system and Melvin Hill Reservoir.



Speaker:

Ellis: And Matt's shown off to me a couple times on the new, but I don't guide there



Speaker:

Ellis: and I'll just occasionally be taken to whale on fish with them so I don't pay attention up there but,



Speaker:

Ellis: I try to not pay attention to it when I'm fishing and I try to not pay attention



Speaker:

Ellis: to it when for the first couple years really I was thinking okay well you know I'm gonna go fish.



Speaker:

Ellis: It's sort of the same with streamers where What color are you fishing?



Speaker:

Ellis: I don't care. What color do you like to fish?



Speaker:

Ellis: Why do you like to fish?



Speaker:

Ellis: I mean, on Saturday, I love the swim bug. I love the drop.



Speaker:

Ellis: If I can get someone going on a swim bug, man, and they're feeling it.



Speaker:

Ellis: And how we just pound fish, it just happens.



Speaker:

Ellis: And the eats are extraordinary. And so Barb's feeling it.



Speaker:

Ellis: He's fishing it with confidence and we we



Speaker:

Ellis: go through phases we go through periods of time even



Speaker:

Ellis: good banks where it just not happened and you



Speaker:

Ellis: know stayed the course and um i mean now we move some very serious fish missed



Speaker:

Ellis: more than he wouldn't like to talk about ever again and um landed a couple nice



Speaker:

Ellis: ones so kind of the same deal with musky where



Speaker:

Ellis: if you go in there with this set expectation of they're only going to bite during



Speaker:

Ellis: this period of time or this expectation of they're less likely to bite now.



Speaker:

Ellis: You just start kind of T-Rexing stuff,



Speaker:

Ellis: getting the short arms and not putting



Speaker:

Ellis: it up under the junk or getting the



Speaker:

Ellis: down you know looking you pass a down tree



Speaker:

Ellis: and that v when you look back



Speaker:

Ellis: upstream that v from two branches



Speaker:

Ellis: meeting you gotta put it up right in the middle of that thing and maybe check



Speaker:

Ellis: it two or three times if you're moving slowly enough and and so this this idea



Speaker:

Ellis: of and marv i remember you telling me fishing with blaine where you're fishing



Speaker:

Ellis: some deeper troughs and you're.



Speaker:

Ellis: He was kind of coaching you to, you know, what the fly looks like,



Speaker:

Ellis: you know, what it's doing and just know what it's doing down there.



Speaker:

Ellis: And so after you have this, whatever you want to call it, this relationship



Speaker:

Ellis: built with your fly rod, with the fly, and you can envision everything happening.



Speaker:

Ellis: It sounds silly and it can feel silly until it very quickly doesn't.



Speaker:

Ellis: But you have to fish like you're going to catch a muskie every single cast and,



Speaker:

Ellis: I've been fortunate to fish with a wide variety of anglers from all different



Speaker:

Ellis: backgrounds and one of my good buddies Matt from I've been,



Speaker:

Ellis: I grew up in Wisconsin and we were fishing a little bit and just getting ripped



Speaker:

Ellis: apart with the wind And we changed pretty quickly, went to a nearby river and,



Speaker:

Ellis: and got a fish pretty quickly thereafter.



Speaker:

Ellis: And I was kind of like, you know,



Speaker:

Ellis: I just felt like we had wasted time just getting ripped around by wind.



Speaker:

Ellis: But the whole time I was getting ripped around by wind rowing, he was, he was fishing.



Speaker:

Ellis: He was trolling when we were getting pushed by wind on the way out.



Speaker:

Ellis: And he was like, that's not, that's not a waste of time. i i got 200 casts out



Speaker:

Ellis: it's just as good a chance as any other cast and i think that was just like



Speaker:

Ellis: three years ago at that point so kind of putting all these things together it's,



Speaker:

Ellis: yeah you know do your own research i would encourage you to do that i don't



Speaker:

Ellis: want to either poison the well or or have you drink some kool-aid that that doesn't help you but um.



Speaker:

Ellis: The deal with Muskie is that, and this is one of the only cliches that I like.



Speaker:

Ellis: I dislike cliches most of the time, but you can't catch them from the couch



Speaker:

Ellis: is such a good one because it isn't that you need to go out and be there with



Speaker:

Ellis: the fly in the right place at the right time.



Speaker:

Ellis: You know full stop period that's how



Speaker:

Ellis: you catch musky it can be said for sure that that is a way to get a musky to



Speaker:

Ellis: eat um but you have to check all the boxes and and another one i like is uh



Speaker:

Ellis: fishing with chris will and i know you talked to him a few years ago,



Speaker:

Ellis: He was talking about Larry Dahlberg Using



Speaker:

Ellis: A lottery ticket Where You don't have to get You don't have to match up the



Speaker:

Ellis: bars And the bells and the cherries It's a big scratch off ticket And all you



Speaker:

Ellis: have to do Is get one It doesn't matter the order It doesn't matter Nothing.



Speaker:

Ellis: One has to hit and so to just not scratch some like if you're going out fishing



Speaker:

Ellis: you scratch every single one it's so stupid to just not scratch a couple because



Speaker:

Ellis: those might be those have just as good odds as anything else um.



Speaker:

Ellis: So, yeah, I would just say for assuming that you're not fishing seven days a



Speaker:

Ellis: week or for every single day of the moon phase, go out and fish as hard as you



Speaker:

Ellis: can for as long as you can when you're able to.



Speaker:

Ellis: And, um, if you have the flexibility of schedule around moon phases,



Speaker:

Ellis: then I would, I would encourage you to look up the Solon or calendar and,



Speaker:

Ellis: and, and try to try to navigate some of those active periods,



Speaker:

Ellis: which have some, some of the bigger and longer peaks around the ball in the new room.



Speaker:

Marvin: Them yeah and i always say you're never going to be back at the office regretting



Speaker:

Marvin: fishing for that extra half an hour yeah.



Speaker:

Ellis: That's exactly right and i mean you.



Speaker:

Marvin: Know wish i'd gone home sooner i.



Speaker:

Ellis: I put a cast out at the boat ramp almost every trip um Um, and,



Speaker:

Ellis: and for the, for the folks that have fished with me, it's, it's very rare that



Speaker:

Ellis: I have the, you know, that the ramp gets in sight and, and we kind of, we start to pack up.



Speaker:

Ellis: Like when you're out there, especially fishing for big, big rounds, fishing for muskie.



Speaker:

Ellis: Um, yeah. Check, double check. exactly you're not going to regret that extra



Speaker:

Ellis: half an hour for sure and musky in particular man,



Speaker:

Ellis: i've heard some colorful stories from from matt riley i've had a few myself



Speaker:

Ellis: he's he has way more musky guided trips under his belt than i do but um.



Speaker:

Ellis: Some people want to bail. Some people call it with 45 minutes left,



Speaker:

Ellis: lights kind of going down.



Speaker:

Ellis: And we have this calendar as a guide who knows what they're doing or who has



Speaker:

Ellis: a plan and who has fished this water on their own and who understands timing



Speaker:

Ellis: and light and all that stuff.



Speaker:

Ellis: Off man that last 45 minutes were



Speaker:

Ellis: hitting the juice and it's it's



Speaker:

Ellis: because we also want that low light and there's implications with sunset and



Speaker:

Ellis: again not that you you don't fish any less hard during the in between times



Speaker:

Ellis: but yeah that that last low light period of the day is certainly a time you



Speaker:

Ellis: should be fishing hard yeah.



Speaker:

Marvin: There you go and you know folks we love questions on the articulate fly,



Speaker:

Marvin: you can email them to us or DM us on social media.



Speaker:

Marvin: Or if you go to our Instagram profile, there's actually a button you can touch



Speaker:

Marvin: and record the question.



Speaker:

Marvin: And we may, you may actually hear your question on the fishing report.



Speaker:

Marvin: And, you know, if we use your question, I will send you some articulate fly



Speaker:

Marvin: swag and you're into a drawing for some cool stuff from Ellis.



Speaker:

Marvin: And Ellis, you want to like update folks on, you know, bucktail prep,



Speaker:

Marvin: you know, how to reach out and get get on your God calendar and all that kind of good stuff.



Speaker:

Ellis: Yeah. Um, I am, I don't know if I'm, I'm pretty sure I had gotten a couple more



Speaker:

Ellis: boxes of Borax since the last time we spoke.



Speaker:

Ellis: But whenever I'm at the home Depot or loves getting something mostly for,



Speaker:

Ellis: you know, to fix something on a trailer, um, I'm grabbing a thing of Borax too.



Speaker:

Ellis: So that's, That's going to be right around the corner.



Speaker:

Ellis: I'm going to have a bunch available at Tailwater Fly Company,



Speaker:

Ellis: which is a fly shop opened in Bluff City near the South Holston by my buddy John.



Speaker:

Ellis: And it's the tying material and hook selection and all.



Speaker:

Ellis: He's just, he's doing the whole fly shop thing.



Speaker:

Ellis: Flies and stuff to get to tie very very well and he's going to have a section for,



Speaker:

Ellis: bucktail which will be pretty cool and the the majority of it will be available



Speaker:

Ellis: on my website where i'll bring this full circle you can ask me questions or



Speaker:

Ellis: send me an email to get on the



Speaker:

Ellis: calendar and that is elliswardwise.com and you can follow along with some of what I'm doing,



Speaker:

Ellis: on Instagram at elliswarddietz.



Speaker:

Marvin: Well, there you go. Well, folks, as always say, you owe it to yourself to get



Speaker:

Marvin: out there and catch a few. Tight lines, everybody. Tight lines, Ellis.



Speaker:

Ellis: Appreciate it, Marv.




Ellis Ward Profile Photo

Ellis Ward

Guide | Fly Tier

I am a full time, year round fishing guide in East Tennessee, based out of Johnson City. I also design and tie flies from midges to musky, process a thousand or so bucktails every season, teach at East Tennessee State University, and raise my daughter.