S6, Ep 98: Navigating Late Summer Waters and Mousing Tactics with Ellis Ward

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.