S6, Ep 42: Ellis Ward's Tailwater Tactics and Temperature Tantrums
Join host Marvin Cash as he navigates the unpredictable spring fishing conditions of East Tennessee with the keen insights of Ellis Ward on The Articulate Fly. In this episode, Ellis shares his expertise on how to outsmart the weather's impact on tailwater trout and pre-spawn smallmouth bass. From the importance of adjusting presentations to the nuances of boat positioning, Ellis lays out strategies for success when faced with fluctuating temperatures and water levels.
As they delve into the intricacies of fly selection and casting techniques, Ellis emphasizes the value of downsizing in tough conditions and the benefits of subtle, slow-moving presentations that keep flies in the strike zone longer.
Whether you're a seasoned angler or just starting out, this conversation is packed with actionable advice to help you make the most of your time on the water, despite the whims of Mother Nature. So, gear up, listen in and prepare to elevate your fishing game with the wisdom of Ellis Ward.
To learn more about Ellis, check out our interview!
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Speaker:
Marvin: Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of the Articulate Flower,
Speaker:
Marvin: back with another East Tennessee Fishing Report with Ellis Ward. Ellis, how are you?
Speaker:
Ellis: Hanging in there, Marv. How are you?
Speaker:
Marvin: Yeah, I get the feeling maybe your cup has run a thing over.
Speaker:
Ellis: Yes, but not all bad things.
Speaker:
Marvin: Yeah.
Speaker:
Ellis: Sometimes bedtime's just a little more challenging. Sometimes it's a little
Speaker:
Ellis: windier, but that's what tomorrow's for. Yeah.
Speaker:
Marvin: And so, you know, it's interesting. We were talking before we started recording
Speaker:
Marvin: and, you know, it's kind of interesting.
Speaker:
Marvin: I think in general in the Southeast, we've had what I would consider to be more
Speaker:
Marvin: of a traditional spring where it didn't become 100 degrees and with a ton of
Speaker:
Marvin: rain and then get cold again.
Speaker:
Marvin: And so we've kind of had a kind of a damp, camp, relatively cool spring,
Speaker:
Marvin: but the weather's kind of been all over the place.
Speaker:
Marvin: So, you know, in Tennessee, just like here in the Carolinas,
Speaker:
Marvin: you know, up in the 80s, now you got lows in the 30s.
Speaker:
Marvin: And that generally kind of, you know, puts things in a funk, right?
Speaker:
Ellis: Look at that. Generally speaking, I would say it puts things in a funk.
Speaker:
Ellis: I really do like to find the exception to some of those rules.
Speaker:
Ellis: And I think that the nature of a tailwater or of two tailwaters fed by 200 plus,
Speaker:
Ellis: 300 foot deep lakes being insulated the way that they are,
Speaker:
Ellis: having the population densities and certain sections of the river that really
Speaker:
Ellis: don't have much traffic on certain flows and times of day.
Speaker:
Ellis: I've been, I felt good about finding the exception to that generally.
Speaker:
Ellis: You know, this variability and lack of any consistency creates tough fishing.
Speaker:
Ellis: But, man, it's day to day. And we've had, I've had days that,
Speaker:
Ellis: you know, our first three or four hours are top-notch fishing.
Speaker:
Ellis: Had some new guys come.
Speaker:
Ellis: In the boat and a
Speaker:
Ellis: guy boated a high teens brown on uh
Speaker:
Ellis: on a swim bug in his
Speaker:
Ellis: first 10 15 minutes of streamer fishing both got
Speaker:
Ellis: a number on yeah um picked
Speaker:
Ellis: off a few on dry flies in the first couple hours and then the remainder of the
Speaker:
Ellis: trip you know they they were really dead set on And we had talked about this
Speaker:
Ellis: for quite some time on sort of tuning in their dry fly fishing and tying and
Speaker:
Ellis: presentations and casting all this.
Speaker:
Ellis: And we didn't see a rising fish for hours.
Speaker:
Ellis: And that can happen if you're just floating.
Speaker:
Ellis: But when I'm burning through sections and going to the spots,
Speaker:
Ellis: And it's just been, it's been funky enough.
Speaker:
Ellis: I think with those quote unquote bad times, there really have been,
Speaker:
Ellis: you know, the spike in barometer up, blue skies, wind,
Speaker:
Ellis: just the right mix of tough conditions to make things.
Speaker:
Ellis: You should definitely be getting out in the first unless you're doing dawn to
Speaker:
Ellis: dusk you should be picking one
Speaker:
Ellis: of those low light times getting out on the water because that might be it.
Speaker:
Marvin: Yeah. And, you know, just to kind of help folks understand, so when you get
Speaker:
Marvin: a lot of temperature fluctuations, even if you're on a tailwater,
Speaker:
Marvin: it generally makes the fish cranky, right?
Speaker:
Marvin: Certainly in the shallow water has a negative impact on bait fish.
Speaker:
Marvin: You know, what else can you kind of share with folks to kind of help them?
Speaker:
Marvin: You know, they don't want to go to work and they want to fish,
Speaker:
Marvin: so they got to make something happen.
Speaker:
Ellis: Happen yeah so i would say
Speaker:
Ellis: some rules of
Speaker:
Ellis: thumb is as as
Speaker:
Ellis: things get tougher for fishing in general just
Speaker:
Ellis: tune down your presentations a little bit um there's a reason that my my go-to
Speaker:
Ellis: fly for low and clear on some bad condition days it you know isn't fishing an
Speaker:
Ellis: eight inch crafty changer,
Speaker:
Ellis: and hoping that a two-foot brown erupts on it um i'm probably fishing for trout specifically some,
Speaker:
Ellis: faster generally speaking faster water which is just to say there's there's
Speaker:
Ellis: a little more copper for fish.
Speaker:
Ellis: I'm still targeting the slower water, but it's adjacent to faster water.
Speaker:
Ellis: I'm not necessarily going in that frog water as much.
Speaker:
Ellis: And, you know, smallies.
Speaker:
Ellis: They can be a little more temperamental.
Speaker:
Ellis: And, you know, there could be some selection bias around here,
Speaker:
Ellis: I think, because they tend to be more in and freestones.
Speaker:
Ellis: And when they're not, when they're in some of the rivers that are more tailwater
Speaker:
Ellis: in nature and less freestone in nature, they're still getting a lot of insulation.
Speaker:
Ellis: There's still shad moving around. It's not as subject to all of the environmental
Speaker:
Ellis: changes, But everything slows down,
Speaker:
Ellis: and they don't need as many calories.
Speaker:
Ellis: The entire food chain slows down.
Speaker:
Ellis: And so, yeah, trying to get that pre-spawn smallie to swim all the way through
Speaker:
Ellis: a big changer up to your rod tip,
Speaker:
Ellis: when it's already sort of mass, is Cree Swan, are we towards the end of it?
Speaker:
Ellis: And again, I would say it depends on which watershed you're fishing.
Speaker:
Ellis: If that's not had, if it's not a fishy day, right?
Speaker:
Ellis: If it's not a little overcast, if it's not a flat or fallen barometer and you have clear water.
Speaker:
Ellis: I i would i would say it can be boring um you know maybe maybe throw in the
Speaker:
Ellis: fun stuff every once in a while but i've slow rolled i mean real like slow tap
Speaker:
Ellis: tap tap on an intermediate sink,
Speaker:
Ellis: little um each and i clouser the day after in picking up fish on them when they're
Speaker:
Ellis: not hitting anything with a, as I call it, a ladder presentation.
Speaker:
Ellis: The day after, I was watching a nice smallmouth eat flies, appropriately sized
Speaker:
Ellis: for pre-spawn smallie fishing.
Speaker:
Ellis: And the next day, we got hit with one of these low 34, 35 frost warnings when
Speaker:
Ellis: three or four days prior, it was...
Speaker:
Ellis: You're basically feeling like a warm summer day.
Speaker:
Ellis: So I'll pull back a little bit there. I know all over the place,
Speaker:
Ellis: just like our fishing weather.
Speaker:
Marvin: Yeah, but I guess, you know, using like a less heavily weighted clouser or,
Speaker:
Marvin: you know, I'd imagine, right, like maybe fishing like something that hovers
Speaker:
Marvin: a little bit more like a hover changer.
Speaker:
Marvin: You're really just trying to kind of tone down the, you know,
Speaker:
Marvin: it's not some, you know, you're not going to get fish ripping flies from the bank, right? Right.
Speaker:
Ellis: Yes. And thank you for bringing you back to that one.
Speaker:
Ellis: Doing stuff that can achieve more of the byte triggers in a smaller window of space.
Speaker:
Ellis: So said another way, you're able to keep the presentation there longer as opposed
Speaker:
Ellis: to relying on that chase.
Speaker:
Ellis: Chase and you know so
Speaker:
Ellis: a lot of this stuff is me about to
Speaker:
Ellis: start telling stories that i've repeated to myself enough to believe but is
Speaker:
Ellis: it curiosity is it because their uh metabolism slowed down is it is it small
Speaker:
Ellis: enough to be less threatening uh you know the caloric expenditure of attacking and And, you know,
Speaker:
Ellis: maybe having a little bit of a battle with something small isn't going to be
Speaker:
Ellis: the same thing for attacking and having a problem with trying to eat an 8-inch
Speaker:
Ellis: fish when you're a 14-inch fish.
Speaker:
Ellis: Um but yeah you know toning down
Speaker:
Ellis: to to some of those even the the micro changers you
Speaker:
Ellis: know the two and a half three inch finesse changer type things yeah b-chain
Speaker:
Ellis: or those I think there's some plastic um I forget who makes them wops wops you
Speaker:
Ellis: might make them but some plastic dumbbell eyes and you.
Speaker:
Ellis: Yeah, bucktail, box, craft furrows, but something to hang a little bit and stay
Speaker:
Ellis: in the kill zone as opposed to falling down, getting into rocks or staying too close to the surface,
Speaker:
Ellis: which is also where having intermediate line and just knowing what to do in
Speaker:
Ellis: different situations as opposed to always throwing 300 grain,
Speaker:
Ellis: you know, big flies and ripping it back.
Speaker:
Ellis: Um it's just it's not always how they eat yeah.
Speaker:
Marvin: It sounds too like you might need some stack men's in there right.
Speaker:
Ellis: Um yeah you know i would say that depends on your philosophy of,
Speaker:
Ellis: of fishing for a small mouth and for trout um i i think when you really start toning down,
Speaker:
Ellis: your your presentations it can be pretty tough to get the the full pop out kill the full,
Speaker:
Ellis: dead stop moving with the current and you know with some of those smaller flies.
Speaker:
Ellis: I don't know this is really contradictory to a lot of the stuff that I normally
Speaker:
Ellis: do and things I normally say, but some of those smaller flies just real slow
Speaker:
Ellis: rolling, you know, crapper, sparsely tied bucktail, fox.
Speaker:
Ellis: If the bite trigger is not the pop, pop, kill, hover above, you know,
Speaker:
Ellis: shoot from the belly, and it's just more of a, huh, what's that?
Speaker:
Ellis: I'm going to go see what that is. and you got something just consistently moving.
Speaker:
Ellis: Seeing it with Striper and Trout a little more so,
Speaker:
Ellis: you know, fishing with the idea in mind of trying to match that flow down shad,
Speaker:
Ellis: but no reason not to employ it for smallmouth.
Speaker:
Marvin: Yeah, got it. And I guess too, you know, I guess one of the other things to
Speaker:
Marvin: remember is, you know, you're going to have to, you know, if you're on the sticks
Speaker:
Marvin: and you've got any flow, you're going to have to, you know, one,
Speaker:
Marvin: you're going to want to really think about where you put the fly, right?
Speaker:
Marvin: Because you've got to manage that pretty well. But also, two,
Speaker:
Marvin: whoever's on the sticks is going to probably be back rowing a fair amount.
Speaker:
Ellis: Yeah, that's another...
Speaker:
Ellis: I'm not going to say tough one, but I've come to appreciate my knowledge in
Speaker:
Ellis: where to put people when and how quickly relative to current speed and bank position.
Speaker:
Ellis: And, man, that's a big part of it.
Speaker:
Ellis: And I think I overlooked that and I can be pretty tough,
Speaker:
Ellis: to I can be tough on myself to the point of not self-promoting but it's this
Speaker:
Ellis: last start to this season sort of in the last year it's,
Speaker:
Ellis: putting your guy in the right place some of these casts that happen they don't
Speaker:
Ellis: happen in the presentation that happens it's fly selection
Speaker:
Ellis: it's what rod they're fishing it's some of these tweaks that we've gone through
Speaker:
Ellis: that allow them to get some of these presentations and yeah it's it's where
Speaker:
Ellis: the boat is and how fast i'm moving relative to the current and.
Speaker:
Ellis: You have to change that it's constant dude i don't i am rowing,
Speaker:
Ellis: my arms are moving they're on the oars 100 of the time when we're moving um
Speaker:
Ellis: you know and we very rarely stop,
Speaker:
Ellis: and and park for very long so it's having an understanding of of what to do
Speaker:
Ellis: and when is also i think if you're out fun fishing man if you're the one fishing,
Speaker:
Ellis: that that dude rowing might not be doing the right thing and,
Speaker:
Ellis: And heck, I would hope that he or she, if you're fishing with him or her,
Speaker:
Ellis: would be the type to take some constructive feedback.
Speaker:
Ellis: And if you need to get closer to the bank to get the right presentation, then...
Speaker:
Ellis: You know people people like to get better and stuff so um the
Speaker:
Ellis: the angler really should be
Speaker:
Ellis: the one to say hey yeah you know this is i'm not
Speaker:
Ellis: able to do x y or z and then yeah
Speaker:
Ellis: if you're fishing with the guide it's it's very much on them to be it for as
Speaker:
Ellis: much as one can there's some times when you just have to be out of position
Speaker:
Ellis: have you in the right spot at all times it's just otherwise Otherwise,
Speaker:
Ellis: you may as well just be floating down the middle of the river.
Speaker:
Marvin: Yeah, I guess my suggestion would be to save your friendship and call a guide like Ellis.
Speaker:
Marvin: That would be.
Speaker:
Ellis: You can both come and I can provide couples therapy.
Speaker:
Marvin: Yeah, dude, I've had some experiences with that, you know, where one person
Speaker:
Marvin: can row, one person can't.
Speaker:
Marvin: And, you know, if you're fishing, you know, try one, trying to be serious about
Speaker:
Marvin: it, but also to your point, I mean, it makes a huge difference,
Speaker:
Marvin: you know, particularly if you've got adverse water conditions.
Speaker:
Marvin: And, you know, that's why I generally, when I fish with people,
Speaker:
Marvin: I was like, dude, let's just get a guide. Like, you know, we'll flip a coin.
Speaker:
Ellis: Yeah.
Speaker:
Marvin: We'll decide when we're going to switch, but it's going to be a much better
Speaker:
Marvin: day. And we're gonna have a much better dinner conversation if we just,
Speaker:
Marvin: uh, call somebody like Ellis. That's my thought.
Speaker:
Ellis: Yeah. You'll actually have dinner together.
Speaker:
Marvin: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So, you know, folks, we love questions on the Articulate
Speaker:
Marvin: Fly. You can email them to us or DM us on social media, whatever's easiest for you.
Speaker:
Marvin: If we use your question, I will send you some Articulate Fly swag,
Speaker:
Marvin: and we're going to enter a drawing for some cool stuff from Ellis at the end of the season.
Speaker:
Marvin: And, you know, we know from last time that Ellis has got a few leftover bucktails.
Speaker:
Marvin: And remember, we've got a great community that we host on Patreon, and we have two tiers.
Speaker:
Marvin: You know, one is a $100 annual guide credit with Ellis, And the other is 10% off bucktails.
Speaker:
Marvin: So if either of those work for you, you should check it out.
Speaker:
Marvin: Links are in the show notes.
Speaker:
Marvin: And Ellis, you want to let folks know where they can find you,
Speaker:
Marvin: book you, and fish with you?
Speaker:
Ellis: Yeah, website is elliswardflies.com. And Instagram is at elliswardguides.
Speaker:
Ellis: Best way to reach out, ask about dates, just to call me and or text me at 513-543-0019.
Speaker:
Marvin: Yeah, well, there you go. And folks, all that stuff's in the show notes too.
Speaker:
Marvin: So, you know, I know it's kind of funky, but I think any day on the water is
Speaker:
Marvin: better than any day in the office. So you owe it to yourself to get out there and catch a few.
Speaker:
Marvin: Tight lines, everybody. Tight lines, Ellis.
Speaker:
Ellis: Appreciate it, Marv.
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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