Transcript: East Tennessee Fishing Report with Ellis Ward
Transcript
Marvin:
[0:04] Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of the Articulate Fly, and we're back with another East Tennessee fishing report with Ellis Ward. How you doing, Ellis?
Ellis:
[0:12] I am doing well. How are you, Marsh?
Marvin:
[0:15] As always, just trying to stay out of trouble, and it looks like, I took a quick look at the weather, looks like the heat is breaking your neck of the woods. What are you seeing on the water? Yeah.
Ellis:
[0:26] Yeah, we're still seeing a mixed bag in terms of flows and bugs, but the South Holston has started to provide a little more, the South Holston Dam that is, provide a little more water in the evening hours.
I think last time we talked, they were just doing some of these four-hour pulses, three and four hours, kind of four at a maximum.
So they're doing some six, seven, eight-hour releases, and it's not every day, but if you are local and you're looking at the TVA app, it's often enough to where it makes sense to check that out.
And if you haven't fished that river, and I think a lot of people who have been here in the last year likely haven't had an opportunity to float that river, just because it has not been releasing water and you can't float it in low flows.
[1:28] It's a good time of year and good time of day during the afternoon releases to.
Sort of mark that as a reminder for yourself to do, and if they're going to be releasing in the afternoon, get out and do it just because the pressure's been off for quite some time.
[1:50] And they haven't had a whole lot of water, so when there is generation, it really, it gets things moving.
And going from low to high, everything, the bugs, the fish, it takes a a little bit of time to get everything happy again.
So that dry fly shelf in low water looks very different in high water, and it's not in the same place.
So putting in and just recognizing that over the course of the first hour or two, the entire ecosystem has to change because you're going from 10 cubic feet per second to over 2,000 cubic feet per second.
And it's opening up a lot of different places for big fish to hide.
[3:02] And predatorize when fun puzzle that you can see risers and you can see the payoff pretty quickly.
[3:12] And really it's a refreshing difference compared to six, seven, eight, nine months really of low water since early fall.
And then on the Watauga side, we've been seeing a bunch of the same, one to five over the summer.
I'd say this last time, but for anyone listening that didn't hear the last episode, over the summer, the Watauga generates, releases water from...
1 to 5 p.m. every weekday, and then from 12 to 6 on Saturdays, could be 12 to 5.
But that flow goes from 240 CFS, which is floatable from top to bottom, from dam to lake on the Watauga, there's some sections in the middle that you need to have experience on to row through.
But the difference from there is 240 cubic feet per second to 1,700 cubic feet per second.
So it's still a big difference, but it's less of a full change from you can't even float this section to it's ripping water and you wouldn't even know that it was impassable and low water, which is what the South Holson exhibits.
So on the Watauga, the caddish show up, and these are not the big ones from the beginning of the season.
[4:40] Like tan 18s and 20s, and fishing that hatch in the same way that you would fish bigger caddis hatches, which in my experience, you should put a lot of focus on the pupa stage of your caddis and fishing those with a lot of movement.
And now at the same time, the sunnier days and the warmer days with some clearer water, So the Watauga has a lot of influence from tributaries and little free zones and ag creeks.
On the clearer water days with nice temperatures, good dry fly days, we'll call it, you're more We're continuing to get the buffet of...
[5:27] Blue wings in the 18 to 20, sulfurs, PNDs in the 16 to 20, and caddis in the 16 to 20.
I typically gravitate more toward the 18 to 20, but then at the same time, fishing something big as your big dry and then fishing a second smaller dry fly behind it is an awesome option.
And you'll get eats on, especially this time of year, hoppers and beetles.
So, the terrestrial game is picking up and beetles start looking around the banks and looking up in the trees.
After you're hearing what sounds like someone dropping a golf ball into the water, you can put together that there's more beetles showing themselves and becoming food.
So, per usual, going on and lots of thoughts for me, but it's a different little mini season within the arc of the summer season.
Marvin:
[6:33] Yeah, it's interesting too, because I mean, I would say a sunken beetle is kind of my secret weapon on the South Holston in the summertime.
Ellis:
[6:41] That's dirty.
Marvin:
[6:43] It's not squirmy dirty though.
Ellis:
[6:44] I like it. Yeah, yeah, it's not a squirmy worm, but no, that's a fishy maneuver, man.
Marvin:
[6:52] The particularly I like there's a there's a June bug that's about the size of your thumb with like that iridescent Shell that they like to smack the snot out of and you know for folks that don't know what's really happening on the South Holston is You know in addition to what they normally do to kind of manage water.
They're managing peak power generation so the reason you're getting these more predictable flows as it gets hotter is people like air conditioning in the south and And this is how the TVA basically meets that electricity need by generating probably those flows probably start what about 11 or 12 and then run from there.
Ellis:
[7:27] Yeah, if they if they can, and you know, they start a little later in the day when they're not able to push out eight hours, but yeah, it's it's cheaper to deliver energy.
The energy costs less when you're getting it fresh versus needing to store it.
So, yeah, spot on with the with the energy dependency and the hydroelectricity output of those dams.
Marvin:
[7:52] Yeah, which then gets us to our question because we've been talking about dialing in the sulfur hatch and Bruce wanted to know if it was true.
So this is a myth or not a myth question for you.
Is it true that after July that the sulfurs really only hatch on the South Holston and then kind of the first five miles below the dam?
Ellis:
[8:14] Yep, that is unequivocally true. No, that's not my answer.
I would say that that this is not gonna be an answer that that question I think wants to hear, but it's important context.
I would say that after July and generally as a rule, This is based on my own fishing, not guiding, for years.
The sections below the top five miles of that river are not fished very much.
So it's pretty easy to go from that fact to the rumor, the myth, the belief that there are only predictable hatches on the first five miles because those are the only places of that river that are fished.
[9:17] So are the bugs as frequent? It's a tailwater.
The oxygen content and the plant life and the fish per mile, all of those things are super happy and predictable and in big numbers up towards the dam.
And they become less predictable and a little more volatile as you get down towards the lake.
But it's still a trout stream and in the summers, that water down there, especially during the big releases, is going to be in the 50s, in the low 50s.
And in low water, it could be time to think about not fishing in the afternoons, in that, we'll say, below the first five miles.
[10:12] So it's really, I would say that, is it true or not true, is a very contextual question.
And if you're going out and trying to pattern any river and any hatch, any type of fish, to do so with.
[10:32] A preconceived notion in mind is really limiting your ability to read what's happening because you might be already thinking that and you know it may influence your decision making on what to explore and I mean more of you know this better than anyone it's that that sunken beetle thing like that's not a common it's not a common piece of knowledge does it work all the time I mean, tell me how often a Parachute Adams or a Puff Daddy or any of these other things work.
You need to go up and build your collection of data from which you can then pull the next time you're on the stream.
And if you're not seeing something the first two, three, four times that you go, recognize that there's another 361 days in the year.
And within the sulfur hatch and within the summer, maybe you're looking at 180 days where you got the little yellow sailboats out there, but even going out and not seeing anything over the course of three or four days does not mean that there aren't insane evenings just like you would see on the upper.
Marvin:
[11:44] Yeah. I mean, I think, yeah, go ahead.
Ellis:
[11:50] I was just trying to close that off before I go down in another couple of rabbit holes for 30 minutes, but yeah, there's so many different variables that lead to a fishable hatch.
And the most important thing, I think, to take away from this answer to that question is that there aren't rules.
There are these rivers, the fish, the life.
It changes. And even though it seems somewhat insulated, even though these tailwaters seem somewhat insulated, they really aren't.
And they are wild rivers and they evolve throughout seasons and they evolve over the years.
So the best way really to answer any question like that is devoting as much time you can possibly to being on the water or listening to a conversation like this between me and you and talking with other people in the area and recognizing that everyone has their own experiences and then pulling that all together for yourself.
Marvin:
[13:00] Yeah. And I guess the only thing I would say is, you know, think about it in a lot of ways to think about it, whether it's sulfurs or caddis or whatever is, you know, understanding what the bug wants in terms of water temperature and photo period, right?
Yes. And that helps a ton, right?
And then the wrinkle is the tailwaters add another layer of complexity, right, in terms of flow and temperature management to think through.
But if you kind of think about those three things, it's going to help you be more deliberate when you go out to try to basically catch, you know, trout on a particular hatch.
Ellis:
[13:35] I could not have said that better.
Marvin:
[13:38] Yeah, it makes me think about fish and salmon flies in Montana where the hatch moves up the river, right?
Super cool. But 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.
We're entering a drawing for two days of fishing with Ellis and a night at the Watauga River Lodge. And Ellis, before I let you go, you want to let folks know where they can find you so they can book you and fish with you and figure out that you can actually catch sulfur six miles downstream of the dam?
Ellis:
[14:08] Ellis Nelson Yeah, we'll just go down to the lower end and sit in a boat until we see bugs. My website is elliswardfishing.com.
The best way to contact me is my cell phone at 513-543-0019, and then you can follow along, see some interactions with Marv in this podcast, see some flies I tie, pretty pictures of big streamers and some of the trout that those catch on Instagram at elliswardguides. guides.
Marvin:
[14:43] Well, there you go. Well, listen, folks, you owe it to yourself to get out there and catch a few.
Tight lines everybody. Tight lines Ellis. Appreciate it Marv.