S6, Ep 133: Streamer Strategies and Seasonal Shifts with Ellis Ward

Hey, folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of the Articulate Flower, back with another East Tennessee fishing report with Ellis Ward.

Ellis, how are you?

I am doing well, Marv.

How are you?

As always, I'm just trying to stay out of trouble, you know.

And it's interesting, you know, after weeks and weeks of you getting to fish like 3,000 plus CFS on the south Holston, you were telling me that it's down to a very tame 400 cfs now.

Yeah.

And they're still generating.

They're doing some 4 to 8pm pulses, which thanks to daylight savings time gives you about an hour before dark there.

So they're, they're still generating that 400 CFs is, is what has been historically 10 CFs.

And, and so the, you know what that looks like on a.

You know what a day looks like is historically 10 CFs as it's reported.

There's not many creeks in the south holes and you can't float it.

And it's very skinny when you wait.

And I don't even need to tread lightly on this one just because like everyone, people can disagree about how you fish during the spawn and whether or not reds are sporting or what guides should be doing around them.

Everyone can agree when you look, just visually go up to the upper South Holston, arguably one of the best trout streams in the eastern United States, and look at it at 10 cfs and it's, it's brutal.

And there's been some times where they, they shut the generation off completely and, you know, they put multimillion dollar weirs in there to keep it oxygenated.

And there really are so many fish.

And the bug life is great.

Dry fly fish, all this stuff.

You look at it and it looks, it looks like a picture that you would see from out west during some sort of catastrophic drought and fish kill.

And it, and that's every day at 10 cfs.

And so.

And then you have generation and, you know, big water and this 400 cfs.

I haven't talked with any.

This is just in the last couple days.

But there's been a push to increase minimum flows because of that.

There, there have been a few times where, I mean, massive weed beds have dried up.

Whole sections of the river just look like a Wasteland.

And that 10 CFS is the baseline is kind of.

It's a bad starting point.

And so I don't know if this is an indication of that.

Speaking very candidly and completely off script, not saying this is what's happening, but this is a busy time of year for people to be fishing for brown trout in the tailwater.

So I've seen, I've seen flows and schedules of releases become a little more friendly to daylight fishing hours round about this time of year before.

I don't know if this is that.

I don't know if this is a minimum flow change, but either way, I went out and fished it yesterday with my buddy Jack, and it's.

That 400's fun.

It's.

It's not too big and pushy like that 3000, which is fun for a different reason.

You can move some big fish, but there's some good lanes that are open up and there's.

There's big pools in that river that when you have a thousand, 1500, 2000, 3000, there's no chance you're getting anything down there.

Even, you know, jigging something, you're.

You're going to lose it.

It's, you know, all these craggly rocks and boulders.

So, yeah, it's.

It's also waitable.

And so it's not.

You're not fishing this super bony stuff.

You're fishing.

It's kind of like the minimum flows on the Watauga.

It's.

It's been pretty cool.

Well, awesome.

And got a question for you.

You know, I think between, you know, us talking about fishing at night and an interview I did with Frank Landis up in Paul, we've kind of found a new cadre of, like, night anglers and streamer fishermen.

And James wrote in and he wanted to get your thoughts on how night fishing changes heading into winter.

And do the fish become less nocturnal?

Yeah.

One of the sickest individuals I've ever met.

His name is Tommy Lynch.

He's a guide up in Michigan, has been doing this for a long time, and maintains that it is his favorite way to target brown trout.

It's a rabbit hole that goes so deep and you take.

You put one leg, you put your pinky toe into it, and all of a sudden it's.

You're looking back up at a tiny little dot of light falling deeper and deeper.

So not surprising that the new cadre has been found.

It's.

It's fun, it's different, it checks.

It's not visual, but it's, you know, it's tactile, it's auditory, it's.

It's very different.

And, and you have the river to yourself.

It's a very cool experience.

So, yeah, as far as going into winter, I mean, if it weren't for freezing hands and ice and and just general discomfort.

I would mouse in the winter.

I mean there's mice that haven't found a place that is warm.

They are nocturnal and they are also mammals and so they need to, when it's cold they actually have to eat and drink more in order to keep their body temperature up.

They don't slow down and so unless they have found a place, they're going to be out and active.

And tailwaters don't freeze.

There's, I mean the, it's just a cool ecosystem.

It's 365 days a year.

So I've had, I've had some of my best nights of mousing in October and November and more of those are in October just because typically November is, you know, chillier nights.

But man, it's a, it's cloudy here and it's going to be kind of warm and socked in this week.

So you will be hearing more from me on that.

It is a good time of year to fish and it's also dark at 6, so you don't have to wait till 11 to night fish.

It's, I mean I love it.

It's another reason why fall becomes this like almost stressful because there's too many things to, to.

I wanted to do a bunch of different stuff and when it's dark at 6, 6:30, it's like damn, dude, before dinner I could be mousing right now.

Yeah.

And so you know, obviously in the summertime, you know, it stays light later and so you know, but how does that translate when you have a longer period of, of nighttime in terms of like the bite window across the evening?

Is it is, you know, fishing at 8:00, you know, in the fall the same as fishing at 11 o'clock in the summer or is it different?

Good question.

I'm, I'm just going to say it's going to be the same in that you will encounter the bite windows and on a given day with given conditions, those bite windows will be longer and shorter.

I, I personally don't like when it's getting dark at 7.

I'm not night fishing from 7 to 7.

So I have seen bites turn on at, you know, midnight when I start fishing at 8.

I unfortunately don't have the 12 hour night shifts.

I've done them.

I just don't have enough.

You gotta do a lot of one thing in really consistent conditions to say even here's an observation, let alone, yeah, this is a pattern.

So.

And you know, again, I've caught fish under a full moon and Just, just a giant.

It may as well be the sun, it's so bright.

And I've had nights with no moon.

Otherwise generally pretty good conditions that suck.

And so going out for more than three or four hours is certainly recommended because you could get like a 30 minute bite window, you get a 15 minute bite window.

Night fishing, you normally see them in the, you know, hour or two bite windows.

And it's not like things are going bonkers.

It's just like you really see an uptick in activity and, and keeping your eye on the barometer too, not like that's going to change whether or not you're fishing.

But if you are fishing and it sucks and you're looking at the barometer and seeing that it's kind of ticking up or it's in the, you know, upper 30 decimals or low 31s and it's kind of ticking up for.

It's a little windy and arid outside.

Like, yeah, that, that's an off period of time when things start quieting down.

Maybe humid cloud cover, the moon goes away.

Like it's, it's kind of the same stuff as your, your daytime fishing, but at night those, those bite windows do exist and I would say they happen just as frequently, you know, if, if you have seven hours of night or if you have 12.

And so as a redundant guide answering a fishing question, you do have to go out and fish to find out.

It's always better to fish yesterday too, right?

You should have been here yesterday.

Unless you were.

You fish with me for two days, then it was two days prior.

Yeah, the penultimate day before yesterday.

Yeah.

So, you know, folks, we love questions on the articulate fly.

You can email me, you can DM me on social media, whatever's easiest for you.

And if we use your question, I will send you some articulate fly swag.

And we enter a drawing for some cool stuff from Ellis at the end of the season.

And Ellis, before I let you go, I know you're, you're getting super juiced for, you know, streamer fishing for big trout.

You're getting tuned up for muskie fishing.

And you were telling me that gun season in Tennessee comes in like the week before Thanksgiving.

So you're getting primed with the borax for the bucktails.

Right.

So where should people reach out and learn more about all that good stuff?

Sure.

I'm going to add one thing to the list, which, which is postpon fishing.

January, February, and I've had a lot of great anglers in my boat over late summer.

Fall.

For the guys and a number that have already been back and you know, more booked for the spring.

And I and I have a few dates filling up for January, February for the for the guys and gals out there wanting to chase big fish with streamers.

I'm going to appreciate you working on my boat any time of the year for your sake.

I want you on here January, February.

So just, just gonna add that, yeah.

November 23rd is the opening of gun season and Bucktail will be ramping up shortly thereafter.

Getting some in right now from archery season but things will be picking up both at ellis ward flies.com and at tailwater along with maybe a couple other shops.

Yeah, you can follow me on Instagram at Ellis Ward Guides.

And best way to reach out about trips or anything like that is 513-543-0019.

Well, there you go folks.

Well, as I always say yo to yourself to get out there and catch a few tight lines everybody.

Tight line.

Zealous.

Appreciate it, Marvin.