Transcript: East Tennessee Fishing Report with Ellis Ward
S6, Ep 11: East Tennessee Fishing Report with Ellis Ward
2024, 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 fishing report with Ellis Ward. Ellis, how you doing?
Ellis:
[0:12] I'm doing all right, Marv. How are you?
Marvin:
[0:14] I'm getting there. Word on the street is, before I called you were elbow deep in deer death.
Ellis:
[0:22] Yeah, I don't know who on the street was informing you of that, but I was in my shed. They probably couldn't see me, but they could smell me.
Marvin:
[0:32] Well, there we go. So what are you processing right now? Any kind of cool colors or anything like that?
Ellis:
[0:41] I'm kind of working through some, not nearly the last of a couple different stashes.
There's just, throughout the winter, you occasionally pick up some tails that had a more colorful end to their time in the living world.
So going through, yeah, going through tests, it's a good mix of sizes.
And just kind of did a, I'll say a medium-sized release on the website last week.
And we'll probably do another one of those with a handful of grade 1s and grade 2s and then a bunch of different colors.
So kind of keeping it what I've been doing is mostly naturals, and then I'll do a half dozen or a dozen different colors in a handful each, and then from there just sort of gauge which ones are going, and people send me feedback.
Back so it's a process and it seems to work for me and the customers yeah.
Marvin:
[1:53] So uh have you got any kind of special colors or things coming out for valentine's day.
Ellis:
[1:57] Oh man i know i've been talking to you about that day for well since last year but um i guess you just haven't thought of it yet so, So no, I'll get back to you, I guess, you know, a couple of two tone ideas.
Yeah, we'll have a surprise. How about that?
Marvin:
[2:25] Yeah, and if you're behind the eight ball, you can always get something in time for St. Paddy's Day, right?
Ellis:
[2:30] Yes.
Marvin:
[2:31] Yeah, so what have you been seeing on the musky front?
I mean, it's kind of been kind of wicked weather in your part of the world the last couple of weeks.
Ellis:
[2:41] Yeah, and, you know, I'm still building out my business. So I would say, as has been the case, I would love to be stacked with trips.
But thankfully and oddly, the trips that I've run have been in these windows of relative fishability.
Um the french broad has been out of its banks up onto the the nearby farmland that you know the adjacent farmland i actually did fish on one of those days and and rode my boat out onto, one of the farms which was pretty quiet i've been falling for two days so it was actually some pretty good clarity but um just so high but it also falls quickly and you know with within, we'll say a week of that we had that cold snap here that single digits and and the teens, um so that was kind of that was kind of the last time we talked in between then And had a few good days out and seeing fish, getting in the boat, getting people, getting people a little crossed up, but that's part of the learning experience.
Marvin:
[4:09] Yeah, well, there you go. And I know, you know, last time we spoke, it was prime time to chase big brown trout on streamers. What are you seeing there?
Ellis:
[4:17] That's what i'm seeing there i had a day in the south holston with a buddy of mine is it so two days ago three days ago on saturday and.
[4:34] I mean there were there are a number of different this is a new to streamer fishing angler um so the, you know that that trout set is built in muscle memory and it takes days like we had, to really i think drive home the new or the the requirements of new muscle memory, so there was just one example was you know a couple missed eats as he's fishing and drunk back to the boat and super fishy weather but i'm moving i'm pulling my oar back into the boat, because he is fishing right up to the boat and this fish is just doing its best it was in pretty fast water and you know it's it'd be running into my oars um you know coming through the surface trying to eat and yeah it was fishy conditions but and and he was you know he was doing all the right stuff but that's that that's where the ceiling is running really high this time of year and you know there's there's still a floor and we still have unfishy days but like higher ceiling and more fishy days around now.
Marvin:
[6:03] Got it. And we got a question for you from Brenner, and he wanted to get your thoughts on how the moon cycle affects conditions. Okay.
Ellis:
[6:15] Sure. So, blanket statement here, don't let the moon cycle or bad moon days influence whether or not you go fish.
I have, especially learning new water, new rivers on my own, and for musky in particular, I really made a point to not let that influence how I was fishing.
I get a little concerned with people.
I was just given a phrase by someone the other day called the couch phase.
So you get all these different phases of the moon.
And then there's the catch phase, which is going to be in between your noon, first quarter, in between the first quarter and a half.
And there are just some days, if you look on the lunar activity schedule, and you can look it up, the so lunar calendar, that are less active than others.
And they sort of come in bunches. And I do see an impact there.
Um but i've also i've caught fish like if you only have one day to go out.
[7:41] I've caught fit i've caught musky on fly on the worst noon days so in the middle of between first quarter and and half also in the middle of like if you look on that chart it's a zero well on the activity and yeah so it's it's always worth going out and if nothing else for your own good to check that box i did the same thing with with mousing for brown trout and the, accepted universal truth depending who you talk to one of them is that fishing under a full moon with a lot of light is not good and it you know again i've caught fish in flats in clear low water with a full moon it is not nearly as active so maybe that's just something to explain explain some of the activity that you might see but um well i'll put it another way it's a good reason to go out when you do have that good moon and.
[9:03] Try to fish hard the entire time because, again, if you limit yourself to really fishing or fishing your confidence spots in just the peak of the minor or the peak of the majors, you're going to start to get a self-fulfilling data set where, of course, your confidence spots are giving you feedback.
Back and if that's correlated to just that time and just that spot you start leaning on that more and more and what ends up happening in my opinion is is he missed a lot of other light windows and a lot of other water that that might have what you're looking for yeah.
Marvin:
[9:48] I would say you know Don't use it as an excuse not to go fishing, right?
Ellis:
[9:53] Yes, yes, absolutely.
Marvin:
[9:55] Yeah. And, you know, folks, we love questions on the Articulate Fly.
You can email them to us. You can DM us on social media, whatever is easiest for you. And if we use your question, I will send you some Articulate Fly swag.
And then we're going to enter a drawing for something cool from Ellis.
We're going to still put our heads together and come up with that.
We'll let you know probably next fishing report. port and uh you know ellis before i let you go you want to let folks know um you know where they can find you so they can book in fish with you um you know next uh bucktail drop and all that kind of good stuff yeah.
Ellis:
[10:28] So bucktail information announcements etc is generally on instagram at at Ellis Ward Guides and Wise Addicts, kind of a secondary Bucktail-specific account.
But Instagram is actually a good place to reach out, ask questions about trips.
Our website is elliswardschweiz.com.
And if you want to talk fishing, tying, musky, trout, bucktail, whatever, booking a trip or just have some questions, reaching in with cell phone is typically the best option 513-543-0019.
Marvin:
[11:10] There you go and you remember folks that we're building out our patreon community at the articulate fly in 2024 we have two different tiers uh where you can support the show and support ellis and one of those tiers gives you a 10 discount on bucktails and there's another tier that gets you an annual hundred off guide credit with Ellis.
So good for the Articula fly, good for Ellis, and you should check it out.
There's a link in the show notes.
And, you know, it's interesting. We're kind of getting to that funky pre-spring weather.
Like, I think we're going to get, I'm going to bait you, one more good cold snap. But...
Ellis:
[11:48] We're cruising above 40. It's all, I'll draw you a graph. It's just, it's a straight line up.
Marvin:
[11:54] Yeah. You don't even own a snow shovel, do you?
Ellis:
[11:59] Yeah, no, you just keep the nine.
Marvin:
[12:02] Yeah, there you go. And so I know it's that Midwestern bias about what is and isn't snow.
It'll mess you up in the southeast every time. But, you know, folks, if it's remotely warm, get out there and fish. And it's a great time.
You know, Atlanta Fly Fishing Show is coming up this weekend.
There are plenty of fly fishing shows all over the country.
And if you can't do that, tie a few flies.
Tight lines, everybody. Tight lines, Ellis. us.
Ellis:
[12:28] Appreciate it, Marv.