S6, Ep 75: Hex Hatches and Big Browns: A Fishing Report from Ellis Ward
Join host Marvin Cash on The Articulate Fly for another engaging East Tennessee Fishing Report with Ellis Ward. In this episode, Ellis shares his experiences from his recent trip to Northern Michigan, reminiscing about early fishing memories and enjoying the diverse fishery with his family. He discusses the unique fishing opportunities in the region, from smallmouth bass to musky, and the excitement of seeing large hex flies in action.
Ellis also reflects on his time spent with his godfather, Tommy Lynch. He delves into the technical aspects of fishing with Tommy, highlighting the importance of adapting to changing conditions and the intricacies of casting and presentation. Listeners will gain valuable insights into advanced fishing techniques and the passion that drives elite guides like Tommy.
Whether you're an avid angler or new to the sport, this episode is packed with stories, tips and inspiration to enhance your fishing adventures. Tight lines!
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 Fly,
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Marvin: and we're back with another East Tennessee Fishing Report with Ellis Ward. Ellis, how are you?
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Ellis: I am good, Marvin. How are you?
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Marvin: As always, just trying to stay out of trouble, and you are not in East Tennessee.
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Ellis: No, I'm not. I've been up in northern Michigan for a couple days now,
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Ellis: and And the weather is, it was a low of 41 two nights ago.
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Ellis: But pretty cool to be up here. I've been coming up here and this is where,
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Ellis: you know, a big chunk of my early fishing and which really looked like trolling
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Ellis: Rapalas in some of the shallows for smallmouth and rock bass.
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Ellis: Um but it's it's fun being up
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Ellis: here with my mom who taught me
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Ellis: how to fish back in the day and going
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Ellis: through some of my my grandpa's old tackle and um
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Ellis: taking my daughter out she wants a tackle box
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Ellis: and it's like well you got
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Ellis: to go out and fish in order to get a tackle box so we're gonna go out here i
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Ellis: think later this afternoon when it warms up a little bit but cool to see some
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Ellis: hexes there's you know those tailwaters get me excited about a big bug being
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Ellis: you know size 14 and there's.
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Ellis: Size fours running around here and
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Ellis: i'm on the lake it's not even necessarily a trout stream but every piece of
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Ellis: water here is so fishy there's there's musky pike smallmouth um you know atlantic
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Ellis: salmon trout of a different variety and um they're they're kind of all over the place but,
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Ellis: good to be up here and not like i'm taking a break from fishing too much but um,
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Ellis: always nice to get a change of pace yeah.
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Marvin: I would expect nothing less you know and it's an amazing thing i mean particularly
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Marvin: once you kind of get like north of ann arbor and grand rapids i mean I mean,
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Marvin: you know, the lakes are fishy, but like all that fishy water up north,
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Marvin: even before you get to the UP in Michigan is pretty amazing.
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Ellis: When I got here, it's 80 degrees.
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Ellis: It's, I guess, 85, sunny, late June.
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Ellis: Jump in the lake and it takes your breath away. It is low 60 degrees.
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Ellis: And it's just all fed from these glacial springs.
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Ellis: Rings and everything is highly oxygenated
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Ellis: and clean and right it's
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Ellis: it's it's fishy um there's these little
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Ellis: little blue line new name streams that are spitting out or i like to call the
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Ellis: the hex floating hot dogs they're they just did relative to a fish that would
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Ellis: eat them it's it's like they're looking at a foot-long sub floating on the water and,
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Ellis: and that's just happening all around us um so it's
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Ellis: it's amazing you look in the paper there's 50-inch musky caught um i got a couple
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Ellis: spots in some connecting little lakes and in rivers that typically produce some
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Ellis: decent, some fun-sized pike.
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Ellis: But yeah, the whole place is fishy, and good to come up here with really anything.
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Ellis: I didn't bring, I brought an 11-weight, but
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Ellis: I've accumulated so much stuff out here that sort of the same deal in Tennessee
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Ellis: where I go out and it's like i could be throwing stuff with uh you know throwing
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Ellis: dry flies with a five weight or throwing musky flies with an 11 weight or or
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Ellis: chucking gear or doing whatever.
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Marvin: Very very neat and you were telling me you got to spend some time with your godfather tommy lynch.
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Ellis: Yeah um he couldn't believe it had been four years since we fished together
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Ellis: but it's You know, I try to bother him a little bit and chat on the phone every once in a while.
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Ellis: He's been a really influential person in my tying and guiding career.
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Ellis: Career and it hasn't all been direct but just seeing.
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Ellis: Seeing his thought process on on how the drunken disorderly was tied which you
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Ellis: know he's most famous for which today um i've i haven't thrown a streamer with
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Ellis: him and it's it's that it's.
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Ellis: This mentality of what does the angler sort of want to do, what are the options,
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Ellis: and here's what we're going to do given the conditions and this constantly changing
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Ellis: algorithm of flows and water temps and just what the river is giving us.
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Ellis: That i i didn't necessarily see in an attempt to emulate but um it is so.
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Ellis: True to how i fish and how i guide and just going into,
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Ellis: to the tailwaters and starting my own business and and fishing without regard
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Ellis: for what was quote-unquote the good runs or the right thing to do or the right
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Ellis: flows or you know is this Is this section even rowable or fishable at night? Do people even do this?
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Ellis: I didn't know anyone. I just figured everything out. And so that knowledge lent itself to how I guide,
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Ellis: which is, you know, here's all of these options and let's whittle it down to
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Ellis: what we want to do with any given set of experiences and time constraints and all that.
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Ellis: So, um, you know, going, going out with Tommy, it was just another,
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Ellis: another display of this.
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Ellis: Um, he, he wants to go out and fish in a way that's, that's fun.
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Ellis: And he's of course clarifying that with me and he knows me pretty well and has
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Ellis: some confidence in my ability to do certain things.
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Ellis: But he's also just, as soon as we're getting on the boat, it's,
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Ellis: it's what's next. It's not, you know, good boy, you can cast.
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Ellis: It's, all right, well, let's get to the next thing. And it's pretty technical fishing, and...
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Ellis: I i ended up we got one
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Ellis: one fish in the boat i was shaking off
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Ellis: fish that were you know under under
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Ellis: 10 inches but but plenty of
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Ellis: nice wild brown trout eating a
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Ellis: very big dry fly it's um a big golden
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Ellis: stone that and and
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Ellis: and he was happier for it because we didn't
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Ellis: have to stop and use the net and we could keep fishing um but
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Ellis: had another brown that was our low
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Ellis: 20s um absolutely god
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Ellis: they ate this thing the stonefly like they
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Ellis: eat mice um had him on and he just he he took my lunch money man went down shook
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Ellis: his head went the other way i was pulling the wrong way flies out and then had
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Ellis: uh I had a special fish that had Tommy making noises for the rest of the evening.
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Ellis: I didn't get steel in him, but we re-bypassed countless little risers that we
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Ellis: could have had on iso-emergers or bluing-emergers.
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Ellis: And um fishing that
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Ellis: golden stone we you know i would i would see him
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Ellis: it's very active it's very engaged it's um
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Ellis: it's all the type
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Ellis: of fishing that is exciting about
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Ellis: streamer fishing and and mousing and um the the visual reward and challenges
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Ellis: of you know there's logs coming in left and right it's it's almost entirely
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Ellis: long roll casts and um he is.
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Ellis: Where he is with casting and manipulation of line and rod is,
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Ellis: I think, something that people, until you're on the boat with him,
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Ellis: you just think of, you associate his name with a drunken disorderly.
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Ellis: I can't express this enough. We've talked about it a handful of times,
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Ellis: not while fishing together.
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Ellis: It's almost all conversation that we
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Ellis: have is you know him
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Ellis: giving me some insight on guiding um you
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Ellis: know joking about this and that and
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Ellis: then a lot of it's casting and and a lot
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Ellis: of that is is dry fly casting and um
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Ellis: so it was it was great to spend time with them and
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Ellis: and sort of get get the download from the
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Ellis: last couple years from him and and give him a little bit from
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Ellis: um from my life from the tailwater scene
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Ellis: and um finished with a
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Ellis: little darkness and got a couple mouse eats uh
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Ellis: but then that that night was the the 41
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Ellis: degree plunge and and things kind
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Ellis: of shut off then we got to a section and a motion light
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Ellis: went on and um i
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Ellis: was in the front of the boat shaking i didn't come up here to um i didn't have
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Ellis: gear for 41 degrees so uh we called it and i mean i couldn't have been happier
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Ellis: to get out with and get some shots on on some really nice fish and just.
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Ellis: Seeing and also listen to someone who, who, who has an understanding and a passion
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Ellis: for, I have a hard time saying guiding.
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Ellis: It's, if you say guiding to so many people, it means what a lot of people experience
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Ellis: as, as guided fishing trips, um,
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Ellis: which I could reasonably qualify as, as, as ecotourism or something like that.
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Ellis: Like Tommy's a guide he's a casting coach um he loves fishing and you know I I get this with,
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Ellis: hanging with um Matt Riley and and a couple of my buddies in in Johnson City
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Ellis: it's just fun spending time with someone who who approaches this this industry
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Ellis: their job um this sport in And in a similar way,
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Ellis: and even cooler to see someone who's still just pushing it at 20-something years into the game.
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Marvin: Yeah, it's interesting, right? Because, you know, you see those people and they
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Marvin: have that kind of, you know, passion and drive to perform that you see in elite
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Marvin: performers, you know, like whether it was like what I saw you saw in consulting
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Marvin: or I saw in like the law and the finance world.
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Marvin: And it's kind of mind boggling. and i think you know uh you
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Marvin: know for folks that haven't been able to spend time with tommy if you go watch
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Marvin: some of his tying videos that he's done there's a fly shop in
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Marvin: michigan that he likes to tie at um and you listen to him talk it reminds me
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Marvin: a lot of like listening to blaine talk like the thoughtfulness into presentation
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Marvin: term related terminal tackle um it's a completely you know to your point it's
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Marvin: a little bit different than like you know let me adjust your indicator right you.
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Ellis: Yeah, and I think that, like you said,
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Ellis: just watching someone who you don't get to with your own name and not working
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Ellis: for an outfitter or partnering with these major companies.
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Ellis: You don't get to cruising altitude and stay there for as long as he has without,
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Ellis: on a day-to-day basis, working.
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Ellis: I mean, I took pictures of the inside of his boat.
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Ellis: Everything's tuned up. There's a process for everything.
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Ellis: Thing um man when i get him
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Ellis: going talking about one thing or another it's it's
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Ellis: it's full tilt in whatever direction that we're going and um right you just
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Ellis: it's it's a different approach that you don't see outside of you know the the
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Ellis: the handful of people that are.
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Ellis: Are at the top and and have been at the top and you know one of the one of the
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Ellis: cool parts that i appreciate and definitely respect about tommy is he's,
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Ellis: i don't think anyone would know any anything about some of this stuff there's
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Ellis: yeah there's the time videos that um you can see some of the passion some of the knowledge,
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Ellis: man you get in that boat for just just just
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Ellis: the first hour and if you
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Ellis: don't pause him every once in
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Ellis: a while if you just take in all of it your head's gonna start to spin because
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Ellis: he will keep going and and you're just gonna continue to absorb information
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Ellis: that um that he's happy to provide but But it's almost like,
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Ellis: well, I can use it very appropriately, a consulting phrase of drinking out of
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Ellis: a fire hose where even if you're just talking about roll casting a non-tapered line,
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Ellis: he's going to press that to a different level.
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Ellis: Using the rod and line and just discussing all of it in such a different way
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Ellis: that yields a presentation that also encourages a proper hook set with a specific
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Ellis: leader that can fight big fish and some of these,
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Ellis: you know, down seeders and, you know,
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Ellis: avoids hang ups.
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Ellis: And like all of it i do a little bit
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Ellis: of it with streamer casting you know you want the tip in the water these
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Ellis: strip strip kills and everything is
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Ellis: to promote or encourage the next thing and all
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Ellis: that is about getting a good hook set and boating a fish so
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Ellis: to watch that happening with um i
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Ellis: don't know all these different variables and in this this complex system
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Ellis: that i know is only one of his things it is
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Ellis: it's it's just fascinating and um yeah
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Ellis: i don't know if there's i don't know if i've seen you hear
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Ellis: a little bit of it with blaine i've seen it with
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Ellis: larry um and these
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Ellis: guys all know each other there's no surprise so um
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Ellis: it it makes sense that that they do know each other and have have spent some
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Ellis: time together um but yeah always it's fun talking with them i'll call them every
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Ellis: once in a while but but to spend eight hours in the boat and really hang for
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Ellis: a little bit was very cool yeah.
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Marvin: Absolutely and you know folks we love questions at the
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Marvin: articulate fly you can email them to us or dm us
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Marvin: on social media and we've just added a little record button uh on the podcast
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Marvin: page of the website if you actually go there you can record your question you
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Marvin: may actually hear yourself on a on an episode and if we use your question i
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Marvin: will send you some articulate fly swag and we're drawing for some cool stuff
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Marvin: from ellis at the end of the season and uh you know i know you know after the
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Marvin: fourth you're going to be heading back down to the,
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Marvin: not lows in the 41 johnson city uh to uh to guide back on the south holston
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Marvin: wataug you want to let folks know how they can reach out and get on your guidebooks ellis.
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Ellis: Yeah, best way to contact me, ask about trips, anything like that is my cell phone at 513-543-0019.
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Ellis: Nine instagram is at ellis ward guides
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Ellis: and uh website which is
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Ellis: somewhat updated on a rolling basis um kind of give you some information about
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Ellis: what types of trips and and the things that i'm doing at at whatever time of
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Ellis: year you're looking at is at elliswardflies.com and um just a little
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Ellis: plug for for this summer we got um dry
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Ellis: fly fishing and and mousing with streamer fishing mixed in condition dependent
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Ellis: is is going to be rolling full steam here for the next month or two and uh hopefully
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Ellis: transition a little bit into more mousing and um,
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Ellis: and then all of a sudden we'll be looking at musky fishing so um,
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Ellis: lots of stuff going on and excited to get folks on the boat.
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Marvin: Yeah, well, there you go. Well, listen, folks, I want to wish everyone a safe
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Marvin: and happy 4th of July and you owe it to yourself to get out there and catch a few.
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Marvin: Tight lines, everybody. Tight lines, Ellis.
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Ellis: Appreciate it, Marth.
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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