Transcript: East Tennessee Fishing Report with Ellis Ward
S5, Ep 136: East Tennessee Fishing Report with Ellis Ward
2023, Marvin S. Cash
The Articulate Fly
http://www.thearticulatefly.com
Transcript
Marvin:
[0:04] Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of the Articulate Fly, and we're back with another East Tennessee Fisher Report with Ellis Ward. How you doing, Ellis?
Ellis:
[0:12] I am doing well, Marv, how are you?
Marvin:
[0:14] As always, just trying to stay out of trouble, and I have to say I laughed on the outside and on the inside when you told me how excited you were for a cloudy day later this week.
Ellis:
[0:24] I've actually texted, I have clients on Thursday and the clouds are rolling in Thursday and it looks like they'll hang for Friday.
And I sent them both a screenshot and said that this makes me feel happy.
So yeah, it's been a lot of blue skies and big sun recently and not really nothing major coming. it's just a front that is actually a front. We've kind of had some, flat barometer abutting a steady rising barometer and it's been dropping already a little bit today.
But yeah, a lot of that combined with the time change and the sun's sort of falling at a different angle, flat light, big sun, yeah it's just been...
It's been a period of time where I'm excited for some fishy days and bugging conditions.
Marvin:
[1:35] Yeah, which I know you've been muskie fishing because I've been watching your Instagram feed, but I guess this is going to push you back on the trout water a little bit, right?
Ellis:
[1:42] Smith Yeah, I'm really splitting things up right now.
And my personal fishing has been, well, I've been very fortunately busy on the guiding front and that's starting to skew, not favoring the muskie, but I'm running muskie trips now, which that was the plan as of a few years ago.
So it's nice to be sticking with a plan every once in a while.
I started doing it last year with my streamer clients who, in talking with me, developed an interest and this year I've had a couple trips already with new to me and new to the area, musky anglers.
So, continuing to have some more trips on the books, but you know, some are mousing, doing that until it's too cold to be comfortable, which is kind of nice because we still have 50, 60, 70 degree days and it's dark at 530.
[3:01] So we're getting a few more of those in, and the standard streamer dry fly trips on the trout water, and then, yeah, trying to...
Trying to get out to the musky water as much as I can personally and then put a little more, attention that way both with my conversations because some folks come to me and say, what do you want to do?
What's the best option?
And my answer will, especially as reds start popping up that that answer is going to change to let's musty fish as opposed to, Hey, this is an option.
Marvin:
[3:48] Uh, so you're not going to center pin the middle of the river.
Ellis:
[3:52] Yeah, I'm going to stay away from center pinning the middle of the river, but, um, you know, to each their own.
Marvin:
[4:00] There you go. Well, I've got an interesting question from, uh, your new buddy fleas and meat.
Uh, he came in with another good one this time around and, uh, wanted to get your thoughts on rowing in low water and you know what are your suggested techniques and is it similar to you know what you do in high water where you try to stay close to the bank?
Ellis:
[4:19] Yeah, he's knocking him out of the park. I think mostly because you know this question we had just talked before we started, I was thinking about it from a fishing perspective.
[4:38] I think you can also look at that question from a rowing perspective, but I'll go ahead and attack it until you put me down with the tranquilizer.
So from a fishing perspective in low water.
[5:00] It becomes less about, and this goes for high water as well, the goal or the, we'll say the targets are areas that have a few things in common.
They are near a reasonable food source.
The structure is there to protect them from, my big thing is herons and ospreys.
And there are some really cool overlaps with what you see at night, mousing and low water, high water, where you're catching bigger fish, where you're catching smaller fish, where you're getting full commitment, just the reckless eats versus where you're getting the super, super fast swipes.
A lot of it can be attributed to or at least correlated to where trout likely are not going to be munched by an incoming bird of prey.
And that same line of thinking goes for at least my approach in low water.
[6:20] Personally, and this comes with time in the water, I tend to go to the hot spots and work them a little more thoroughly.
I think that the fish are going to be more concentrated and there's less of the… One of the Osprey proofings of high water is simply the depth.
They can be lurking and yeah, there's a bunch more structure open.
The playing field or the killing field is bigger. You have so much more water.
So it's more prey moving around. It's also just more places to hide.
And it's harder for an osprey to pick up a trout that is two or three feet under than it is for an osprey to pick up a trout that's not only is it one feet under, but that the bottom of the river is the, that's the other side that the osprey can use to be chasing trout.
[7:30] So first thing you look for is going to be that structure.
You can kind of start to narrow in, where you want to be rowing based on that.
And some of it then has to do with your approach.
And so if you're casting, and again, my experience, not universal truth here, but if you're casting bigger flies, looking for bigger fish...
[7:58] I tend to start fishing a little more downstream and picking those pockets way ahead of time versus just meandering down the river and working a lot of the likely zones.
Again, partially it's because there aren't a lot of likely zones, so you're keeping your head, it's a little bit keeping your head on a swivel.
You can pick apart some of the pocket water and ripply stuff right above big drops, but my approach is more staying near the center and.
[9:07] Water that is adjacent to a bunch of super bony stuff.
They got to be somewhere, and in areas where you know they are, in areas that are very clearly shallow, clear, structure -free, they're not going to be very far away.
So if you have that heavy, fast water, it's worth it to work that, just like it's the bank.
The bank is a good target because we know it's there.
But they're mid -river, they're behind boulders, weed beds, all that stuff.
The bank is just an easy target and something you can rely on as your anchor point.
And I think I'll stop there.
Marvin:
[9:56] There you go. Did I tell you I had to get rechargeable batteries for the Trent gun?
Ellis:
[10:01] I know I actually, I I'm able to talk out technology.
Marvin:
[10:07] So, you know, folks, we love questions on 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 fly swag, or you can enter a drawing for two days of fishing with Ellis and a night at the Watauga River Lodge.
And, you know, Ellis, another thing we, uh, we tease last time we were talking about before we start recording is it's going to be a cornucopia bucktail in your world soon.
Ellis:
[10:33] It smells like it right now. I, I picked up, um, I, I've kind of been picking up bits and pieces.
Um, you know, 20, 30, 40 here and there, but gun season just Just opened in Tennessee, North Carolina, and I'm working with a couple different places, that'll save me the tails and get into me fresh and yeah, looking like a big year.
I got an early, I got a jump on it a little bit earlier than I have in years past.
Marvin:
[11:14] I just know a lot more about the process and about doing it without as much waste and having, for bucktails, maybe request a special color, or get in touch with you to fish with you, what should they do?
Ellis:
[11:49] Yeah, and I really do the, I don't have like a pricing scheme set for it, but I love the custom color requests.
I've done it since I started doing bucktail.
That's kind of a cool, I don't have time to do a lot of them, but that's absolutely something that I like to try to hit because I know that whether or not it's important to the fish, it means something to the tire.
So the best way to find me is talk about Bucktail Trips, whatever, my cell phone at 513 -543 -0019 and then you can send messages or just follow along, on Instagram at elliswardguides and the website is elliswardflies .com.
Marvin:
[12:44] Well there you go. Well as I always say folks, fall is my favorite time of the year to be out on the water.
Get out there and catch a few. Tight lines everybody. Tight lines Ellis.
Ellis:
[12:54] Appreciate it Marv.