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. Ellis, how you doing?
Ellis:
[0:13] I'm doing well, Marv. How are you?
Marvin:
[0:14] As always, I'm just trying to stay out of trouble and were you exploring late tonight or did you have clients out late tonight?
Ellis:
[0:22] No, I was doing some exploring, poking around some different likely spots.
For musky in some lesser fished and lesser trafficked for a reason sections of the river.
So, it's always sporty getting out of boat ramps that are, you know, putting in and taking out of boat ramps that are made for kayaks when the water's, you know, 10 feet down from And already sort of, I'm not sure what this was built for type level of boat ramp.
So we, I got it out and we're on the road after a hiccup or two, but.
Uh, not the first time it won't be the last.
Marvin:
[1:15] Yeah, well, there you go. And so, you know, it's kind of funny.
It's like, you know, pumpkin spice latte show up and everybody loses their mind and they start thinking about musky fishing, right?
Ellis:
[1:24] Oh, yeah. But I think that it really did feel like, at least around here, we had the week before...
So September 23rd was opening day of archery season.
[1:45] And the week before, and so my ears kind of start perking up and start paying attention what deer are doing, and not because I hunt, I'm going to go collect their dead tails.
But yeah, it was cold. It was low 50s at night, and I mean, really, I mean, that's, yeah, just it's frost, and then 70s, low 70s during the day, high 60s with a little bit of cloud cover.
So it really did feel like.
That you know autumn I don't know if it's solstice whatever first day of fall and coinciding with um a couple days of Cold weather I can't believe I haven't seen more streamer season posts, but definitely be on the lookout for Gripping grins of last year's muskies and um Um, time, time to huck the big meat posts, uh, cause, cause we did get.
It's it's pumpkin spice latte season.
Marvin:
[2:58] There you go. And, you know, like we were saying before we started recording, it's that interesting time of year too, where, you know, we're in that kind of shoulder season and things are weird, right? So it's low and clear, not a lot of biomass makes for kind of funky fishing conditions.
Ellis:
[3:15] Yeah, it's been, there's been a couple really hard days of fishing where, you know, sometimes it makes sense.
Big sun, clear skies, clear water. To a certain degree, lots of pressure, but I tend to find ways to, you know, fishing off-peak, all that stuff that just, a lot of these fish we're fishing to aren't really fish to by the majority of the gyne population.
But yeah, you take away, I mean, you pop up rocks in the middle Watauga, for example, and those things in April, they have daisy chains, And it's four or five segments of caddis off of the rock.
So the whole rock is covered, and then there's four or five deep of all the width of the rock just caddis.
And that's one rock, and it's a whole field. And then there's, you know, nymphs of all sizes, including some, you know, 14, 12, um, sulfur slash PMDs.
[4:41] And yeah, there's, there's just, it's just full of life. And you, we're kind of seeing, we're seeing like the teenage or I don't know, juvenile and they still pop out here and there and you still see the cattle seeds, but you know in these same fields where you're seeing that life, that just amount of food really, you fast forward three or four months and it's not there anymore. So...
[5:15] I'm pretty good at making stuff up after doing this for four years now, but this one definitely still feels like Um I, I'm definitely putting pieces together and I don't necessarily know if there's science behind it But you you take away all that food and and it becomes You know the ability for that bite that bite window turning on it is just really fickle That's the only reason that's, you know, the major difference that I see why that would be happening.
And then you add on some other changes that are occurring on the tailwaters.
And this is why I love these rivers and a lot of similarities to what I fished back in D.C. on the Potomac with it being tidal.
Starting two weeks ago, about 10 days ago, the lake below South Olsen and Watauga Rivers started dropping and they draw it down.
It influences not just the mouth of the river and where it ends, so now we have more river, The whole river itself feels that pull.
And the 240 CFS of yesterday just looks and feels different, lanes are different.
[6:42] So, there's some adjustments. One of the things that I like to do, especially after a whole summer of.
Doing a lot of fishing and a lot of the afternoon Streamer fishing, you know on the wetaga generating one to six is now that we're starting to get Nightfall earlier and earlier, uh shifting Shifting trips a little bit so that we can catch, you know, three or four hours of being under the, the stars and mousing, um, and it's just, you know, it's a good way to change things up.
And if the bite is tough, um, it's kind of, that can still translate to mice, but, but most of the time it's, you get a, a fresh hand dealt to you and, um, yeah, getting out early.
I've been doing some split days, you know, we'll go off from six to 10 and then go off from six to 10.
[7:53] So lots of ways to work around a tough 12 to 5 bite, which that's kind of always the worst time anyhow.
So looking forward to a little more stabilizing as the river acclimates to the lake dropping and we get the fall bugs.
Marvin:
[8:15] Yeah, it leaves a little room for day drinking too.
Ellis:
[8:19] Yeah, I mean, if you want to go out to a bar at 12, that's why we wear safety goggles while we're mousing.
Marvin:
[8:31] Catch the early shift at Fuzzy's.
Ellis:
[8:32] Uh-huh.
Marvin:
[8:35] So, you know, back on the pumpkin spice latte theme, got a muskie question for you from one of our regulars, Brenner. And he just wanted to kind of get your thoughts. And this is another one people have been asking these great like matrix questions for you the last couple of times.
This is another one. It's like, you know, preferred musky rod line and leader setup.
Ellis:
[8:59] Uh, yeah, so, man.
I think something to I guess focus on and be aware of is that some of the lines This is like a I don't know cautionary tale for when you're getting 11 and 12 weight lines some of the lines Have I think the airflow?
Um big game depth finder has as a 50-pound core, and I feel like that's the highest test.
[9:43] I don't lose musky flies. I mean, in almost all of the water that we're fishing, we're not fishing like we're fishing for trout.
It's a much slower process, and you can tee up your shots.
Said you are fishing big flies and so some of that leader, you know, rod line leader configuration, you can start to feel that it's not right if you, for example, go from an 11 weight.
I like the, I'm going to start with the line first because you need mass to Deliver not all flies all flies don't have the same massive amount of air resistance I like to You know same with sevens and eight weights.
I like to have a setup that feels Comfortable and okay tossing single bufords.
I also want to have the ability to use that We'll say rod To throw some giant stuff and maybe that's having a a separate school, but getting a line where you can do both and have it feel comfortable, again, for an all day.
[11:12] Casting, I think is really important. So the line that I've found that I like the most, and I've done, gosh, I can't even, you know, the 300 up through 700 grain airflow, Depthfinder, the big game series, it's fantastic at sinking your flies.
That, I mean, it gets it's down.
It feels like you're casting a giant fly, and it feels like you're casting a really poorly tied, waterlogged double buford when you don't have any fly on it.
And I think they even advertise it as saltwater, so that's a really limited option.
I don't even cast it or keep it on the boat anymore. But, but that series within the, I think four to 500 grain is, is a good line and it's, um, it's durable.
[12:17] The Scientific Anglers, um, 11 weight, I think it's advertised as the 11 weight. 450 grain.
It's called the custom sync tip, which really just means customizable. So...
[12:36] I mean this could be you know, any lines customizable if you cut the end off, but they They put in um, I think it's either intermediate including the floating there's a chunk of line that is not sinking at the end of a intermediate two inches per second three inches per second sync rate and I know i'm throwing a lot of information out there, but um Using that 450 grains, if you're going 450 grains at seven inches per second, that pulls, you got to be moving your fly.
If you're fishing a single buford, if you're fishing some of the smaller flies, which a lot of folks do if they're out fishing all day, you got to be moving that thing, and it's kind of tough to get the hover just because that 450 grains at that sink rate is really pulling some of the musky flies that are seven, eight inches long, they're just not really that massive.
[13:53] So I'm going to stop there and say that the scientific anglers, 10, 11-ish, some of the 12 weights when you start to get up to 500 is just, yes I see implications for that.
Are you going to be comfortable casting that all day?
Well you need a 12 weight. Are you going to be comfortable casting that all day and the next day?
I kind of like that 11 weight as the middle ground.
For the rods, I have a TFO Axiom 2X that, you know, after, getting, Let's see the ESOC series and then I have Blaine's rod and the eight weight that axiom 2x is It still has some fly rod feeling and so does so does Blaine's rod It does it's not fully a broomstick like some of the other musky rods um, so those would be for the uh, 10 And 11 and and even on the 10s i'll go.
[15:04] Um the mangrove just because you don't have to worry about being too heavy duty when you're going 10 weight.
When you're starting to get up to the bigger rods and the 12 weights, one that kind of surprised me, I got a Wolf Rodco double haul a couple of years ago, and same deal where you can feel it load and it can handle well above 500 grains, but you can throw a 400 grain line and smaller flies and it doesn't feel like you're carting around a street lamp all day.
And then real quick, I know we're, this is more of a rabbit hole than I thought it was.
I'm going to just run through the concept or the general makeup of a liter.
[16:08] Feet of at least 40 pound.
Floral or mono. I'm gonna be okay with either and then at least the length in a little more of The face of a muskie to its stomach so they'll they'll inhale, you know, they're they'll t-bone they'll also come up and swallow the thing and and you want to make sure that...
I like the Scientific Anglers Knottable 7x7.
They sell it in spools that look just like Tippett, and it really...
Of the Knottable stainless steel leaders that I've tried, and I've tried all the, you know, American Fish & Lino, All that stuff, I think the scientific anglers might be a little more expensive or maybe comparable to some of the better brands that you get in fishing stores, but it is, they sell it in 25 and 40, and it truly is knottable, and unless you're doing a clinch knot, it doesn't crease on itself.
And I like throwing a little dab of super glue on there just because it's not nylon coated. So...
[17:37] Can we stop there? Yeah, dude, I would literally just pop the safety off the train gun Okay, I was gonna say I don't know i'm in I'm in the middle of nowhere, but I did start hearing a helicopter flying around Yeah, we were coming for you.
Marvin:
[17:50] You took the red pill and the green pill So Well, I I hope that's helpful.
Ellis:
[17:57] There's a lot there. So if there is You know follow-up questions.
Um Um, you know, ping, ping me and I'll either try to answer or, or point you in the right direction.
Marvin:
[18:09] Yeah, well, there you go. And you know, folks, we love questions at the articulate fly.
You can email them to us. You can DM us on social media, whatever's easiest for you.
And if we use your question, I will send you some articulate, uh, fly swag.
I'll even send you some tranquilizer casings I've had to use on Ellis in the past, um, and we'll enter you in a drawing for, uh, two days of fishing with Ellis and one night at the Ritaga river lodge and Ellis, before I let you get back on the road, uh, and, uh, make it home and, uh, get to bed and get ready for tomorrow, you want to let folks know where they can find you so they can book in fish with you.
Ellis:
[18:41] Yeah, I think you should probably give whoever is going to come fish with me, some, some tranquilizers, just cause I, I can get to talking on the boat too.
Uh, you can, you can find me on Instagram at Ellis ward guides.
Website is elliswardfishing.com and the best way to ask questions about line leader, etc.
Book a trip, pick my brain about whatever flies fishing this area is my cell phone at 513-543-0019.
Well, there you go.
Marvin:
[19:22] Well, listen, folks, fall is my favorite time of the year to get out on the water. water, yell at yourself to get out there and catch a few.
Tight lines, everybody. Tight lines, Ellis. Appreciate it, Marv.