S7, Ep 53: Mousing Around: Summer Fishing Adventures 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 doing?

Ellis Ward00:00:12

Well, Marv, how are you?

Marvin Cash00:00:14

Probably better than you are. You probably have at least an oil change from a quick turn and burn down to Florida, right?

Ellis Ward00:00:20

Marvin, I'm a responsible individual and I take care of the things that do the work for me. So I got my oil changed prior to driving down to Florida, and it was only a few months late, so I'm feeling like I have some good boy points there.

Marvin Cash00:00:39

Well, that's good. And, you know, it's not like you're pulling a boat or anything, so, you know, whatever.

Ellis Ward00:00:44

Thankfully this time, yeah, it.

Marvin Cash00:00:46

It's.

Ellis Ward00:00:47

Driving without pulling a boat is especially distances. Feels, you know, it's 11 hours. That ends up being a long way.And then I got, you know, drove back and had some long days on the boat in between, woke up, drove up to see family, dropped one kid off, had a day in between, and now I'm back and talking with you. So thankfully, the not towing a boat and driving feels a little easier has made a difference.

Marvin Cash00:01:24

Yeah. Although my point was if you were already overdue for the. For a couple months for the oil change, you'd been pulling a boat in those overdue months.

Ellis Ward00:01:30

So, yeah, your point can go two or threefold because I'm probably understating how late I was.

Marvin Cash00:01:38

Fair enough.

Ellis Ward00:01:39

I still gotta change, though. I get good boy points. Okay.

Marvin Cash00:01:42

Yeah, it's all good. I've heard annual oil changes are a thing. So you're back. And we were talking before we started recording about a subject near and dear to your heart.Mousing.

Ellis Ward00:01:54

Yeah. Kicking off this week with. And it really feels like summer proper been gone for the last week and then had some trips here and there.

Marvin Cash00:02:13

It's.

Ellis Ward00:02:14

It did start to feel like things were settling into the. The summer cruise control with the Watauga generating six days a week and seeing the dry fly activity doing what it should be doing.And I had a couple nights on my own and a few with clients in May at night, and we didn't. I personally, and then with clients, haven't dedicated a whole lot of time just because there are. There are so many other opportunities.Shad moving up, you know, striper falling. The cat is hatched. There's just. There's so much stuff going on in that late May time frame. So I'm excited to. To push more chips into the.The night game and at the same time, because I just Want everything at the same time. And there's only 24 hours in the day. But really I'm still, I'll probably say it for another couple, another couple episodes.I'm still just enjoying the fact that there's a good amount of water and we're getting rain and you know, the, the Doe river tributary to the Watauga is, is very healthy. So we're just, we're not staring at a bunch of low water, which is always really nice. And it's.While we all aren't staring at low water, we're also not staring at 24. 7 generation, which that's, that's what we were looking at as soon as we dropped from the 24. 7 low water for both rivers for months.I'm not sure if the TVA had changed an algorithm or something was different because of the impact that Helene had here, but there would be these, you know, normally if there's rain, there's going to be a little generation beforehand, during and after. Maybe it's staged, you know, four to eight hours a day, maybe three in the morning, three at night, something like that.It was going from off to 24, seven, you know, for three days in a row and then just off low again.So in any event, things are feeling more right sized and we're getting, you know, the, the low water at night and just have so many more windows of opportunity for night fishing in a meaningful way and combining that with doing it on days where the moon isn't rising until 1, 2, 3 in the morning. Yeah, I'm excited.

Marvin Cash00:05:07

Very, very cool. And I know the daytime. I know just from watching stuff on the Internet that good bugs right during the day.I'm sure the streamer fishing is pretty good. Or do you still have. Because I've gotten a few questions. Do you still have post Helene stain in the water or is that kind of done with at this point?

Ellis Ward00:05:24

No, it's still there.There is a, I would call it a stain, you know, if I was just stepping onto my boat and, and maybe I'm a, a warm water angler or, or did a lot of the freestones, limestone creeks that type stuff. It really does remind me. I fished a lot of the, the limestone and spring creeks up in the Pennsylvania.Like all those blue ribbon trouts rings, fishing creek pens, yellow breaches, yellow creek. Like it reminds me of this limestone turquoisey, light blue, teal green that has some clarity but, but when you get to 3, 4, 5ft, you can really.It starts to look like the Caribbean and that feels Very clear, I think to most people. To me having fished these tail waters for the five years, that's stain. I mean that's color.And when you're starting to not necessarily lose flies, but you're only getting those pops of flash from the drunks or you're only seeing the, you know, the jig ear flies dungeons like you. You only see it on the pickup and maybe when it drops in the tail flares it. It does. Streamer fish has been awesome and it really does do a lot.My perception, at least for the comfort of the fish. I'll let you know when I talk with them.

Marvin Cash00:07:05

Yeah, fair enough. But you know, it's kind of funny. That's what those PA guys, I think they like to call that fishy green.

Ellis Ward00:07:10

Oh yeah, yeah.

Marvin Cash00:07:13

So. Well, that's awesome. So, you know. I know. I guess you're probably starting to see sulfurs pretty regularly, I would imagine.You know, at least, you know, in our part of the world in the mid Atlantic, we've got probably storms or showers in the forecast for the next week to 10 days. So I would imagine you're looking forward to the cloud cover on the flats for some dry fly fishing too, right?

Ellis Ward00:07:31

Yeah, it's been. I was, I was burning it before I had left for Florida, so it doesn't feel like I've been gone for that long.And that, that little bit of cloud cover we still. I had one day that was a little. I like to call certain days just, you know, there's no data.You should just have amnesia about it because everything's great and things aren't happening the way that they should. There was one day that just felt like, you know, cloud cover, everything. Streamer fishing was great, but it wasn't very buggy.We ended up getting a downpour later on that evening. And I like to tell myself that the. The bugs knew rain was coming and maybe, maybe their timing was just a little, a little bit off. But.And that's because that prefrontal and those, those cloudy days for the bugs and in high water makes such a big difference. You can see some, some proper blizzards of bugs out there.

Marvin Cash00:08:42

Yeah. Or maybe they just felt sorry for you for putting your camera in the drink.

Ellis Ward00:08:48

Yeah, I'm not sure that anyone, nature included, feel sorry for me for that one. Including me. That if anyone listening to this has not seen that video, check out my Instagram.I put that camera up and had a very conscious thought about how I was setting things up and where my rod was in the net and I was Trying to take a picture of a muskie who is thrashing around in the net.Really did go through some, some cautionary planning in my head and you know, about a minute later just erased all of that as I went for something and knocked that camera into the boat. But I just used that camera to get some good pictures of tarpon so I can confirm that it is okay.

Marvin Cash00:09:46

Well, that's good to hear. You know, we didn't get a question this time, but 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 we use your question, I will send you some articulate fly swag.And as I say, these days, I'll probably throw in a butcher shop sticker or two and enter your drawing for some cool stuff from Ellis. And Ellis, before I let you, you said power naps. Out of the question. So it's probably monster and fast food.Before you mouse all night tonight, you want to let folks know where to find you to talk about fishing.Since I haven't talked to you in a while, why don't you let folks know if you've got any more bucktails rolling around and all that kind of good stuff?

Ellis Ward00:10:20

Yeah, it's the two R's, rain and Reese's. I'm actually not just making that up. I'm looking at a can of rain and a bag of Reese's. It was buy one king size, get another one for a dollar.So no monster in fast food for me. I am healthy. You can find me at Ellis Ward Guides on Instagram.My website is ellisward flies.com and best way to contact me about booking bucktails, et cetera, is 513-543-0019. And I do have a number of bucktail in some new colors. Cheeto, a good chartreuse, lavender. I'm not sure if I call this one cucumber. It's like a.Like a seafoam. Anyways, there's. There's a bunch, including I think some grade twos, some still left@lswardflies.com and. Yeah, until next time.

Marvin Cash00:11:28

Yeah, you kind of scared me there with that seafoam comment. That was kind of frightening.

Ellis Ward00:11:33

I. That's on a. We can go down the rabbit hole of colors.

Marvin Cash00:11:36

No, we're not going to do that. And I was just, you know, it's kind of funny you didn't say anything about Zen. I hope they're organic, right?

Ellis Ward00:11:42

Yeah, I just assume everything is. Otherwise it's going to kill me.

Marvin Cash00:11:47

There you go. Well, listen, folks, as always say this time of year, you owe it to yourself to get out there and catch a few. Tight lines, everybody.Tight lines, Ellis.

Ellis Ward00:11:54

Appreciate it, Marvin.