Transcript: East Tennessee Fishing Report with Ellis Ward
Transcript
Marvin:
[0:04] Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of the Articulate Flower, back with another East Tennessee fishing report with Ellis Ward. How you doing, Ellis?
Ellis:
[0:12] I am a little foggy this morning, but I'm doing well, Marv. How are you?
Marvin:
[0:17] I'm getting there. Not enough coffee?
Ellis:
[0:21] No, just under the weather. I don't know. Daughters in preschool, allergies.
So I'll live.
Marvin:
[0:32] Yeah, kids that age generally tend to be petri dishes. They are.
Ellis:
[0:35] Yeah.
Marvin:
[0:37] So, you know, it's interesting. We were talking before we started recording and, you know, you've got kind of a weather pattern where you don't have any rain, but it's kind of unseasonably cool. And I was kind of curious how that affected, you know, your trout and your striper bite.
Ellis:
[0:52] Yeah. and pardon the voice and sniffles, the evenings are getting into 50s.
We sort of had some up and downs of weeks in the 80s and then as right as I was about no temps below freezing, I think, I don't know, multiple weeks of freezing temps prior, We've been sort of steadily increasing, but we've just had these spikes in both directions and we're now in the cooler section.
I can't say for sure just because our springs for...
This is my fourth spring, kind of have a little bit of this variation, but what I am seeing from the last handful of days is.
[1:54] The bug activity is, the big caddis have been over for a few weeks.
We're seeing all sizes of yellow bugs, sulfurs, PMDs, so from 20s up to some of the really big ones, which don't come out in numbers, but it's not a bad idea to at this point start, looking at some attractor type patterns.
And then the Tancatus in 18 to 20, I'm always a fan of fishing that species of insect as the pupa.
And I think I talked about this last time, if you give it a little action, some strips and fishing something even subsurface and moving it just an inch below the surface, if you're hearing those splashy eats.
And then the betas, blue wings, up to small 16s, but more in the 18 to 20. And then.
[3:20] Midge and betas stuff happening on the surface where you'll see some bugs, but it's mostly you have to get down at the surface of the water, like kneel down in the boat and look across and you can just see a fuzz migrating across the surface of the water of millions and millions of bugs.
So it's pretty much the bugginess is in full swing and it's really any and all species at a given time, you'll get some of those will be the highlights.
So catch all emergers, attractor type patterns, I would consider a big parachute or something like that to be an attractor, and then throw something real small behind it.
I'm a big fan of just fish in an unweighted pheasant tail or RS2, some tail watery type stuff like that.
And As far as Striper.
It is that time of year.
So I think we talked about this last time, one of the best places to see if you can convince one of those to eat is gonna be at mouths of rivers and then below dams.
[4:49] Folks listening to this and just generally people interested in this area are obviously thinking of South Holston and Watauga, those both go into Boone.
And then there's a couple dams below that too.
So there's movement, the lake's warming up. I've seen balls of shad five times the size of my boat well up into the Watauga in the last couple of weeks.
I actually had a guy catch a rainbow that looked pregnant, but just in the wrong place on his body, just stuffed with shad.
So it's a bitey time of years. As for the striper, I was asked, do people target them? Do I target them? And the answer is yes, of course. confidence.
[5:51] When it's muddy, when the water's up and during low light, it's still fishing, but that's going to be the first two, three, four weeks of them being up in the rivers and near those mouths with the shed, not necessarily in their summer patterns yet and moving and getting pushed by 50 degree water reaching them on the releases.
Any of that variation and specifically in this time of year where everyone's still moving around, those are all good times to be out throwing stuff.
I wish there were a simple answer to the best approach.
[6:49] I've caught and boated really nice fish in the river on seven, eight inch changers and a very sparsely Tide Klauser, Triple Drunks, someone, a bigger version of my swim bug.
So it's really, it's finding where they are when they're feeding and in order to do that, it's going to probably require more time out there when they're not feeding to figure out where they are.
Marvin:
[7:26] Yeah. And, you know, Seth was asking kind of the best time of year to fish for him. And I guess really the question, there's probably a couple things like, to your point, you have to find them. But the other thing too is it's also probably how do you want to fish for them, right? Sure.
Ellis:
[7:45] Yeah, I mean, if you, if the question is, what is the, how can I most effectively catch a striper?
I would say lower ends of the rivers and in the mouths at the, in the lake, Now you can, if you have a boat with a jet or a prop, you can chase bait balls and listen for those bait balls getting blown up.
[8:19] But it's going to be fishing, sort of sweeping and searching with big plugs on conventional gear.
That's going to be the most effective.
And then second to that is going down in the reservoirs and finding where that bait is.
Fish finders aren't too expensive these days. If they're not coming up on the surface, you need to find out where they are and look for the bait that is moving and make sure you you can mark some stripey, you can typically see some surface activity too and get your fly there.
Otherwise, it's going to be on fly, it's those low light situations and going out when the water's big because when it's not big and it's clear, you'll roll over them and they won't even move. They've seen you for a while away.
Now is a good time of year just because they're up into the rivers for the first time.
I saw the first one last week and I'd hesitate to say that on a published podcast, but I already saw someone coming up the river that I hadn't seen since last striper season.
By the time this is out, the where it's going to be around wildfire.
[9:49] But they're out there for the first time this year.
And when they are doing that and when there's big water or off light or off color water, they tend to eat more willingly than they do mid-summer, which is really that becomes a very off, very high water bite and a night bite as well.
Marvin:
[10:12] Yeah, I was gonna say too, I mean, as the water gets hotter, they just go deeper and at some point, you know, the return on fishing form on the fly kind of goes down pretty dramatically.
Ellis:
[10:25] Yeah, that becomes a river game. So you know, in the lake it's bait oriented and in the river it's...
They're spooky.
They're not going to feed if the water's clear or if it's low.
And I'd say, oh yeah, you can catch them every now and again.
But that is truly circumstantial and lucky at best if you're going out with the intention or hope of catching one.
It's rough weather and big water in the rivers as it gets later into the summer.
But throughout the lake, there's still good pockets and those mouths of the lake stay nice and cool for the tailwaters coming in.
So plenty of different opportunities and it's a tough puzzle to piece together.
So definitely one that requires putting time in.
Marvin:
[11:33] Yeah. Absolutely. And you know, folks, we love questions at the Articulate Fly. You can email them to us.
You can DM us on social media. If we use your question, I will send you some Articulate Fly swag, and we're going to enter into a drawing for two nights.
Well, sorry, got it backwards.
Two days of fishing with Ellis and one night at Watauga River Lodge.
And Ellis, before I let you go and take your decongestants before you meet your guide client, you want to let folks know where they can find you so they can book you and fish with you?
Ellis:
[12:03] Yeah, my website's elliswardfishing.com.
Instagram is elliswardguides.
And the best way to contact me, reach out, text me about tying, fishing, whatever, book a trip, et cetera, is my cell phone at 513-543-0019.
Marvin:
[12:25] Well, there you go. Well, listen, folks, as we head into the holiday weekend, you owe it to yourself to get out there and catch a few. Tight lines, everybody.
Tight lines, Ellis. Appreciate it, Marv.