S6, Ep 28: East Tennessee Fishing Report with Ellis Ward
Dive into the latest East Tennessee Fishing Report with Marvin Cash and Ellis Ward on The Articulate Fly. Marvin and Ellis discuss the end of musky season and the anticipation of upcoming hatches.
Addressing a listener's question, Ellis dives deep into the nuances of streamer fishing, dissecting the concept of 'pushing water' with big head flies. He offers a masterclass on fly design, lateral line stimulation and the visual triggers that entice a fish to bite. Ellis emphasizes the importance of taper and swim in a fly and how buoyancy affects its movement through the water.
Whether you're a seasoned angler or a curious beginner, this episode is a treasure trove of insights. So grab your rod, embrace the warmer weather and enjoy the waters of East Tennessee. Tight lines!
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Speaker:
Marvin: Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of The Articulate Fly.
Speaker:
Marvin: We're back with another East Tennessee Fishing Report with Ellis Ward.
Speaker:
Marvin: Ellis, how are you doing?
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Ellis: I'm doing well, Marv. How are you?
Speaker:
Marvin: As always, just trying to stay out of trouble. Sounds like you've,
Speaker:
Marvin: despite daylight savings time, you've got a little fishing withdrawal.
Speaker:
Ellis: Yeah, a little bit. Tried to hit the methadone clinic. That's not appropriate. rip.
Speaker:
Ellis: I scratched yesterday with my daughter who went to a little zone for some smallmouth,
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Ellis: fish and bait, but as I'm sure you can recall with five years old,
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Ellis: you know, those plants don't really mean much when you're out there, and it's kind of sunny.
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Ellis: Fish weren't biting, so I put a couple casts out there. It felt nice.
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Marvin: Yeah, there you go. Yeah, do you consider hot dogs live bait?
Speaker:
Ellis: Uh depends on how long you let them sit outside that's.
Speaker:
Marvin: Fair uh so you know we were talking before we started recording and you know
Speaker:
Marvin: kind of kind of the end of musky season and really kind of looking forward to
Speaker:
Marvin: uh some pretty nice hatches uh on your neck of the woods and i don't know know
Speaker:
Marvin: probably next month or so.
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Ellis: Yeah it is
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Ellis: we're getting into
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Ellis: spawning season up on the
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Ellis: french broad not quite there yet um last scheduled
Speaker:
Ellis: muskie trip was last
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Ellis: week and had to we had
Speaker:
Ellis: to call that one on account of rain and you
Speaker:
Ellis: know i'll probably sneak in another few days up there talking
Speaker:
Ellis: with some guys that fished today and not a
Speaker:
Ellis: whole lot's changed and we had a whole lot of water that
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Ellis: coincided with another little cold snap
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Ellis: so with nights being in the 30s
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Ellis: and days being in the you know 50 low 60s we're just it's not going to be there
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Ellis: quite yet and as far as the tailwaters it's everything's shaping up to be a
Speaker:
Ellis: pretty good spring i i've gotten hopeful before that But so much rain and such
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Ellis: a consistent amount of rain.
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Ellis: And, you know, seeing some of these tributaries like the Doe River on the Watauga
Speaker:
Ellis: and Freestone, the French Broad, the Nolichucky, everything just so happy and healthy.
Speaker:
Ellis: And much more so than I've seen in the last two, maybe three years.
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Ellis: I still like rain whenever it's coming.
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Ellis: And it's nice to have this right now.
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Ellis: We'll have good water. I'm pretty light my books are pretty light for the next
Speaker:
Ellis: couple weeks you know a few trips here and there but.
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Ellis: It can be a little tough to watch the really good conditions knowing that,
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Ellis: I think, or I should say hoping that folks are waiting for the quote-unquote
Speaker:
Ellis: good weather. Obviously, some rain does a lot.
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Ellis: But yeah, everything's shaping up quite well right now.
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Ellis: Good releases on both rivers. As we get warmer and the daylight starts to go from under 12 to over 12,
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Ellis: we're going to start seeing a bunch of different stuff.
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Ellis: Off but the big one the first big one going to be cat is here in probably under a month,
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Ellis: on the watauga and then it's all
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Ellis: furs and pmds everywhere both and
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Ellis: tailwaters you know you can get good days of
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Ellis: dry fly fishing in middle of january but pretty special time of year coming
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Ellis: up it this time of year is also when i say cat is in sulfur it's like you had
Speaker:
Ellis: school bus size as balls of shad moving up into the rivers and down your lake mouths.
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Ellis: The lake is filling back up and times are changing.
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Marvin: Yeah, so, you know, big brown trout probably makes the stripers happy too, right?
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Ellis: Yeah. I haven't had the opportunity to have a conversation with the striper,
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Ellis: But the ones that are here are stocked and don't naturally reproduce.
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Ellis: So whether or not they're following the cooler radars, the more oxygenated river
Speaker:
Ellis: water, I mean, they're still down in the lake, but they're going to be lower.
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Ellis: Or if it's some sort of false spawn, which certainly does occur in other stretches
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Ellis: of the Holston proper. I'm just talking about from Boone into the South Olsen, Otago.
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Ellis: Remains to be seen, but it's kind of different means to the same end.
Speaker:
Marvin: There you go. And got a question for you from Brenner, our probably most frequent
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Marvin: question asker on the Articulate Fly.
Speaker:
Marvin: And he wanted to get your thoughts on, you know, how much does pushing water
Speaker:
Marvin: with a big head fly matter?
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Ellis: Sure.
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Ellis: So, I'm going to make some assumptions about this. And I think in making these
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Ellis: assumptions, or at least in saying that I'm making these assumptions,
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Ellis: I would say it's important to think about the question that you're asking.
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Ellis: That might be too condescending to just say that plainly, but it's important
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Ellis: to ask yourself, why is this a thing?
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Ellis: Why is pushing water a thing?
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Ellis: And so I've approached this, and we talked about this.
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Ellis: I'm expecting to wake up in about eight and a half hours when you put me down
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Ellis: as I start going and going and going for 15 minutes straight.
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Ellis: But there's just a lot here and especially in the world of streamer fishing
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Ellis: which I think falls into the trap of what sounds good,
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Ellis: what works enough to gain some traction and once we're there it's fishing I
Speaker:
Ellis: mean if you have something that works enough to gain traction,
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Ellis: it's going to work because they're fish they're going to eat something that's
Speaker:
Ellis: moving so So as a rule, I would say that some friend of caper is important.
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Ellis: When you're talking about activating lateral lines and what that actually means
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Ellis: to a fish dispersing water.
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Ellis: I struggle to think that something that is not aero or hydrodynamic.
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Ellis: So when you look at pus, I would also maybe categorize that or rephrase that as drag.
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Ellis: When you're pulling something through the water and it feels draggy,
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Ellis: that's because it's not aero or hydrodynamic. It's kind of a nightmare to cast,
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Ellis: depending on how it's weighted.
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Ellis: And when you're dragging it through the water, yeah, it's creating a disturbance
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Ellis: disturbance because not necessarily displacing water because of the volume,
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Ellis: it displacing water because of the friction.
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Ellis: That i'm going to reference my swim
Speaker:
Ellis: bug which is a pretty i
Speaker:
Ellis: think a lot of people think that the fry is
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Ellis: bigger than it ends up being but the
Speaker:
Ellis: head is really it's packed deer hair with some
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Ellis: epoxy and marv you've you've cast it and fished the thing you can't feel it
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Ellis: you it casts like a dream you can't feel it moving to the water and then when
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Ellis: you change to kind of a bigger one or or I'll put on one with just a couple
Speaker:
Ellis: pieces of Keira on the hook bend, you can feel a difference.
Speaker:
Ellis: Like, whoa, what am I fishing now? Then you put on a dungeon,
Speaker:
Ellis: it's like, whew, cast way different.
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Ellis: You can feel it drag into the water. I love that fly for different reasons.
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Ellis: So the swim bag, quote-unquote, pushes better because it actually displaces
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Ellis: a solid piece of something that is moving through the water and it's buoyant.
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Ellis: So if you think about putting a a bouncy ball,
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Ellis: or an inflatable ball into a bathtub it's going to push all the water out if
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Ellis: you put something you know a bowling ball into the bathtub you know there's
Speaker:
Ellis: some physics 101 in there but
Speaker:
Ellis: there's more force on something that's buoyant so the swim fly thing is,
Speaker:
Ellis: there's more rabbit holes down that direction too So, but the reason I kind
Speaker:
Ellis: of kicked off with it's important to have some taper is that,
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Ellis: be it Blant or something weighted, as long as you do have taper,
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Ellis: you're going to get a swim out of it. Yeah.
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Ellis: I'm going to go ahead and say, just having watched these fish eat so much,
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Ellis: they're activated visually, and you can, you know, swim blindly with a fly,
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Ellis: unless that thing's got a rattle, or it's, you know, like one of Blaine's gummy
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Ellis: minnows, or you're fishing Rapalas.
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Ellis: You're not doing anything with a fly to create some sort of lateral line disturbance. disturbance.
Speaker:
Ellis: So I would say going higher on the water column and creating more of an obstruction,
Speaker:
Ellis: from above down below with light and just going after them visually is probably
Speaker:
Ellis: a story for Beth in worrying about what's pushing.
Speaker:
Ellis: And then as a tire, it's exploring what that what that push is and how you can
Speaker:
Ellis: get it without with and without buoyancy and um,
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Ellis: yeah i think i'm going to stop there before we get into time uh.
Speaker:
Marvin: Well i'm going to bait you and say you know the i guess you know the there's
Speaker:
Marvin: the lateral uh line stimulation but then also you know with articulation the
Speaker:
Marvin: big head then you get to start playing with jack knifing and kill you know killing
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Marvin: the flies right and get inside profile.
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Ellis: Yeah I mean my swim bug and I've had more than one person give me a hard time
Speaker:
Ellis: because it's drunken disorderly with a different head which I think would be
Speaker:
Ellis: a disservice to call it that a disservice to Tommy it's I created this fly,
Speaker:
Ellis: Taking from primarily Tommy Lynch's Drunken Disorderity and Blaine Chocolate's T-Bone.
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Ellis: I was tying a lot of musky flies at the time.
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Ellis: I was just getting here and just able to fish as much as it takes to actually
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Ellis: see the feedback to say, okay, I want this or I want that.
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Ellis: And it really became attempting to get that jackknife, being a small package,
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Ellis: castable, all that stuff.
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Ellis: And Tommy's fly is just so great, and I wanted to keep a lot that was there.
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Ellis: And then, yeah, taking the T-bonder, just some of those three-shanker triples,
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Ellis: and trying to get that dog walk, basically, but have something where the back
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Ellis: end swinging out and the head stopping and going left or right.
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Marvin: Yeah, pretty good stuff. And you know, folks, we love questions at the Articulate Fly.
Speaker:
Marvin: You can email them to us or DM us on social media, whatever is easiest for you.
Speaker:
Marvin: And if we use your question, I will send you some Articulate Fly swag.
Speaker:
Marvin: And we are drawing for some cool stuff from Ellis at the end of the season.
Speaker:
Marvin: And Ellis, before I let you go, a couple things. things.
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Marvin: You know, I imagine there are probably no more bucktail drops,
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Marvin: but you can certainly correct me.
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Marvin: And then also just kind of let folks know how to reach out and talk fishing
Speaker:
Marvin: with you and get on your guidebook.
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Ellis: Yeah, so there is going to be, there's bucktail just stubbornly hanging around,
Speaker:
Ellis: and that's mostly because the moment I get free time, I end up doing something else.
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Ellis: So I'm just, I'm going to stop promising a date on that, but there will be another
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Ellis: one, and I do have some good tails that will be in that.
Speaker:
Ellis: And as far as contacting me, fishing with me, you can get on Instagram and sort
Speaker:
Ellis: of follow along with some of the stuff I'm doing at Ellis Ward Guides.
Speaker:
Ellis: Information on booking and sort of a refreshed website is at elliswardflies.com.
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Ellis: And the best way to talk about you know some of this stuff we talked about what's
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Ellis: going on what fishing looks like right now or in a couple weeks is my cell phone at 513-543-0019 there.
Speaker:
Marvin: You go and so do you think if someone wanted like a bucktail in their easter
Speaker:
Marvin: basket that would be a doable thing.
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Ellis: Yeah you're getting me now i'm thinking about like uh make like a giant easter
Speaker:
Ellis: basket with with using the bucktail as bunny ears.
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Marvin: Yeah, you can do that or dye them pastel and have all kinds of pastel colors and yellows and greens.
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Ellis: Pastels are popular.
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Marvin: Yeah.
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Ellis: Yeah, I'd really like these things to be out in the next week or two.
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Marvin: Yeah, there you go. And, you know, so folks, remember, we have a Patreon community,
Speaker:
Marvin: the Articulate Fly, and there are two great ways to support the show and support Ellis.
Speaker:
Marvin: And one tier will get you 10% off the last bucktail shipment of the year,
Speaker:
Marvin: and there's another that'll get you $100 guide credit per year.
Speaker:
Marvin: So, you know, if you're in East Tennessee, Southwest Virginia,
Speaker:
Marvin: Western North Carolina, and you want to fish with Ellis or get some bucktails,
Speaker:
Marvin: you should check that out.
Speaker:
Marvin: And, you know, gosh, I'm looking at the weather. I mean, it's going to be awesome.
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Marvin: I think it may be rain, it's a little bit this weekend, but we're in the 70s.
Speaker:
Marvin: So it's definitely time in our part of the world to get on the water and catch a few.
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Marvin: Tight lines, everybody. Tight lines, Ellis.
Speaker:
Ellis: Appreciate it, Mark.
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.
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