S7, Ep 101: Chasing Muskies: Ellis Ward's Insights on Seasonal Shifts and Fishing Strategies

EPISODE SUMMARY

Guest: Ellis Ward - Full-time Fishing Guide at Ellis Ward Flies (Johnson City, East Tennessee)

In this episode: East Tennessee guide Ellis Ward shares winter fishing strategies and his systematic approach to discovering new water across southwest Virginia and east Tennessee. Topics include transitioning from spawning trout to winter musky season, and using Google Maps to identify high-percentage fishing locations.

Key fishing techniques covered:

• Musky fishing in winter conditions with bucktails
• Post-spawn brown trout streamer tactics (January-February focus)
• Using Google Maps to locate spring creek mouths and tributary systems
• Pattern development requiring minimum one-season commitment
• Reading self-sustaining ecosystems in tailwater/reservoir complexes
• Adjusting presentations in low water conditions

Location focus: East Tennessee (French Broad River, Watauga River, South Holston River, Nolichucky River), southwest Virginia, Tennessee Valley reservoir systems

Target species: Musky, brown trout, smallmouth bass

Equipment discussed: Bucktails, streamer flies, Danco fillet knife for bucktail processing, borax for hair preservation

Key questions answered:

• How to systematically find and pattern new fishing water
• What makes January-February prime time for post-spawn browns
• How to identify self-sustaining fish ecosystems in complex river systems
• When to transition from trout to musky fishing during spawn periods

Best for: Intermediate to advanced anglers interested in winter fishing strategies, multi-species approaches, water discovery techniques, and East Tennessee/southwest Virginia fishing

Marvin Cash00:00:04

Hey, folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of The Articulate Fly. We're back with another East Tennessee Fishing Report with the man himself, Ellis Ward. Ellis, how are you?

Ellis Ward00:00:12

I'm doing good, Marv. How are you?

Marvin Cash00:00:15

As always, just trying to stay out of trouble. And just so our listeners appreciate this, you are elbow deep in deer death in your front yard, right.

Ellis Ward00:00:23

Backyard.

Marvin Cash00:00:24

Backyard.

Ellis Ward00:00:26

But yes, I am currently. As I say these words, cutting into a bucktail with my trusty danko fillet knife.

Marvin Cash00:00:38

Well, there you go. Probably have, I don't know, a couple hundred pounds of borax, right?

Ellis Ward00:00:42

Yeah. I need to make a run, honestly, but I do have a little bit of stash.

Marvin Cash00:00:48

Yeah.So, you know, it's kind of, we're kind of teetering over and this is one of the reasons you have time to process is we're kind of teetering away from trout. The trout are spawning, shifting to muskie fishing.So you have a little bit more time off the water, but, you know, you're still chasing the fish too, right?

Ellis Ward00:01:04

Yeah, yeah. It's. Definitely musky season and we tread pretty low water on the French Broad. Got out last week. And.So thankfully we had, we, we got a good soaking last night. And it's, it's going to be, we're, we're kind of finally in a little bit of a few days on few days off, precipitation, rain.So things are going to be settling into their respective winter norms, which a lot of times for muskie means their winter lies. And. You know, fun part about the French Broad is that it's. Almost efficient tail waters for trout and headwaters for muskie. So a lot of it's not all.I fish and guide about 22, 23 miles of that river. And so, so some of it falls into the.The same category that you might find on the new or the James or the, the muskies move and really change behaviors. During the winter. But then on the upper reaches, it's, it's almost tailwater because it's a headwater.So in the winter it doesn't get nearly as cold as the lower reaches because it's, it's sort of insulated by all of the springs that are feeding it. So. Yeah, no, it's a good time of year. And. I have a kid. Number three will be joining us this week. So kind of a good time to not be super busy.And then just looking at the calendar and both trips and, and the fishing prospects. December goes by really quickly. This is also a good time of year where if, if I'M getting trout trips or if guys are asking about fishing. It's.I'm really pushing to muskie because.

Marvin Cash00:03:22

The.

Ellis Ward00:03:22

Browns are very actively spawning. They have been for a few weeks. And. Speaking very openly, the rivers are somewhat packed with.With boats that are anchored over areas where they're spawning. And. That combined with the fact that, you know, not all trout are spawning at the same time. But things just. Things just get a little weird.They change behaviors, their minds are on different things. A lot of them are just for my boat completely off the menu. And then the other one's just. It's. It's funky. So. Yeah, a little bit.I'm not sure if you call it a shoulder season, but. Musking bucktail for right now. And then in just a few short weeks we will be in post spawn. I'm going to.I have a couple videos that I'm going to be sharing to get folks juiced up. But January and February are my favorite times of year to be doing what we do. And.I certainly like the other months as it gets warmer and you know, Cattus. I love dry flies. Sulphur gets going. May, June, July. With the water releases on the Wataga. There's a lot of good stuff here. But.January and February can be unique and they can offer an opportunity to. The ceilings on good days are pretty bonkers. So I'm excited.

Marvin Cash00:05:06

Yeah. And of course that shot of rain.I know water's been low and so anything you do to get a little bit more water in the system and get a little stain in the water kind of tilts the odds back in the angler's favor on the musky front.

Ellis Ward00:05:16

Right. Yes. I have. I just put a post up a couple weeks ago saying that this is, you know, someone's 40 inch muskie and his first.Hour of ever fishing for muskie. Which makes sense in. In a way that only muskie fishing can have something make sense. So oddly. In a lot of different respects it's.You know, it takes time to. To acclimate to certain conditions. I think that happens for both the fish and for the anglers. But. There'S same thing goes with. With trout.It's just when you're able to get a presentation in areas where, you know, fish are that might otherwise be a little more difficult to get a good presentation with a fly. So said a different way you have maybe a little outside bend that is just a little pushy.So both from a rowing perspective, you can maybe only get four or five, six decent shots and everything's A little slower and bigger with muskie fishing, but it's actually been so low where some of those areas are pooling out a little bit. So. I think for the sake of your own fishing and, and for my guiding, there's. They can be spunkier at certain times, but.One of our biggest challenges is, is to get flies near where they might be when they are going to eat. And. Low water can certainly offer that clear. Not my favorite sunny days also not great. So the weather that we have now is certainly helping that.

Marvin Cash00:07:09

Yeah, absolutely. And got a question from Austin. I think he hit you up on Instagram.You know, knows that there's a ton of options from water and species in southwest Virginia, east Tennessee, but kind of want to get your thoughts on, you know, and this is kind of apropos for heading into 20, 26, maybe New Year's resolution to fish new and different water. You know, how do you decide on new places to fish and kind of how do you start fishing them?

Ellis Ward00:07:35

Yeah. Austin, I appreciate that. Question, that message. I think about this a lot. I've been thinking about it since I moved here.It's been six years and the Watauga is 10 minutes from my house. South Olson's 20. So when I'm looking at trout water, it's. I really have to think about.What I'm doing and, and I get a little mucked up with my, with, you know, value of time and. You know, is, is this. Am I approaching something with the, with the prospect of guiding? And so I've done that a lot for, for muskie fishing. And.That can be challenging sort of as a mental game of just sticking something out and seeing it through and realizing maybe that you have to go and work.And especially if you're going for big browns, muskies, striper areas that might hold larger small mouth, you know, carb flats, any of this fun stuff. Like part of it is going out and putting together what might look good.Which when you have this is a conversation that I have on a cast to cast basis with the French broad muskie and browns on the tail waters, you can start to cast behind me. And it's because there are so many options that you want to get a good presentation in each one.And realistically, you just need to choose the best spot on a cast to cast basis and ignore everything else.And so when you, when you do have so much stuff in front of you as Austin and any others are looking at Google Maps and reading books and blogs and dude, so many people are just trying to Sell you something, be it a trip or some gear or you know, get you to the nearest fly shop around wherever with fishing reports. So you're gonna do I, I think the best by yourself and whoever you're with to go on Google Maps and look at what's around.So are there spring creeks coming in? Are there, are there known trout streams in that area? Are there known smallmouth streams in that area? Where are muskie endemic to?Where have they been stocked?Where, where are people running trips and what creeks connect to them and then start working like the high percentage areas like mouths of streams or creeks coming into lakes.The same thing with bigger rivers, like looking at where little spring creeks are coming into the NOLA Chucky or the French Broad and you know, spending some time just on the main channel at the mouths of those places, but also up into those places.And heck, I've, I've gone up and fished some streams that feed the NOLA Chucky just to see what's going on in there and have found that they're nice little trout streams. And so it's like, all right, well what does that tell you about the base of that stream?And if that, the base of that stream is, has some deep pools and maybe another creek or two that come in there, then it's a somewhat self sustaining ecosystem.And that's a good place for big fish to stay because there's gonna be bait that are happy all year long, even when it's too hot or too cold in many other places on, on that stretch of the river.And then another place or another thing about this area that can feel overwhelming is the number of reservoirs and tailwaters and just that lake Dam River. Lake Dam river that goes all the way through Tennessee, starting up in Virginia.But those are, man, they get fed by cold water and a lot of them are deep and a lot of them are fed by streams like I was talking about that are in their own right good trout and smallmouth streams. So you know the edges of those lakes and reservoirs and. You know, different regions of, of those reservoirs themselves.If you have a boat can just be. Everything can have its time. And I think one of the best pieces of advice is go out with an intention.So I want to figure out if there's something about striper in this reservoir. It's like you need to dedicate a season to that minimum and recognize that you might miss the good days.So you're not gonna really know what the potential is of any body of water in my opinion, until you've Done it tirelessly, three, four, five days a week, maybe a couple hours a day.But really, as much as you can be getting out there, constantly doing it at night, doing it in all types of conditions just to see what's going on, try to pattern different things. And so there's, you know, there's pros and cons to all that because a little bit of that's impossible unless you're a guide.But it can also be like a little pet project. You can have something that you just, you know, has some potential, and that's the one thing that you spend your free time doing. And.Man, there's a lot of fishy stuff around here. So odds are it's going to pay off if you just dedicate some time into stuff that, that has all the right things.And maybe you haven't seen a whole lot or heard a lot, but you spend time out there, you're gonna find it.

Marvin Cash00:14:01

Oh, there you go, Austin. I hope that was helpful. And you know, folks, we love questions at the Articulate Fly.You can email me or DM me on social media, whatever's easiest for you. And you can DM Ellis as well as we've just seen.And if we use your question, I will send you some articulate Fly swag and enter, you know, drawing for some cool stuff. I guess we'll drew this will probably be maybe the first episode of 2026. We'll do the drawing and some cool stuff from Alice.And Alice, before I let you go and continue to be elbow deep in dead deer and borax and bucktails and rit dye, you want to let folks kind of know how to reach out, get on the guide calendar, pick up some bucktails, pick up some flies and all that kind of good stuff.

Ellis Ward00:14:40

Yes. Muskie fishing and postpon browns. January, February, musky fishing right now through the same period of time into March and April. Text me, call me.But if you like streamer fish and if you like muskie fishing, it's. It's time to go. My number is 513-543-0019. Information, pictures, whatever.If you need to get sold on, on some of this stuff, visually, it can be found along with some flies and bucktail can be found at elliswardflies.com.

Marvin Cash00:15:19

Oh, well, there you go. Well, folks, you owe it to yourself to get out there and catch a few tight lines, everybody. Tight lines, Ellis.

Ellis Ward00:15:26

Appreciate it, Marvin.