S7, Ep 68: East Tennessee Adventures: Navigating Summer Flows with Ellis Ward

EPISODE SUMMARY

Guest: Ellis Ward - Fishing Guide at Ellis Ward Guides (East Tennessee)

In this episode: Tennessee guide Ellis Ward shares summer fishing strategies and dam release timing tactics for East Tennessee tailwaters. Topics include mousing techniques during recreational releases, streamer fishing windows and navigating afternoon thunderstorms on freestone rivers.

Key fishing techniques covered:

• Mousing during high water periods
• Streamer fishing in afternoon windows
• Dry fly fishing with sulphur and PMD hatches
• Musky fishing preparation for fall
• Low, clear water mousing strategies

Location focus: East Tennessee, South Holston River, Watauga River, freestone rivers

Target species: Trout, muskies

Equipment discussed: Mouse patterns, streamers, sulphur flies, PMD patterns

Key questions answered:

• How to time mousing trips with dam releases
• When to fish high vs low water on tailwaters
• How to adapt to summer afternoon storms

Best for: Intermediate to advanced anglers interested in East Tennessee tailwater strategies, mousing techniques and seasonal timing tactics

Marvin Cash00:00:03

Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of the Articulate Fly. We're back with another East Tennessee fishing report with a man himself, Ellis Ward.

Ellis Ward00:00:10

Ellis, how are you feeling? Like the man himself. Marv, how are you?

Marvin Cash00:00:15

I'm just trying to stay cool. How are things in East Tennessee?

Ellis Ward00:00:21

Busy, apparently. They are hot and I support your efforts staying cool. It's been toasty with slightly less of the. Those cloudburst heavens opening up thunderstorms.Just slightly less though it's been.You normally don't hear me talking about this as though it's a bad thing, but we've just, we've been having the same sort of circuit of these late afternoon big storms that anyone fishing freestone rivers knows this dilemma.Someone had sent me a, a decent reel year or two ago where it's like summer fishing and there's, you know, pebbles with a little bit of water trickling and then the next picture is a raging muddy river and then the next picture is pebbles with some water trickling over it. So now we, we've been able to shout out Ryan, we, we had a, a long day and just dude who came here and fished it a couple years ago and having.Haven't been able to fish with them since then and he just, he got out here actually from Charlotte for a quick, a quick in and out, quick turnaround which when you're streamer fishing in the afternoon, then mousing till three o' clock in the morning from Charlotte, it's, it's, it's worth. Nice work, man. So we made it happen. We've, we. It's. We've had another handful of good days.Some first streamer fish, bunch of first mouse eaters and yeah, kind of, kind of coming up on what feels like the tail end of that summer stability.So not that anything I talk about feels remotely stable, but the, you know, the sulfurs, the PMDs, the consistency of the watage releasing the South Holston's been generating a lot recently on, you know, windows where you can be out there in low water and, and ride that high water out in the afternoon or just starting high water if you're starting later and lots of dry fly activity up top, you know, sort of condition dependent on, on how friendly they are. But yeah, it's been real buggy and lots of risers on, on both rivers. I, I want to say consistently because it's, it's been frequent.But yeah, these, these afternoon, afternoon storms have just, they've thrown a little bit of a wrench in that consistency. But otherwise man, all the, all the pieces are there and I'm just, I, I continue to look forward to. I have a, a full week and August is looking good.More mousing and streamer trips and then we're right into muskies.

Marvin Cash00:04:05

Yeah, absolutely. And so you've got what you've got about another month of those rec releases on the Watauga, right?

Ellis Ward00:04:11

Yeah.And it is something that I was joking before we started recording that I just want things the way that I want them when I want them and then when I don't want them that way anymore. It would be nice if they weren't that way anymore. Low water mousing with, with clear waters is really the ideal state.And one of the good things about this 1 to 6pm for the last 3 ish years it's just been a lot of low water outside of the summer season. And so the one to six, you know, six days a week is sort of this. Oh, finally we get some reliability on that. Like it's been raining a lot.They've been doing, you know, 1 to 8 South Olson's been running 11 to 7. Like we, we've had good water and good windows both low and high.So one of the pros to later August, September, October is that it's still plenty warm to be out until the wee hours and we typically get lower flows. So there are a lot of opportunities for mousing that they've come through all that.

Marvin Cash00:05:47

Yeah.So I guess if you've been, if they've been running one to eight, you actually kind of have to, you know, one, it's light later, but you're also kind of effectively have to start two hours later to get the water you want, right?

Ellis Ward00:05:58

Yeah. So if they're running 1 to 8 and, and we're planning to mouse that trip sort of looks like a 4ish to midnightish.Oftentimes for whatever reason that still feels short just because ending when like, you know, mousing's just same as streamer fishing, same as same as all fishing. You're just working with bite windows. And so I always feel like I want to, I want to leave everything on the field, which would just be impossible.No one would ever sleep. But we do end up fishing. You know that, that 8pm Low doesn't get down Middle river till, you know, 11:30, 12.And starting a, a game of hard work and patience at midnight after fishing, you know, more or less for the last five, six hours, some of it's real hot. It just, it turns into a really long day that's that's a little disjointed. So I, I tend to get creative and just talk with my anglers.We'll, you know, we'll do a shorter run, then drive back up and, and make sure that we're hitting, hitting low stuff just up a little further. But yeah, every, every day has been different. I mean, part of the reason why I think I love what I do.

Marvin Cash00:07:36

Well, there you go. 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 we use your question, I will send you some articulate fly swag, which these days also includes some butcher shop stickers 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 to get on the guide calendar.If you've got any bucktail updates, anything like that you want to share with folks once you get that out there too.

Ellis Ward00:08:04

Yeah, elliswardflies.com is where you can find bucktail and best way to reach me. Ask about trips. Book your mousing trip. Book your fall muskie trip. My cell phone at 513-543-0019. I'm on Instagram at Ellis War Guides.I think that is all.

Marvin Cash00:08:35

Well, there you go. Well folks as always say this time of year, stay cool but you also it to yourself to get out there and catch a few tight lines everybody. Tight lines.Ellis.

Ellis Ward00:08:44

Appreciate it, Marv.