S6, Ep 86: East Tennessee Fishing Report with Ellis Ward
In this episode of The Articulate Fly, host Marvin Cash catches up with East Tennessee fishing guide Ellis Ward to discuss the current fishing conditions. Ellis shares his recent experiences on the water, including the benefits of intermittent clouds and scattered storms for fishing. They dive into the specifics of river conditions, the importance of understanding local forage and the best practices for new anglers to be good clients. Whether you're a seasoned angler or just starting out, this episode is packed with valuable insights and tips to enhance your fishing adventures.
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,
Speaker:
Marvin: and we're back with another East Tennessee Fishing Report with Ellis Ward. Ellis, how are you?
Speaker:
Ellis: I'm doing pretty good. I'm kind of crawling out as recovering from a 15-hour
Speaker:
Ellis: day yesterday after mousing the night before.
Speaker:
Ellis: So, um, it is made easier when the fishing is how it has been.
Speaker:
Ellis: So, um, in general, pretty good, tired, but good.
Speaker:
Marvin: So are you saying you're not as young as you used to be?
Speaker:
Ellis: Uh, Marv, isn't that true right now? Just, you know, compared to five minutes.
Speaker:
Marvin: It is, but I was not trying to be philosophical. I was trying to be a little
Speaker:
Marvin: bit more practical, but that's just me.
Speaker:
Ellis: Yeah um you know i didn't i wasn't doing this when i was 25 so i can't i can't
Speaker:
Ellis: really compare to that but um you know it it's it's a good burn i'll say that.
Speaker:
Marvin: Yeah nothing a little gatorade and monster can't take
Speaker:
Marvin: care of right dang yeah
Speaker:
Marvin: so the interesting thing is and i know you're excited because i've
Speaker:
Marvin: been looking at your weather and you are i think you have almost what you would
Speaker:
Marvin: consider to be perfect conditions so you're you know in the mid 80s um you've
Speaker:
Marvin: got a bunch of cloudy days and you've got interspersed rainfall so i would imagine
Speaker:
Marvin: you know subject to like squirrely generation on the south holston it's about
Speaker:
Marvin: as good as it gets this time of year for you.
Speaker:
Ellis: Yeah, what you just said, there's a couple different data points of temperature,
Speaker:
Ellis: you know, ambient temperature related to fishing, I wouldn't say is terribly
Speaker:
Ellis: important, but for our comfort is very important.
Speaker:
Ellis: And if the goal for the day is to have fun and get fish in the bed and,
Speaker:
Ellis: you know, if fish aren't getting into the boat or if we're not getting feedback,
Speaker:
Ellis: you know, learn, try new things,
Speaker:
Ellis: make something happen.
Speaker:
Ellis: Whatever the task at hand is, that's hard to do when it's 98 degrees and full sun.
Speaker:
Ellis: So everything becomes easier. year
Speaker:
Ellis: instruction catching fish um switching
Speaker:
Ellis: up between dry flies and you know the you know
Speaker:
Ellis: little instruction on ssi 16
Speaker:
Ellis: with the nine foot versus uh casting a dry dry with with an 11 foot leader and
Speaker:
Ellis: um bouncing back to streamers like out of that the the tax on the individual
Speaker:
Ellis: on the angler becomes so much less when you have the the intermittent,
Speaker:
Ellis: I think that's what you described it as.
Speaker:
Ellis: Intermittent clouds with scattered storms here and there.
Speaker:
Ellis: Like, that's as much you can ask for. And then from the fishing perspective,
Speaker:
Ellis: boy, oh, boy, we got Kyler and Beth Rivers.
Speaker:
Ellis: The Rattagas continuing generation in the afternoon, which, you know,
Speaker:
Ellis: I kind of default to that in designing my trips.
Speaker:
Ellis: As daylight shortens and you know i tend to
Speaker:
Ellis: push a little more towards mousing but don't really try to milk that afternoon
Speaker:
Ellis: release and and the south holston's um a little more fluctuating in in their
Speaker:
Ellis: releases but um looks like for at least the next few days and i'm guessing based on rainfall um,
Speaker:
Ellis: a week or or more we're getting some six seven eight ten hour releases from the south holston and,
Speaker:
Ellis: and again the the tributaries i was just looking at the
Speaker:
Ellis: dough um the big tributary and
Speaker:
Ellis: for context you know when the dough is high like really really pushy in the
Speaker:
Ellis: summer let's let's call that like 200 cfs the watauga the the dam the river
Speaker:
Ellis: itself the watauga tailwater is releasing 240 cfs so,
Speaker:
Ellis: So one of the reasons I like the Watauga so much is it doesn't really feel like
Speaker:
Ellis: it's not, you're on it, you're on the middle of the lower.
Speaker:
Ellis: You wouldn't look around and say this is a tail race.
Speaker:
Ellis: So all of these little things, the contributions from the Freestones,
Speaker:
Ellis: from the little tributaries, these little ag creeks just getting hit with the
Speaker:
Ellis: heavens opening up for 15 minutes here and there.
Speaker:
Ellis: And pushing out some color, you see it in the fish.
Speaker:
Ellis: And as much as I love rowing a boat and hanging out with people.
Speaker:
Ellis: Educating, doing what I'm doing now, just vomiting the contents of my brain
Speaker:
Ellis: out at others, I really like catching fish.
Speaker:
Ellis: I really like watching people, helping people catch big brown trout.
Speaker:
Ellis: And yeah, these are the conditions for that.
Speaker:
Ellis: So it's been, and you know, I'm going to promote and encourage the streamer
Speaker:
Ellis: angler as much as possible, but that was kind of the task at hand.
Speaker:
Ellis: Yesterday, we had to leave.
Speaker:
Ellis: We had stopped fishing risers and we fed a monster, a size 20,
Speaker:
Ellis: just didn't hook set was a little i think we might have had the case of the yips um,
Speaker:
Ellis: but you know then we had to probably like we could have focused on that for
Speaker:
Ellis: a couple hours so it's it's been it's been a lot of fun and i'm i'm pumped to fish with you next week.
Speaker:
Marvin: Yeah i'm excited too and i'm going to bring uh as i like
Speaker:
Marvin: to say the first son thing number one um and
Speaker:
Marvin: uh but the other thing too to remind people is the seasonal forage is getting
Speaker:
Marvin: about as big as it's you know it's getting big now so like all the like annual
Speaker:
Marvin: minnows and bait fish you know we're heading into august and you know that's
Speaker:
Marvin: just ringing the dinner bell because there's a lot of that stuff in the water yeah.
Speaker:
Ellis: You get you get different you get different um I guess I'll use the word forage,
Speaker:
Ellis: but there's, you know, the sucker spawn, for example, in March.
Speaker:
Ellis: Well, guess what's starting to, you know, there's a sucker minnow hatch in like
Speaker:
Ellis: May where you start looking around.
Speaker:
Ellis: I started looking around the boat ramp at this one ramp I put my headlamp on
Speaker:
Ellis: and kind of weighed in and checked some zones, specifically some big crawfish
Speaker:
Ellis: and some sculpin that make them say, that makes sense.
Speaker:
Ellis: That night I started seeing these little I couldn't really figure out what they
Speaker:
Ellis: were until I started seeing more and put together,
Speaker:
Ellis: but oh yeah those are little suckers that were eggs you know six weeks ago so
Speaker:
Ellis: out of that stuff is continuing to grow i mean well the brands are so,
Speaker:
Ellis: they know that daylight's going down you know it's it's starting to get dark at at 8 30 and um.
Speaker:
Ellis: They have an hour less than they did just a few weeks ago so So I can't really
Speaker:
Ellis: say if it's one thing or another, you know, you, you, you start to get clarity,
Speaker:
Ellis: um, you start to get more ladder.
Speaker:
Ellis: When we landed the biggest client caught brown trout for me yesterday,
Speaker:
Ellis: um, in low ladder off of a weed bed.
Speaker:
Ellis: And it's certainly clarity on that one you know we're fishing we're fishing very very muddy water,
Speaker:
Ellis: and i don't know whether or not the conditions override some of these external factors um.
Speaker:
Ellis: It is tough to say it's i think it's
Speaker:
Ellis: important to look at at what your creek's doing what your
Speaker:
Ellis: river's doing what the tailwaters are doing and and um
Speaker:
Ellis: and experiment but but something else that's happening here is marvel as well
Speaker:
Ellis: you were saying with with the critters getting bigger um you also have the tiny
Speaker:
Ellis: critters the bugs you start popping rocks over right now Now,
Speaker:
Ellis: you're looking at deserts, and,
Speaker:
Ellis: you know, a month and a half ago, relative deserts.
Speaker:
Ellis: A month and a half ago, two months ago, you're popping the same rock over,
Speaker:
Ellis: and it's packed. It's a full house.
Speaker:
Ellis: And so the food source is consistent and as insulated as these tailwaters can feel.
Speaker:
Ellis: The food sources, what's available, changes dramatically.
Speaker:
Ellis: And, you know, taking yesterday as an example and for anyone saying,
Speaker:
Ellis: oh, you know, fish don't eat streamers.
Speaker:
Ellis: Yeah, there was a massive brown trout chilling, hanging on a weed bed and very
Speaker:
Ellis: casually rising up and eating size 20s.
Speaker:
Ellis: Um, they, they, they eat everything and, and figuring out what,
Speaker:
Ellis: what looks like the food that they're eating.
Speaker:
Ellis: That's, that's the task at hand most days.
Speaker:
Marvin: Yeah. It's awesome stuff. Gets me excited, uh, for next week and got a question for you.
Speaker:
Ellis: Yeah.
Speaker:
Marvin: I got a question for you from, uh, Brenner. Uh, he wanted to get your thoughts
Speaker:
Marvin: on what new anglers can do to be good clients when they get in the boat.
Speaker:
Ellis: Yeah, so this one, this one's interesting.
Speaker:
Ellis: I have not been a consumer of guiding outside of fishing with Tommy a couple times.
Speaker:
Ellis: And some of the saltwater fishing that I've done and meeting some great guys
Speaker:
Ellis: that I guide the way that I have been guided that I really enjoy,
Speaker:
Ellis: which is direct communication and being very open.
Speaker:
Ellis: So what do you want to do?
Speaker:
Ellis: You know, my job most days, I would say, is to maximize the fun that we're going to have.
Speaker:
Ellis: For some people, that's catching fish. For some people, it's going out and ripping streamers.
Speaker:
Ellis: It doesn't matter. We're not going to stop and go over dry fly fishing.
Speaker:
Ellis: And I think that person would love to understand how to cast a five-foot effectively
Speaker:
Ellis: and land some nice fish on dry fly.
Speaker:
Ellis: But right in that moment, there's some of it spoken, some of it's unspoken, where...
Speaker:
Ellis: What's most fun right then for the person in the front seat if if i think that that's catching fish,
Speaker:
Ellis: then we're going to stop and fish dry flies if if the most fun thing is to continue
Speaker:
Ellis: casting streamers we're going to continue casting streamers um so i i think for for a new angler,
Speaker:
Ellis: from that perspective and this is going to change dramatically i think depending on.
Speaker:
Ellis: The guide you choose there's there's different flavors
Speaker:
Ellis: of guides and and there are a lot of guides
Speaker:
Ellis: who do the same thing every day um you
Speaker:
Ellis: know i'm thinking of myself matt some
Speaker:
Ellis: of these other guys that i've been out with where it's like
Speaker:
Ellis: i have a conversation with every
Speaker:
Ellis: angler before we go out every single person it
Speaker:
Ellis: doesn't matter if i'm running 12 trips in
Speaker:
Ellis: 12 days i know the
Speaker:
Ellis: person that i'm fishing at least
Speaker:
Ellis: a little bit on a personal level the
Speaker:
Ellis: day before if not weeks or a month before so that
Speaker:
Ellis: i understand what you know what that
Speaker:
Ellis: dynamic looks like what that fun dynamic looks like for
Speaker:
Ellis: them and so to to
Speaker:
Ellis: be a good client in that sense is be honest if you want to learn because i've
Speaker:
Ellis: had that i get this plenty and it's not going to surprise anyone i just want
Speaker:
Ellis: to learn how to x i just want to learn
Speaker:
Ellis: this and that i don't care you know catching fish is a bonus whatever.
Speaker:
Ellis: If that's not the case, if you want to go, because that's very different.
Speaker:
Ellis: I can teach and honestly, people can learn far more effectively when the opportunity
Speaker:
Ellis: to catch fish is not there.
Speaker:
Ellis: When the opportunity to catch fish is there, you don't listen to me. I don't care who you are.
Speaker:
Ellis: It's been 100% of people with me.
Speaker:
Ellis: When the opportunity to catch fish is there and you're getting the fly out there
Speaker:
Ellis: and maybe everything's not going well and it's only happening 50% of the time,
Speaker:
Ellis: I'm, you're going to keep doing some of these things and making mistakes and, and I pick up on that.
Speaker:
Ellis: And so I'm going to kind of quiet down and let you do your thing.
Speaker:
Ellis: And hopefully we catch some fish.
Speaker:
Ellis: If you want to catch some fish, say that. And there's, you're going on a guided
Speaker:
Ellis: trip and you're paying good money for it. So be honest.
Speaker:
Ellis: And I would say the, the good guys, I've had people on my boat that I don't
Speaker:
Ellis: want to say They're nervous, but they're, you know, they're very clear that
Speaker:
Ellis: they're not good anglers, though I have these expectations of,
Speaker:
Ellis: I'm not even sure what, of anything than zero.
Speaker:
Ellis: My expectations for, I'm lucky to have people on my boat.
Speaker:
Ellis: Every single person, a couple of weeks ago, I was telling one of my regulators
Speaker:
Ellis: that it feels like, oh, these are my first trip, where I truly do feel fortunate
Speaker:
Ellis: to have people on my boat.
Speaker:
Ellis: And so I've spent so much time doing different things and fishing gear and fishing
Speaker:
Ellis: four and five weights and fishing sevens and eights and fishing smallies and
Speaker:
Ellis: muskie and, you know, low, high,
Speaker:
Ellis: daytime, dark, so that we can have a conversation and say, hey, here's the menu.
Speaker:
Ellis: You um and here's a
Speaker:
Ellis: couple of these programs that we can choose in absence
Speaker:
Ellis: of an opinion from you but the the client should should provide input and say
Speaker:
Ellis: here's what i'm going to do and and let's be as clear as possible on expectations
Speaker:
Ellis: um from both sides because i i think that there's a a,
Speaker:
Ellis: you know, don't piss your guide off mentality.
Speaker:
Ellis: Which is bizarre because it's like, at the end of the day, I'm a,
Speaker:
Ellis: I'm a business and, and I am a, a customer focused business.
Speaker:
Ellis: And so, um, yeah, certainly do things to, to make the trip go smoother.
Speaker:
Ellis: And there are plenty of things that happen throughout the day, but, um,
Speaker:
Ellis: open communication and, and, and being honest, if you want to catch fish,
Speaker:
Ellis: tell your guide, you want to catch some fish if you want to if you want to avoid
Speaker:
Ellis: boats if you want to do x y and z tell them and if you're not getting good feels
Speaker:
Ellis: from whoever you're talking to call someone else.
Speaker:
Marvin: It's good life advice, right?
Speaker:
Ellis: Yeah, I think so.
Speaker:
Marvin: And, you know, folks, we love questions on 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 will enter your drawing for some cool stuff from Ellis at the end of the season.
Speaker:
Marvin: And, you know, Ellis, like we always do, you want to let folks,
Speaker:
Marvin: you know, know where they can find you and book you.
Speaker:
Marvin: And I'll also remind people that we've got a great community that we host on
Speaker:
Marvin: Patreon you're on with some opportunities to participate in the community and
Speaker:
Marvin: get discounts on bucktails.
Speaker:
Marvin: And there'll be more this year than last year or to get a a hundred dollar off
Speaker:
Marvin: guide credit with Ellis.
Speaker:
Marvin: So I'll stop talking now, Ellis and let you cue everybody up and tell them where
Speaker:
Marvin: to find you and all that kind of good stuff.
Speaker:
Ellis: Sure. So you can follow me on Instagram at Ellis Ward guides.
Speaker:
Ellis: My website is Ellis Ward fries.com. on.
Speaker:
Ellis: Text, call, ask questions, say what's up at my cell phone, 513-543-0019.
Speaker:
Marvin: Well, there you go, folks. As I always say, you owe it to yourself to get out
Speaker:
Marvin: there and catch a few. 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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