In this episode of The Articulate Fly, host Marvin Cash catches up with Ellis Ward for another East Tennessee Fishing Report. Ellis shares his insights on the recent weather patterns and their impact on fishing conditions, including the fluctuation of water temperatures and the changes in fish behavior. They discuss the challenges and rewards of fishing during this transitional period, highlighting the importance of understanding bug activity and water flow dynamics.
Ellis provides valuable tips on mousing techniques, emphasizing the importance of presentation and cadence, especially in difficult conditions. He shares his experiences with high-risk, high-reward fishing strategies and the importance of patience and precision when targeting big trout. The conversation also touches on the excitement of night fishing and the unique challenges it presents.
Marvin and Ellis also give a shout-out to the newest fly shop in Johnson City, Tailwaters Fly Company. They discuss the shop's impressive collection of tying materials and its role in the local fishing community.
Don't miss this episode packed with expert fishing tips, local insights and a touch of humor as Marvin and Ellis navigate the ever-changing fishing conditions in East Tennessee.
To learn more about Ellis, check out our interview!
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Marvin: Hey, folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of the Articulate Fly,
Marvin: and we're back with another East Tennessee fishing report with Ellis Ward. Ellis, how are you?
Ellis: I am doing well, Marv. How are you?
Marvin: As always, just trying to stay out of trouble. And, you know,
Marvin: we were hopeful that the hot weather was kind of going to be a thing of the
Marvin: past, but I don't think that's necessarily going to be the case.
Ellis: You know i've been saying since i met you that i don't know why you're trying
Ellis: to predict the weather it's your job is not meteorology yeah.
Marvin: Um although you know matt and i said that you should be picking the uh the first
Marvin: snowfall in johnson city.
Ellis: What what was i like three months off of the last freeze date a couple of years ago.
Marvin: Yeah. It was bad.
Ellis: Yeah. It's same thing happens this time of year.
Ellis: It's, you know, we had a couple of mornings in the upper fifties and,
Ellis: and that's kind of closer to not that I'm very near a quote unquote city,
Ellis: but you start getting a little more elevation and, um,
Ellis: The musky water is dropping from 71, 72 at peak temps in the afternoon to mid
Ellis: to upper 60s by the morning.
Ellis: Trout, the tailwaters are a little more insulated with the giant lakes feeding them.
Ellis: So there's not a, I think, changing daylight.
Ellis: Large temperature arcs tend to influence. the trout a little more.
Ellis: But, you know, all that said, of course, we're finding our way back to the mean
Ellis: and it was nice and toasty today.
Marvin: And so what does that translate to on the water for you?
Ellis: Well,
Ellis: the, you know, those fronts And depending on which side of these fronts you
Ellis: might be on can encourage or discourage bug activity,
Ellis: that's really where you can see it and almost feel it and hear it.
Ellis: That you're seeing ospreys and herons more.
Ellis: The things are just a little more alive.
Ellis: Now, I've mentioned that before, but being on the other side of it now for the
Ellis: last couple days and now back into a warming trend, it's big skies.
Ellis: And a couple days ago, actually, it's Monday, so Saturday...
Ellis: I would qualify it as bad fishing conditions.
Ellis: Very, very bright, very clear sky, and not super buggy.
Ellis: And there's a bunch of different dynamics that come into play for each of these seasons.
Ellis: And honestly, day-to-day with the tailwaters as the flows change.
Ellis: Engine um we we
Ellis: managed to pick off a few
Ellis: risers i i
Ellis: tried to encourage the angler to take one
Ellis: or two horsepower off of the hook
Ellis: set um but like really really
Ellis: eagerly feeding trout in really big water and
Ellis: then i i mean
Ellis: we probably moved 20 two dozen
Ellis: maybe um a couple nice ones in there and it was one of the dynamics that happens
Ellis: this time of year and um forgive me for repeating myself from whether episodes
Ellis: pass for my time with you but you you lift up a rock in
Ellis: mid to late august and and there's a couple little you know size 28 blue wing.
Ellis: Maybe some straggler larger nymphs growing around there and um that that mayfly
Ellis: food source that biomass has come and gone you're starting to see caddis.
Ellis: Build you know they look like size 36s but they're they're building their little homes for,
Ellis: april of next year like that's
Ellis: what you're seeing most of and go to different rocks with
Ellis: a little bit of vegetation on them and you're you're finding a if
Ellis: you shake it off your hand looks like a science experiment it's just full of
Ellis: scuds and that just looks so different compared to the the same rock a month
Ellis: two months three months ago and so some of this activity like a,
Ellis: a pretty darn good day of fishing on saturday um in pretty bad conditions generally speaking,
Ellis: i i think can just be explained by what
Ellis: they're eating and i don't i tend
Ellis: to not lean on that as much because trout are very opportunistic that you know
Ellis: the bigger they get the more moody and and the spookier they can be um but it
Ellis: has been pretty bitey and in almost all.
Ellis: Conditions and in the the fishy conditions man the last month has just been
Ellis: And since mid-July and up until through now,
Ellis: it's been some of the best fishing I've seen.
Ellis: I think that has a lot to do with I continue to fish and guide more.
Ellis: But just getting out
Ellis: there and and doing the
Ellis: high risk high reward stuff and and fishing in ways that i'm the only boat on
Ellis: a lot of the runs that i'm doing and um you know that that includes mousing
Ellis: which as you experienced you get that high risk comes with,
Ellis: The other side of if you don't get rewarded is a big fat zero.
Ellis: And so I've continued to go with that high risk, high reward.
Ellis: And yeah, it doesn't pay off sometimes, but a lot of times you miss a couple fish.
Ellis: Fish and heck if one's 20 and
Ellis: one's 22 that could be the like all of a
Ellis: sudden these these missed eats or those could
Ellis: be the best that that could be quote-unquote the best fishing day of of someone's
Ellis: life and and you go home with a goose egg so there's you know there's such a
Ellis: learning curve to all of this and um it it's clearly if you can't tell from
Ellis: me rambling it's been an exciting,
Ellis: Last month or so, um, both guiding and fishing on my own.
Marvin: Yeah. It's funny. We were talking before we started recording and you're like,
Marvin: you're so screwed up from your crazy fishing hours, daytime,
Marvin: nighttime that you kind of, um, you're almost, you might have some form of like
Marvin: a fishing delirium, right?
Ellis: Yeah. I don't, I think they made a movie about me called Memento.
Ellis: Some guy doesn't know where he is, and that's going to hit for like 1% of this
Ellis: audience, but it should hit pretty hard.
Marvin: I see the movie poster right now and, you know, got a question for you from
Marvin: a long-time listener, Fleas and Meat.
Marvin: And he's got a mousing question for you, and he wanted to get your thoughts
Marvin: on, you know, what you can do kind of from a cadence of strip and presentation,
Marvin: you know, when you're mousing in difficult conditions like when it's cooler
Marvin: or, you know, the bite's not really on. What are some of your tricks?
Ellis: Yeah, I mean, I find myself mousing, and specifically with clients,
Ellis: just because it's at night and you can't see trees, mousing in areas that have
Ellis: some of the froggiest water.
Ellis: And, you know, when these tailwaters drop and you're fishing these flats with
Ellis: weed beds, it's almost still water.
Ellis: And it can be a little hard same with the stringer fishing it can be a little harder to.
Ellis: Get the sales pitch all the way across the finish line and I'm already stealing
Ellis: from Tommy Lynch and calling this a sales pitch but I've moused with him a good deal and,
Ellis: you know it's a very different ball game on the
Ellis: Pierre Marquette um but i've
Ellis: i've learned a good deal from him and i've employed and
Ellis: retweaked and over the course of now five years have have
Ellis: had a lot of success and a much more subtle presentation so people talk about
Ellis: you know milk in the gerbil and um almost two-handing and sometimes not almost
Ellis: by literally two-handling a mouse fly with just these little tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.
Ellis: I like to give it a lift or what would translate to a very long, slow, steady strip.
Ellis: And then a drop or stopping it.
Ellis: I like the lift because you get to, it's kind of a cheat code.
Ellis: You lift, and it's creating a big B.
Ellis: And then when you drop, that's the kill. Talk about the strip and kill on string recreation.
Ellis: You drop, and you give them an opportunity to eat.
Ellis: And when you're doing that, you're taking some line in and getting ready to lift again.
Ellis: End and and a
Ellis: lot of that's yeah
Ellis: just off the top of my head the three biggest fish
Ellis: which is say top three have come
Ellis: on the lift and drop and you don't hear them you do not hear anything which
Ellis: is spooky and it adds a little extra creepiness to night fishing that you're
Ellis: You're getting a 25-inch fish and not hearing anything, not feeling it until...
Ellis: You go to lift again, and the glow tip or whatever is tensions pushing straight down or moving.
Ellis: And then, I don't know if I've talked about the set or the no set,
Ellis: but just don't. Don't set on.
Ellis: It's not a dry fly, let it meet, then bang.
Ellis: It's more of a gradual continue to apply pressure and drive that hook home.
Ellis: Because they're holding on to a little critter. They don't want,
Ellis: they already have it and sometimes they'll spit it out and sometimes they'll miss it.
Ellis: But most of the time they have that thing and it's your job to keep it in their mouth.
Ellis: And, um, and then you have to angle like this is, you know, part of angling
Ellis: part of fishing is casting your thing out there and getting a fish to eat it.
Ellis: The other part is bringing them into the boat. So there's the free lunches don't
Ellis: exist when you're fishing for big routes. It's just, there's nothing easy about it.
Ellis: And one of the most challenging parts is the,
Ellis: the holy shoot moment of a giant fish is on the line and is six feet away from
Ellis: the boat. Like, how do I get it in?
Ellis: Um, I am, I employ the strategy of the sooner you can do it,
Ellis: the better sufficient minimum 15 pound fluoro.
Ellis: But, you know, back to that retrieve cadence, I would say another maybe two
Ellis: or three different variations would just be giving it a pop and then letting it die.
Ellis: And these kills...
Ellis: Are count to three i mean they're painful it feels like you're not even fishing but,
Ellis: the number of fish that have come on a mouse just drifting
Ellis: after just a little bit of a lift they have
Ellis: so much better vision than we give them
Ellis: credit for and and yeah they're eating a little
Ellis: bit from you know the wake and the noise of it splatting all that stuff but
Ellis: they're tracking in that thing and and they don't really want to go after something
Ellis: that's trying to get away like that that defeats the purpose of of what they're
Ellis: doing they're going after an easy meal so um,
Ellis: i might misquote this guy but i heard a we we heard some swamp monster right
Ellis: in front of the boat and uh my angler jumped out he was pulling his fly off
Ellis: the water and he jumped back and,
Ellis: remarked that it made him check for his wallet.
Ellis: And it was just such a close, loud swirl.
Ellis: And, you know, there was no pump bake. There's no...
Ellis: You got to give him an opportunity to eat. So really extend those kills.
Ellis: And as much as it might not feel like you're fishing, if you're creating a small
Ellis: wake on the surface and then you're giving it a full stop um.
Ellis: That's the only thing that they really want to see, and you can do that a thousand different ways.
Ellis: And for any more tips, you might have to get on my boat.
Marvin: Yeah, there you go. We'll get to that in just one second.
Marvin: But, you know, folks, we love questions on the Articulate Fly.
Marvin: You can email them to us or DM us on social media, whatever is easiest for you.
Marvin: And if we use your question, I will send you some Articulate Fly swag.
Marvin: And then we are drawing for some cool stuff from, uh, from Ellis at the,
Marvin: uh, at the end of the season.
Marvin: And, uh, Ellis, before we talk about your calendar, we wanted to make sure we
Marvin: gave a shout out to the newest fly shop in Johnson city. You want to tell folks about that?
Ellis: Yeah, Tailwater Flyco. My boy, John,
Ellis: who has been so supportive of me both as a friend and a client,
Ellis: which is pretty largely unnecessary,
Ellis: but he's actually the one who pushed me to find you, Marv.
Marvin: Oh, wow.
Ellis: So, yeah, this was a couple years ago, and I just put a video on Instagram like,
Ellis: hey, if folks have been following me, you know, I'm not really a consumer of
Ellis: guides, and I'm wondering how to get my message out.
Ellis: And had some helpful replies, and John was one of them saying,
Ellis: you know, you should do some regional podcasts and mentioned yours.
Ellis: So John has opened Tailwater Fly Co.
Ellis: Right next to the South Holston River and actually stopped in there with clients
Ellis: a couple days ago when I forgot a net and went to grab his. And, yeah.
Ellis: He might hate me for saying it, but he's close to opening up.
Ellis: He's burning the candle at both ends. So he's getting a lot of stuff together.
Ellis: And the amount of stuff that he had, I mean, it's a tire's paradise.
Ellis: The guy is so fishy in all respects, but specifically with tying and which hooks.
Ellis: And, you know, recognizing that there are big differences between this hook
Ellis: and that hook. So he's got all of them.
Ellis: A-Rex, Partridge, Daiichi, everything from, you know, size 22s up to 6-0ts.
Ellis: And all different materials. He's going to have local tires doing some stuff.
Ellis: He's going to have some of my bucktail there.
Ellis: It's, we don't have that here. and you can go and get $2,000 waiters at a couple
Ellis: different places, but you can't go and get,
Ellis: oh man, he's got this silver grade,
Ellis: he's got a bunch of silver grade whiting rooster saddles and nightmare musky fly stuff.
Ellis: It's just, he's taken so
Ellis: much knowledge and I talk with him a lot and he talks to my buddy Jack and really
Ellis: just cramming a lot of fishing experience and knowledge into a place for people
Ellis: to get materials both locally and then, John,
Ellis: I promise I'm not giving you a deadline,
Ellis: but I think over the winter getting the online stuff situated as well.
Ellis: But it's already an impressive collection of tying materials,
Ellis: and I know he's going to keep doing cool things there.
Marvin: Very, very neat. And now to get to the booking stuff, right?
Marvin: So we're kind of moving into pumpkin spice latte land, which means,
Marvin: you know, at some point we're going to kind of start going down the mousing
Marvin: roller coaster and start going up the musky roller coaster.
Marvin: So what have you got and how should folks reach out?
Ellis: I mean, if those are the two things that I'm doing, I can't believe I haven't
Ellis: been hospitalized yet, but I guess I'm on my way.
Ellis: So yeah, mousing, stringer fishing for browns and sort of year round.
Ellis: But I really like to around this time of year, next month or so,
Ellis: start getting more trips over towards the musky water.
Ellis: And you can get more information on that or just ask me questions at elliswardwise.com
Ellis: and request a trip, ask questions, whatever,
Ellis: at my cell phone at 513-543-0019.
Ellis: And Instagram is elliswardguides.
Marvin: Yeah, well, there you go. Well, you know, folks, a couple things.
Marvin: Don't forget, we have a great community at the Articulate Flyway hosted at Patreon.
Marvin: There are two great ways to support the show and to support Ellis.
Marvin: At one level, you get a discount on bucktails, and that's going to be very important
Marvin: here in about six to eight weeks.
Marvin: And then the other is a tier where you actually get $100 per year guide credit
Marvin: with Ellis. So you should check those out.
Marvin: And then, of course, we're heading into a holiday weekend. I want everyone to
Marvin: have a happy and safe Labor Day weekend. And as I always say,
Marvin: you owe it to yourself to get out there and catch a few.
Marvin: Tight lines everybody tight lines ellis appreciate it.
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.