S7, Ep 32: Swim Flies and Trout Tactics: An East Tennessee Fishing Report with Ellis Ward

Marvin Cash00:00:00

Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of the Articulate Fly. We're back with another East Tennessee fishing report with Ellis Ward. Ellis, how are you?

Ellis Ward00:00:12

I am doing pretty good, Marv. How are you?

Marvin Cash00:00:14

As always, just trying to stay out of trouble. And we were talking before he started recording and. You've been hit with the baby plague.

Ellis Ward00:00:22

Yeah, we got. Not sure who patient zero is, but almost six month old has had a fever. Girlfriend went down pretty hard.I, I'm, I think just good clean living and you know, being, being outside. In all seriousness, I'm going to avoid being too much of a conspiracy theorist, but I, I think this is the worst of it. But. Yeah, been.Been a little rough last few days and had trips three days in a row over the weekend. So we can we. I'm just gonna use this to pivot right into talking about fishing. It's hard to, it's hard to, you know, sit in.I, I can be tired out there and it doesn't matter. And, and when, you know, I had a regular client and he's fishing really well and we're moving fish and it was challenging conditions.We're fishing streamers in low water, you know, 90% of the time. And the Caddis have been just over the weekend started ripping and it's, it's, it's an unpredictable.I mean it's, it's like going and, and booking a trip to try to catch striper on like good luck doing that a couple months out. And so it's, you know, it was April 6th when they were, I mean, really, really going. And, and it's, it wasn't all.It's a lot of these, the tan cat is that are like size, you know, 14s are big 16s mostly some 18s. So the, the big black cat is, are. I saw a number of them.So they're, they are already hatching and, and those are going to be coming out big here in the next week.

Marvin Cash00:02:30

Very neat. I just take some consolation that you didn't tell me that it was because you, you like Zen that you didn't get sick.

Ellis Ward00:02:37

Yeah, you know, I haven't thought of the self fulfilling like oh this, this is because I like to do this. Therefore it is a good idea. But I can. So we'll just, I'll. I'll put that in the hopper and get back to you.

Marvin Cash00:02:56

Yeah, I think if you mix a Zen up with, you know, strawberry pop tart, I think that'll cure just about everything.

Ellis Ward00:03:03

Look man, it, it elevates your metabolism it, it spikes your internal temperature. That's gonna fight off whatever is in your body. And you know, there's a lot of similarities in the research of, of chemotherapy.So yeah, this type of thing is, is something that, that we can discuss more, more in depth either on the boat or, you know, I might start a YouTube channel on alternative medicine.

Marvin Cash00:03:32

Well, there you go. And you know, so you know, bugs are starting to pop. That only makes it better for you, I would assume.The water's probably still got a little bit of stain to it, which is good for the streamer game. And got a question for you from our friend Brenner.And I know we've got to kind of hold on to you so you don't fall down the rat hole on this one, but you wanted to talk about articulated flies and whether you like to wait the fly or whether you like to use the weight in the fly line.

Ellis Ward00:03:59

Yeah, I'm brushing out the head of a sort of boogeyman type, you know, double articulated, two woolly buggers with some lead eyes and laser dub. Right. I mean right now you can hear the, the brush is going.So largely speaking, my personal style of fishing is going to be use the weighted fly line. And boy, where, where do we go with this one? I, I, I think there's, there's a couple different problems that we're trying to solve for. Right.One of them is what is the, what is your definition of a productive day?And so as a guide that looks different sometimes with the same client in hour one versus hour three, sometimes it's teaching, we're learning, sometimes it's catching. For a lot of the guys that are on my boat, it's, it's learning. But boy, we need some feedback from trout every once in a while.The sound of, of me saying, you know, that's good or that's not working as well is that that type of feedback does not go as far or, or land as efficiently as a brown trout giving you feedback. So the reason that I like to fish, we'll call them swim flies. There's basically swim flies and then jig flies.So the reason that I like to fish the swim flies is at, at the end of the day I am fishing for and if I, if I sense this, if I'm picking up on it from the angler and they don't even have to be, they could be a first time streamer fisher person. If I'm seeing that they're feeling the swim bug or they're fishing the drunk and they're getting it to walk.I, I, I am going to, I, I gamble every single trip I am going to ride that until the car is completely broken down and sometimes it doesn't pay off.And like that, that's been a big part of standing by, you know, sticking to my guns, whatever you want to say, guiding the way that I do and building the network and the clientele that I, that I built over the last five years. There's, it's a conversation you and I had had about, you know, sitting with bad news or delivering bad news.It's, it's uncomfortable for a lot of times for the client and the guide when you're just not seeing anything for hours sometimes.And then you move a fish off a weed bed or out of a bank and it's on a swim fly and they shark up behind it and they go left when you strip and they go right when you strip and then you give it another little tap tap and they eat it sideways so hard that it's all you can do to hold onto your line and really at that point really try your best to not lift your rod tip up and maybe they miss and then they blow it through the surface. And I mean the looks, I have goosebumps. The looks that I get sitting in the middle of the boat from that front seat.It doesn't matter if the fish is hooked in the net, it's off. It doesn't that eat moment when you're fishing.The swim flies when it's 2 inches under the surface of the water, 6 inches, maybe 8 to 12 inches under the surface of the water and a trout eats it in a way that you would never envision trout eating anything. And, and I, man, I see brown trout blow up through the surface more than I, I didn't even know that was a thing.Middle of the day, clear water, low water, it doesn't matter. Sunny.I mean you see it more in the bitier conditions, but you don't get any of that, none of what I just described happens when you're fishing the jig flies. And so that, that, that's why I like fishing the swim flies. It's just, it's, it's so much more visual, it's so much more engaging.Will you catch more fish fishing jig flies? I think yes. Globally speaking, you, you have a built in kill and so with the swim flies you need to have your angles tight.I look we're going to, I'm going to be talking for two hours before this thing, before I even get into bullet point two but I do have a, a couple YouTube videos on it at Ellis Ward Fishing on YouTube. So I encourage you to look at that get book.I mean, if you're interested in this type of thing or you just haven't really explored the differences between the two or, or what's going on. The deer hair flies or the changers like get, get some time on the water with me.I, I look at the, the trips, the cost of the trip, the time investment, whatever it is. Yeah, you're learning about the casting, the stripping fly tying, you know, my experiences, trying to download that all onto you.But the, the learning curve is something that, you know, I was, I was collapsing very poorly tied dungeons into the back of my head fishing a 5x with floating line and 7 1/2 foot tapered 2x liter. I didn't know anything about this.And as much information as there is on YouTube, this, this whole fishing swim flies for brown trout deal is for anyone who doesn't know my boat, which, which at this point is I, there's, there's dozens, many dozens of people out there now that regularly are fishing with me. And it's the same with all of them. They, it's just, they can't get enough of it. And so, yeah, you can catch more. You're, you're missing out on.Let's just say you fish a peanut or a dungeon and you catch the same fish or maybe some more throughout that day. I'm never going to see you look back from the front of the boat and go, did you see that eat? Because maybe you didn't.And that's not to say I'm tying one right now. I fish dungeons all the time in faster water with more complex current differentials between bank and boat.There's a lot of stuff I, I change flies a lot. It's mostly visible stuff. I don't do the color thing at all really.But, but it's, it's, it's based on what the angler's able to do with certain things.And, and a lot of times for my own fishing, I'm going to something with weight because it just, you, you get a, the kill with which is that abrupt stop and motion. It's built in with the jig and, and with the hair flies.It's, it's on you to impart that slack in between your strips and, and doing that with a cast. That splat lands right on the bank with your line tight. Your left hand's ready to go.You're not dropping your line, you're not shooting, you're shooting on your back cast, tight line forward. All that stuff takes a lot of time. And in certain water like the. The applications are somewhat limited, so you do have to have both.And look, you can get fantastic eats on. On weighted flies. Absolutely.Especially, you know, fishing pocket water type stuff where you don't have the, the time or the distance for that weighted line to do its thing. But I'm gonna, I'm gonna take a. A breath here and, and say, you know, it. It comes down to personal preference.And if, if you're only doing one, you are gonna be missing out on something. If you're only fishing swim flies, you might be able to catch more.You're fishing a different part of a water column, you might be able to catch more fish. And jig flies. It's also, you get that.That built in, kill the ceiling on action and the ceiling on those eats, which is ultimately what I fish for and if I can, what I guide for that, that eat the ceiling there is so much higher when you start fishing higher in the water. Water column. These predators are eating bellies.You know, they're not, they're not chasing out something sipping in the back of its tail and getting stung. They're. They're eating it right in the middle of the fly from the bottom.And you, yeah, you just, you have a different experience if you're only fishing jig flies.So if you haven't done it yet and you can't get on my boat, do, you know, do it, do it on a day that seems a little fishier or maybe you've caught some fish and, and you want to see what's going on with some of the bigger flies or something that's closer to the surface. Because if you can't tell from the excitement in my voice, it is something that will make you want to quit your job and move to Tennessee.

Marvin Cash00:14:32

And the rest is history, as they say, folks. Yeah, I mean, I think it's an interesting thing, right?Like, at the risk of pulling you out for another 10 minutes, you know, I would think Brenner, too, Another way to think about it is, you know, fishing swim flies. You're really fishing the line, right, because the game is the slack. And that's a totally different skill set.Not better, but just a different skill set than fishing jig flies.

Ellis Ward00:14:55

Yeah, I never talk about the fly.And part of teaching, part of teaching specifically with this one is basically, you can call it teaching or manipulation, but getting the angler to see the light for a second because almost all the time, when you see what happens when you give abrupt strips and. And you can see on YouTube with. With my own fishing, that when I'm stripping, I'm. I'm pulling a little line. I'm. I'm. I'm throwing darts at my knee.I'm. I'm put. I'm throwing gravel into my. My left pocket. It's just this little. I'm pitching it, and then I'm letting that. There's. There's a jolt that.That reintroduces slack into the line just momentarily. But you'll also see that I pull. I tuck my wrist, my right wrist that's on the cork.I pull that back towards my elbow a little bit, maybe 2 inches, sometimes a little bigger. But as I'm doing that, it's at the same time as I'm stripping.So I'm pulling that line just a little bit, just tossing it down to my left thigh, and I'm just pulling that cork back towards me a little bit. And then on the kill, I'm pushing my rod back out, just that same little couple inches, and then I grab the line again, do the same thing.So in that process, there is. You know, if. If you were to look at this like dry fly fishing, it's like you're wiggling a little bit of s into the system.Every time you push that line back out, every time you give those little abrupt strips, that. That causes a start and stop at that line, it almost shocks it into reintroducing slack. And when.When you're doing that and you're watching your fly swim, that's when you start seeing these. These big dog walks, these big left rights. The. You know, Tommy talks about the float recovery. You know, the. The back wobbling out and then.Then coming back in, and. And you're fishing a jerk bait. I mean, I had a guy fishing swim bug. He's like, this is a glide bait. Yeah, it is. That's what it is.You're fishing a little glide bait that also has the ability to, you know, on a. On a faster strip or a bigger strip, you get some of the. The jerk bait. Boom. You get some of that wobble, that s.Swim, and then, you know, hands off and it dies and floats up again. Hit it once, just real small with that rod pole, and it goes to the other side and glides. You just.None of what I said has anything to do with fishing the jig flies. And so it also has very little to do with. Yes, fly design definitely comes into play, but none of What I'm talking about is about flies.So yeah, you're right. It's, it's, it's about line control through. As soon as you get the fly to the boat and you're about to back cast, that's where we're starting.And then it's all the way through until the fly is back at the boat after you've casted and retrieved and it, and it's hard to do but man, the, you can see it just when you're fishing it and, and the entire process is so fun. And then you start to get feedback from the fish and then man, you get those eats and really start to figure out what it's about.

Marvin Cash00:19:01

Well, there you go. Well, you know folks, we love questions on the articulate fly. You can email me or DM me on social media, whatever's easiest for you.And if I use your question, send you some articulate fly swag and it may include a sticker for the new butcher shop podcast. And we are drawing for some cool stuff from Ellis at the end of the season.And Ellis, before I let you go, you want to let folks know how to reach out and get on your boat if you got any upcoming bucktail drops and all that kind of good stuff.

Ellis Ward00:19:26

Yeah, best way to get on my boat is contacting me on my cell phone at 513-543-0019. I've been mentioning this the last few podcasts, but sorry, I got some laser dub my mouth folks, about.I, I say reach out if you have questions or just to talk about fishing or, you know, I want to help.I, I know four or five hundred bucks and taking time off work and all that to come down and, and do this thing when you're fishing your creek most often like that's, it can be a lot. So I've had folks reach out and a little higher frequency recently and it's great. I love helping out where I can even if it's remotely.You know, the whole whole point of this is getting you on my boat.But if, if that's not possible, definitely reach out and, and ask me whatever questions and, and send them into to me or Marv so that we can talk about them on the podcast. But Bucktail is it just depends on my priorities. I want to get them out and guiding comes first, time comes next.Those two both come behind being a dad, which has different requirements. So I, I'll, I'll keep people posted on Instagram about Bucktail and that is at Ellis Ward Guides.

Marvin Cash00:21:05

Well, there you go. Well, folks, as I always say, yo, it's yourself to get out there and catch a few tight lines, everybody. Tight line. Zealous.

Ellis Ward00:21:13

Appreciate it, Marvin.