S7, Ep 34: Casting in the Chaos: Navigating Windy Waters with Ellis Ward

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?

I am doing well, Marv. How are you?

As always, I'm just trying to stay out of trouble and super curious. Any new focaccia recipes this time around?

Yeah, I've been tweaking the starter a little bit, so instead of feeding it every day at the 24 hour mark, I'll, I've been doing 36 hours and over the course of five days, you know, trying to get, get that right amount of gooeyness without letting it get too dry. That does mean I'll have to get up at, you know, in the middle of the night every once in a while, but it's worth it.

Yeah, I mean, you know, nothing assures a good day on the water like a good shore lunch, right?

That's right. And again, a nice medium soft goat cheese I find compliments a hot day in the water quite well.

Yeah. With an artisanal seltzer.

That's right.

Yep. So that's enough inside baseball.You know, it's one, one common refrain I've been recording a few more fishing reports before I got to you this evening is everyone's pretty damn tired of the wind.

Oh, my God. Dude, there's, there's no faster way, there's no shorter line to the end of my patience.And it has honestly nothing to do with, you know, anything that we're seeing that day. It, we could, I, I could be fun fishing. I, I could have, you know, an absolute killer or whack and fish.If I'm in a flat and that wind starts picking up, I'll tell you, it's going one direction, which is the opposite of the direction I want to be going. And almost all of the time it, it is coming with unfishy conditions.And I know I, I floated this a little bit to you when we were out, but it's the socked in days where a day like today, you're going to have AI remove some of the bug noises. But, you know, the peepers are going, the crickets are screaming. It's insulated.It's, you know, you can't really hear the dogs across the, the hill those days that are, the air feels open, it's dry. The, the sun, the sky is giant. You don't have a cloud around for multiple states. The fishing sucks.And so it's like there's, I, I, we also, you know, I talked about this a little Bit how you start seeing streamers come back from the bank, it lands a certain way, it has a noise as a feeling.It just, there's a little pause and a bump, bump and you get a little bit of a mini walk and then a kill down whatever you're fishing, bank, weed, bed and you just, you get this like, oh God, like that's going to get smoked. And so that's this, these many multi dimensional set of data that tells your brain this is good and it's fishy and things are.The wind hits every single, this is bad as quickly as possible. So if you can't tell. Yeah, I'm with everyone else, I'm sick of the wind and I do feel like March and April can be some of the worst of it.And at least for this week, looking into next week as well, looking like some, some nice fishy spring days, mix of partly sunnies, some thunderstorms. So some of that late spring summer weather that I'm so excited it's here.

Yeah.And just, just for folks to know, I mean I was on the boat with Ellis last week and the first day we fished together we had wind gusts of north of 40 miles an hour probably until 4 o'clock in the afternoon. And you know, anyone who's met me knows that I'm not a skinny small dude and we were getting blown upstream with an extra angler in the boat too.

If that were, if it weren't you, like I would have treated that like if I know a lot of clients, you know, shout out to everyone who's, who's been on my boat a bunch. I'm so, so thankful for the network of, of clients and people that I know that I've developed over the years.But you know, the, the handful of people that just find me. If that were just like a person that found me and we went out and, and it was that midday, I would have called it, I would have called it a half day.I mean that was, that was the windiest I've ever like continue to fish in. That was, that was why for a couple hours there, that was wild.

Yeah. But I mean we managed to put, I don't know, probably 12 to 15 nice, you know, fish in the boat on the dry.So it's pretty killer and not, you know, not big bushy stuff, itty bitty stuff.

Yeah. No, I mean it's, I was about to say, not to toot my own horn, but that's the point of this, isn't it? I've, I fished these rivers and the musky water.I got on in on my own so not with clients in the boat for years in, in every condition possible. And I, you know I'm gonna go out and it like, I know it's gonna suck.And, and the goal is to like, I don't always have a new moon with socked in skies and just a little bit of mist. Not enough to shut bugs down like that. It's so rare. And then you include angler skills on top of it. It's like the perfect storm.Happens so, so rarely and so early on I just found that like we gotta, I gotta have plans A through getting into alphanumeric coding by season by you know, are we fishing in the day at night? So yeah. Thankfully some of the stock the, the spots were, were paying and you and your son kept the faith and oh boy.Casting dry flies, casting size 20 CDC flies in that wind.I mean there were, there were some times where it's like almost waiting and you know you're gonna get a two second window where that wind cuts down to 15 miles an hour instead of 30 and it's like all right, better take it. So I, I appreciate your hard work and faith and patience as well.

Yeah, I think the salvation too was you know the, the Cattus are starting to come off so we actually could get away with a more active dry fly present. It would have been pretty darn tough.

Yeah.And sort of an interesting part of the, the that cadis patch or the, or the caddis pupa feeding, we get to fish bigger bugs in certain types of water and in a lot of that water it's, it's, it's water that wouldn't necessarily be my A plus dry fly spots and, and those would like for the you know, mayfly and midge fishing, those would be generally slower water and like we did a little bit of that with, with that one under the tree that ended up just ghosting us.But like that type of sight fishing with, with the little bugs and mayflies, like that's more flat stuff and we again it's, you start getting wind like that and the bugs know not to come off. I don't know if it's the barometer, if, if they're talking to the weatherman and, but they know not to come out when it's 30 plus mile an hour wind.Like they don't stand a chance. They're going to get messed up on the surface of the water or when they get up something bad is going to happen. So it's, it just Shuts it down.That with the caddish hatch it's like you get a more active presentation. You're also fishing somewhat.You know that active water, slightly more turbulent, little faster and boy, some, some of those, I, I'm just about to call them top water eats. The, the dry fly eats quote unquote. But eating those caddis pupa, doing it when you're doing it the right way, it's just streamer fishing.It's top water fish and you're, you're getting trout rocketing through the surface and you know it's not two feet a two foot brown but that, that's, it's a lot of fun. I'm glad you got to see a little bit of it.

Yeah, absolutely.And got a question for you from Andy and this is kind of a good thing at the beginning of the season he wanted to get your thoughts on preferred terminal tackle nods.

Yeah, so that is a good, good question. I mean with the, with, with I'll just go short and, and sweet. For the little bugs.I'm doing clinch knots and you know, not to be too detailed but I'll go, I'll go four or five turns. I think six, especially on the little bugs. If I'm going 5x on us on a size 18, I'm doing four turns. It just.If you're doing, you know, five, six turns using 5x on a size 18 and let's just say you're nymphing and them and you're dropping something off the eye there, it. That's just a lot of stuff right up front and you know, whether or not there's visibility to the fish, that concerns me less.But I, I just think of it as you're, you're putting, it's kind of like a welded loop. Like you're, you're putting this chunk of dense mass in a place that doesn't really make a whole lot of sense.So that, that could be absolute nonsense. But it's just. My preferred technique guess is to err on the, the few turns and I think four is the right number for streamers.I'm doing a non slip loop and I do one and a half turns.There's, there's a, if you do one turn and pull it through the wrong way and I encourage everyone, if you don't know what I'm talking about, look up the non slip loop high couple.It's a really, really easy knot and I have, I have pressure tested so much of this stuff to no end only to arrive at the same Conclusion that a lot of the times it's kind of in the back of my head, but it's just like, all right. Or that it doesn't really matter because If I'm fishing 15 pound fluoro for trout, the breaking point is a tree in fast water.It's, that's almost the end of the story right there.You can, okay, if you get a fish over 20 and you are absolute straight line already sort of tight and pin it with everything you have and you've just wrapped around a branch that has some spiky stuff, you can snap 15 pound. But otherwise, I mean I know I've, I've demonstrated the. Let's, let's put ourselves in the hospital for a shoulder replacement on, on our strip sets.Like I, I, you can't break 15 pound on a strip set. You're, you're getting through slack and then you're going to move the fish's face and the actual motion the fly going through its, its jaw.So I think there's some strength implications between clench and, and the, the non slip loop. But that one and a half turn non slip loop is just, it's quick, it's easy, doesn't break.I mean when I'm losing flies, I, I think you may have had a couple come back like this where it's like we end up getting it back and it's, it's snapped off at the swivel. So I'll do 20 pound to a 35 pound little metal swivel which is, I've just started doing this in the last year and I really like them.It allows me to keep that, that smooth leader to, to line connection that I'll put UV resin on and I don't move that and then I just reconnect. Fifteen pound fluoro, that little swivel and that's the part that breaks that. You know, that's where it snaps off.The, the one exclusion would be game changers that are bigger and I'll call them sockier or floppier. So I, I use clinch knots fishing does because it's, it's just casting and fouling up. So having a tighter connection.You know, you already have so much movement in the fly itself and, and typically like I'm, you know, I'm talking the craft for changers is, is really where I, I start to change how I'm approaching that knot and we don't need as much of a hinge and they're so much more massive.They have the, the amount of mass in the fly is is so much greater than the amount of mass in that 15 pound fluoro that the fly is controlling everything about the system versus let's, you know, pressure test this one and, and say a clinch knot using 25 pound fluorocarbon and a size 8 relax single hook. Not much mass.It's gonna look like it's moving in the water with a, like, like you have a stick attached to it and, and you're sort of swinging it around. You take that exact same system and do a loop knot and you have freedom of movement at the, at the point of connection.You take that exact same system, replace that stiff 25 pound with something more supple like 15 pound and the, the whole, the system moves a lot more. And so it's kind of finding that, that happy medium and, and changing things up when it gets, you know, outweighed in, in one direction or another.And so, you know, just very quick summary. I know that's, that's a bunch of different tangents, but clinch knots for the small bugs, loop knots for the streamers.And then I, I go back to the clinch if I'm fishing. Big heavy streamers.

Got it. And then in terms of building your leaders or leader to tip it, are you a double uni knot, man?

I'm not, I've, I've screwed around with, with this one a lot. And I think it's, it's boiled down to just doing a blood knot and all doing Albright. You know, if I'm going 15 to 25, that's Albright time.I've had more than one person basically look at me and be like, why aren't you doing a, you know, this, that or the other double uni surgeons?And it just comes down to like, what works and where are the pain points in changing and where are the breaking points in the system on a routine basis and we're pinning flies and trees in fast water and snapping them off. And that happens at the 15 pound section. And like it's, that's kind of the end of the story for me.I, I can absolutely, I mean, if, if anyone's listening to this and, oh, you know, you should be doing this, that or the other, and saltwater fishing or building, you know, multi like their own tapered leaders. Yeah, there's absolutely a place where something more sophisticated or simpler or whatever is either the right or stronger or whatever answer.But we can just call it habit at this point. Yeah.

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 is easiest for you.And if I use your question, we'll send you some articulate fly swag or near you to a 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 to talk fishing, get on the boat and all that kind of good stuff.

Yeah. Best way to reach out is my Cell phone at 513-543-0019.Website is elliswardflies.com and I keep everyone updated sort of pictures of flies and occasionally a fish picture here and there at Ellis Ward Guides on Instagram. And I appreciate you not putting me on the spot, but boy, I, I have a pile of bucktail all homed out and bagged and ready to go.So I will have those up this week and we'll, we'll keep everyone posted on Instagram.

Well, there you go. Well, folks, as always, say yo to yourself to get out there and catch a few. Tight lines, everybody. Tight lines. Ellis.

Appreciate it, Marvin.