S8, Ep 37: Big Water, Big Fish: Ellis Ward's Strategies for Streamer Fishing Success

In this East Tennessee Fishing Report on The Articulate Fly, host Marvin Cash checks in with guide Ellis Ward as late May brings welcome rain and rising water levels back to the Watauga tailwater after a dry spring. Ellis covers the Watauga's current generation schedule and how it shapes a full-day float built around streamer fishing, dry fly presentations to rising trout and mousing after dark. He shares his mindset for hunting big brown trout with streamers — framing it explicitly as musky fishing in philosophy if not in tackle — and offers a detailed look at dry fly construction, explaining why CDC patterns fish like emergers and why thinking about how a fly sits on the meniscus matters more than how it looks in the vise.

EPISODE SUMMARY

Guest: Ellis Ward — Guide and Fly Designer, Ellis Ward Guides / EllisWardFlies.com (Johnson City, Tennessee)

In this episode: East Tennessee guide Ellis Ward delivers a late-May fishing report covering the Watauga River's return to productive conditions after a dry spring. Topics include the current Watauga generation schedule and how it structures a full-day float, streamer fishing strategy for big brown trout with a musky-fishing mindset, dry fly and CDC pattern construction for tailwater risers, mousing tactics and moon-phase planning and the transition back into musky fishing on area rivers.

Key fishing techniques covered:

• Streamer fishing for big brown trout with a musky-mindset approach — managing expectations, covering water systematically and fishing with team discipline throughout a full float
• Dry fly presentations to tailwater risers, with emphasis on reading which part of the fly is actually in the film versus on the surface
• CDC dry fly and emerger construction — understanding touch points, meniscus behavior and the practical overlap between dry flies and emergers
• Mousing after dark, including moon-phase selection for increasing the odds of encountering a special fish
• Float-day structure on the Watauga: streamer fishing timed around generation schedule, opportunistically fishing dry flies and mousing falling water at dark

Location focus: Watauga River (East Tennessee tailwater); South Holston River referenced as a secondary option

Target species: Brown trout (primary); striped bass, hybrid striped bass (recent catches mentioned); musky (returning focus as conditions improve)

Equipment discussed: Seven-weight rods for big-brown streamer fishing; CDC patterns; hackle-based dry flies; mouse flies; bucktail (available at elliswardflies.com); fly line selection discussed generally

Key questions answered:

• How does the Watauga generation schedule affect float-day planning in late spring and summer?
• How does a musky-fishing mindset improve results when streamer fishing for big brown trout?
• What makes CDC dry fly patterns fish differently from hackle-based patterns, and why does the distinction between dry fly and emerger often disappear in practice?

Best for: Intermediate to advanced anglers interested in East Tennessee tailwater fishing, streamer tactics for trophy browns, dry fly and CDC pattern philosophy and mousing strategy

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

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 the man himself, Ellis Ward. Ellis, how are you?

Ellis Ward00:00:13

I am looking at cloudy skies and doing so with the knowledge of more clouds and rain in the future. So I'm good. How are you?

Marvin Cash00:00:23

I'm getting there. You got to be super stoked, right? Because that means, you know, streamer chasey fish and good hatches, right?

Ellis Ward00:00:31

Yeah, both of those things. And it's coming at a time when the Watauga is for six days a week releasing. They're.They're generating for five hours starting early afternoon, which gives us that. It's a, it's a full day float and it also starts to open up the. We've. We float for a few hours, three, four, five hours.Then a lot of, A lot of streamer fishing. But just the, the dry fly fishing is, is great to do that and then let water fall out and as it's getting dark and go out and mouse. So things are.It's. It's been. It's been a very dry spring and that has been the case everywhere.I'm not going to repeat the same story everyone has shared, but things are feeling back to normal and, and even throughout low water and, and some tough conditions we've had, we've had a lot of good days.And you know, part, part of that is the clients that have found me and, and the guys that have been fishing with me for a while coming in and putting in the work, but I continue to put it in the work and, and we all just do the right thing and Tom and the payoff ends up coming. So we've, we've had a good number of browns closing in that, that 24 inch mark.And this is, this is even after post spawn where you had a few over two feet and got a nice hybrid in the boat.Got a 34, 35 inch striper in the boat a couple weeks ago and a bunch, a bunch more fish moved that and ate that, you know, tail as old as time, but a little bit more of a strip set. We'd be talking about numbers instead of.Could have been but, but it's just been like all, all of that is to say I'm so excited for, for good conditions for big water, for big off color water, you know, making what we've made happen.You can just look on my Instagram page and I, I can say this without feeling like I have a sense of entitlement or ego about it because I know how hard it is to do it because we're the ones going out doing it. We're, we're. We're making those fish happen in really, really tough conditions.And so what we have in front of us for the rest of the summer, especially now that it's rained and we have more rain in the future, it just feels like I can take a deep breath. We, we can go float big water.We can, we can have those days that a couple years ago I said were hard work, but I didn't know what I was talking about. That's just hard work because a lot of times we're, we're not getting that instant gratification that we all want, but we're still in good water.So already had a good night of mousing and one night that ended up getting down to 41 degrees just two weeks ago.But we're kind of over the hump of weather and both with water and temperatures getting into a very happy and somewhat stable place here for the next few months.

Marvin Cash00:04:32

Yeah, it's interesting too, because you got to really kind of pick your lane, right?So, you know, that focus of, you know, hunting fish versus, you know, going out and banging fish on an indicator, you know, it's just a completely different level. It's kind of like. It's really almost to me like muskie fishing, right. When we go out and do it, right?Because, you know, it's not like every cast is like bang, right? And then of course, just like muskie fishing. The instant you take your eye off the ball, you. You get it.You get one and you either miss it or you trout set or something bad happens. Right?

Ellis Ward00:05:03

Yeah, it's.It's one of the best tricks in the book to have me say something that has you turning around and looking at me because that's, that's when a fish is going to eat. And it is, it is more like musky fishing with the. You get differences on both ends. One is you get more feedback.Largely speaking post spawn is kind of a different game, but, but that's where you don't get as much feedback.But the feedback you do get is somewhat jaw dropping and you know, could be from a 26 or a 27 when you haven't seen any other fish in four or five hours versus as we come into the summer. And for anyone listening, this is. There's some, there's some pre spawn stuff that occurs in October, but these tailwaters are, they are not out west.So October has been busy for the last couple years. I'm very grateful for that. Have good days in October. Bug fishing can be tough. And you know, I, I love dry fly fishing.So does everyone on my boat who likes streamer fishing. It's just targeting rising trout and, and figuring that out is a lot of fun.You also have a shot at big fish and the earlier you're doing that game, the better.But I guess the reason I, I say that there's a distinction and a big difference between the two places is that this, this trout lore, especially fly fishing and streamer fishing in particular with you know, the, the pre spawn bite and all that, sure you see some of that, but man, we, even in those pre spawn windows you need the conditions, you need the big water, you need the cloud cover, you need this, you need that. When you get those things you get exclamation points because of the time of year right now it's, we haven't had any of that.These fish haven't been targeted. And, and so to a certain extent it is like muskie fishing.But for the next month or two when we're seeing a 26 or 27, largely speaking, that's going to be on a day where we're probably seeing 20 other fish. And so that's actually that number could be upwards of 30 or 40.It's probably 20 in the boat on, on a streamer and that means you're missing probably, you know, 10, 15, 20. And so the distinction between that post spawn is that you have the opportunity to see a big fish in postpone January, February, always.And it doesn't matter if you haven't seen anything and has nothing to do with the bite. And so muskie fishing sort of, you know, that, that taught me a little bit, had me looking at browns a little differently.Definitely had me treating the big ones more like muskie. And at, at this point we're figurating them the boat and you know, not, not necessarily fishing with musky flies.We're, we're doing these with smaller trout flies and, and seven weights but just fishing with that mentality.And you know, so much of this just comes down to, to everyone on the boat working as a team and me going out there with the knowledge that I have saying here's the spots we're focusing on, here's the water that's I want you fishing.But you know, we're just, we're trying to cover water and, and check our boxes and, and once we get in here it's, we want to form good habits the whole day because good habits don't form when there's a giant fish swimming behind your fly.But there's sometimes where we need that fly three inches from the bank and other times where they're going to come out and you can be a little lazy and they're going to eat hard and you'll get one in the boat.But yeah, I do like to approach everything through the lens of something that looks a little closer to muskie fishing, which is probably simplified, insane.Manage your expectations and, and have some patience and, and you get payoff that you'll just, you'll never get when you go out and, and hope for something to happen or, or try to look for numbers. It's just, you won't watch a giant brown trout swim up behind a fly four inches under the surface of the water.Pause for a second, go to the other side, pause for a second, and then once you take the fly once more, blow it into the surface toward you as though you're not even there. I mean it just throws, throws out the window anyway. Any idea of what a trout is or, or how they eat.For anyone who hasn't seen it and if, if you can't tell that your, your leading bait question of doing, doing it this way versus banging numbers with an indicator, you succeeded because this is, it is just, it's so much fun and, and we're, you know, we're, we're right in it. We're here and we have it for, for the foreseeable future.

Marvin Cash00:10:54

Yeah. I didn't want to bait you with a lavender Oros question at all.

Ellis Ward00:10:57

I, I do prefer the periwinkle just so when it's in the sky, there's like, it matches up with the, the color of the sky, you know.

Marvin Cash00:11:10

Well, but I would say too, you know, from the focus thing, like being the angler, you know, I enjoy dry fly fishing, but the nice thing about it is it gives you a break so you can kind of recollect your concentration. Right. It's a different game. And so the good news is, you know, if you're fishing to risers, you're getting that visual feedback.So it's just a, it's kind of a nice change up, you know, because mercifully, you know, trout streamers aren't nearly as big as musky flies. So it's not like you're wearing your arm out, but, but it is a nice change up throughout the day.

Ellis Ward00:11:42

Yeah. And, and there's you, you get what's something that we're, we're all craving in life. You you actually get a little bit of feedback live.And so you say, okay, that one was on me. My presentation sucked.Depending on how you learn and what our relationship looks like, I'll let you know that's the case either in more direct or less direct ways. But sometimes it's a presentation. That's probably a lot of the times if we're in the right size range. But then.And this goes to all the tires out there. I love Ty and drive lives because I look at them like, like micro top water. It's, it's less about what does this thing look like in the vice.And you got to think about how hackles sit on the water because outside of foam, you don't have flies that are buoyant. You have flies that hold on to the meniscus of the water because of whatever it is. Chicken hackle. I have a pile of CDC in front. I love cdc.I think the way that it sits on the water is very buggy. It's got all of these tiny little touch points versus the hackles are, you know, I would say they're a louder touch point.There's only, let's say 10 or 15 of those little touch points holding up an atoms versus a big CDC merger or a, you know, it might just be one feather, but there's, there's hundreds or maybe thousands of these like tiny, tiny little things holding it up. So you, you know, some of them are sitting all the way in the water, others are had people saying, well, maybe they're eating the mergers.And I want to say, brother, we're fishing in a merger right now. It just looks like a dry fly.So how, how you construct your fly and which parts of it are under the water and what happens when you move it and skate it and what, you know, how you're casting it. Can you put a dropper off of it?That, that dry fly game is just, is so much fun for me because it's the, it's kind of a, a microcosm of the streamer fishing. Except we, we actually get. Okay, they're eating right now. They want to eat this thing. They just ate it.And my hook set sucked and I just broke it off. Work on that. Okay, we have another opportunity. Let's do that good hook set. Got it in the boat.And you know, of course we want to do that when there's a, a 22 inch brown eating one of these things, but man, all those fish are, are fun to catch.

Marvin Cash00:14:36

Yeah, absolutely. You know, remember folks, we love questions on the articulate Fly.You can email me or DM me on Instagram and if we use your question, I will send you some articulate fly and butcher shop swag.And when you're in a drawing for some cool stuff from Ellis at the end of the season and Ellis before I let you get back to tying flies before you hit the water for the rest of the week, you want to let folks know kind of the program and availability and how to reach out and all that kind of good stuff.

Ellis Ward00:15:00

Yeah, I am. I have a good amount of availability after this. It is the last week of May, so June, July are, are two of my favorite months for different reasons.Once we start getting into August, September, I'll be a little chirpier about fish and mice, but we can, you know, one, one great opportunity we have this time of year is to, to go fish streamers and, and dry flies for a few hours, then mouse for a few hours. I, I like that program. Another, another one that's just.I mean it's so much fun to just go out and float for seven or eight hours straight and throw streamers the whole time. Stop for risers whenever we can. But it's pretty cool to be able to do all of that stuff in one day.If you throw a little bit of mousing in at the end too. It's. It's wild. You know, the longer we do that and the more it turns into.Let's go do that for four or five hours and we're picking the right moons and all Think opportunity at, at seeing a special fish is, is also there, but very similar to streamer fishing. There's, there's a little bit of grind to it. Then when you get to eat, it's a, it's a different hook set. So you gotta.So much of this stuff is, is so different that I, I love being there to take everyone out and, and teach them and show them the different side of, of these tail waters and really of trout fishing. So that's all there for trout. Muskie are man between spawning in the low water. I just, I haven't been doing any of that for the last couple months.So with a little rain here in the system, we're going to be getting back into that program here in the next couple weeks. And I will have bucktail. There's some available at elliswardflies.com but I'll keep that sort of chugging along. I think that's it.You can find me on Instagram @EllisWardGuides and if you want to book a trip or or talk about why I like to tie mouse flies or dry flies or, you know, this fly line or that fly line. My phone is the best way to reach me. It's 513-543-0019.

Marvin Cash00:17:35

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

Ellis Ward00:17:42

Appreciate it, Marv.