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, Marv, how are you?
Marvin:
[0:14] As always, I'm just trying to stay out of trouble, and we were talking before we started recording and it sounds like conditions in your neck of the woods have been a little bit challenging lately.
Ellis:
[0:25] Yeah, as much as I think everyone, especially guys, want to say that fishing is always good.
The midday lulls have been very present and a lot of it has to do with just full sun and low water.
[0:44] There's limited bog activity and it can be warm and a great, quote unquote, great day to be out, as some people say, but a bad fishing day.
It's high pressure, there's some wind, there's a lot of wind in the last few days.
And it really, bugs don't like to come out. And this will be, in saltwater, having minnows present means that there's going to be fish that are going to eat the minnows, and then bigger fish that are going to eat those fish to eat the minnows.
So on the trout stream, when the bugs come out, that's our minnows, and that create a chain reaction of feeding activity.
And without those, I mean, you can still get them going, but that to me is typically going to be in generation where you have a a lot of other stuff happening.
So we're getting some pushes of water recently in the last couple days and then actually today, tomorrow, and the following day, it looks like we're getting a lot of water on the Watauga.
[2:02] That said, every guide boat has been on the Watauga And most of the folks putting out 20, 30 guideboats are all fishing the upper portion of the Watauga because the South Holston's just not generating, so there isn't enough water to float.
So that, you can't ignore the impact that all those boats have on fishing.
So, all that said, there have been some awesome...
Fishing moments and hours, and they are generally in the first and last light, two or three hours before...
Or I should say two or three hours after sunrise and before sunset.
[2:55] And then the caddis, it can be a tough hatch to try to crack, especially when they're eating on top.
I'm going to be putting out a video where I'll talk at length on that one.
But I would encourage a lot of movement on your flies and not being afraid to really experiment with the types of pattern you're fishing, recognizing that a caddis pupa does not look like an elk hair caddis.
[3:25] And lastly, I'll say that the mayflies are starting to, they've been going, but it's kind of tough to pattern right now.
They aren't really in a cycle, but they are starting to come out in numbers.
And just with the amount of food via bugs on the surface that's been present to the fish in the last few weeks.
Fish and dries and fish and dry droppers not really need to go down super far.
They're used to seeing things on the surface, so they're more willing to come up and fish in a dry or a dry dropper blindly especially when things are tough and you're not picking anything up on whatever you're doing, start doing some things like that and you'll pick up some fish doing some, In a fishing looking zone, just fishing a dry on its own or fishing a dry dropper.
Marvin:
[4:32] Yeah, got it. And got an interesting question for you from James, and he's been following you, and I think this is, well, I know this is related to one of your videos.
And he basically, if you break the question down, I think you were talking about fishing hair bugs and how to get them to swim properly.
But then kind of a related question to that was, I guess there's some instances where you actually like a smaller weighted pattern with a shorter tail and James wanted you to kind of expound on that a little bit.
Ellis:
[5:00] Yeah and as we discussed it's between an 8 and 12 hour conversation depending how long.
I'll talk about that all day on my boat and as we come up to different waters and I'm dropping anchor and switching flies.
[5:17] Now and one person asked me, do you always change flies this often?
And of course, my answer was not simple, but it was basically getting to James' question, which is that if I have an angler that's capable and that is able to generate the action on different sets of flies and make the casts with different setups, then I'm going to change every time we're in different water.
It doesn't take that long to change out a fly.
So what I was referring to, you know, my decision making process there, and I guess I'll caveat that with, am I absolutely correct? No.
Do I think it makes a difference? Yes. And it does make a difference in the action of the fly.
So if you're fishing, be it wade or float fishing, and you're in fast water, consistently fast water, it's very hard to get a cast out that results in the fly being in a position it's moving at the same speed as the line.
And so I'll use dry fly fishing as an example here.
[6:45] You don't want to cast a dry fly out with a completely straight line at 90 degrees from the boat with the water rushing downstream because it's immediately going to start getting ripped downstream.
[7:00] So that's reachmans, I mean, you and Matt can talk about that for years.
Streamer fishing is the same thing. If you want a... The hair bugs thrive, if not, they are present in your box because they have these giant kills and because they swim.
They don't swim without a change in pace or a kill. So that kill being a strip and then a pause. That pause is the kill.
If you are fishing in a circumstance where your line is being, be it from your casting or from the river set up, and bank to bank it's going to be different, and 50 yards down one bank it's going to be different than 50 yards upstream.
If you're fishing in a circumstance that your line is getting ripped before you're able to get it completely straight and moving at the same speed as the fly, then it's time to go to something simpler.
[8:06] And another, a simpler way of stating that is a more uniform, slower current is better for hair bugs or moving at the same speed of the river.
So at that point, you're not back rowing while you're float fishing.
You're moving with the river and that allows you to get a presentation that your line, everything is moving as though you're fishing in still water because you're all moving at the same speed.
So, faster, you know, the very simple way to state that is the faster water with a tight window, I start going smaller and sinkier, and I use that jig, that's the kill, and it's to get a pronounced up and down movement with a jig fly, something heavy, you don't need a tight line and your casting can kind of be sloppy. I think that's why they're so effective.
[9:12] If you watch your fly and watch when you get eats, and after doing this for thousands of days now, and fishing on my own, not just guiding, it's on the pause, it's on the kill.
You'll occasionally get them when you're moving it, but it's always after a kill or a pause.
And so if you're not able to generate that with the hairfly, then it's time to go to the jig.
And then those open water situations, slower water, clearer water, bigger pools, that's where I really like the hairbugs.
And then again, to summarize that in between part of I want to fish hairbugs in fast water, And you either have to stop back rowing while you're float fishing and just move at the speed of the river, or while you're wade fishing, fish up and down the banks in the little pockets that have absolutely no structure.
And just recognize that you're not spooking a fish. If you're 10 yards downstream, you're putting out 20, 30, 40 foot cast to a little piece of pocket water, that fish is going to go just as it would from fishing from a boat.
Marvin:
[10:32] Yeah. And I guess too, part of it is the understanding that, you know, kind of the magic of hair bugs is basically the density of the head.
Right. And that's kind of what allows you to do all these great things and get all the great movement.
But kind of in that progression, kind of between hair bugs and jig flies, you know, if you look at like fishing changers with different head structures to get, you know, I always think about it.
It's kind of like letting water flow through a screen door. Right.
And it's very, very dense with deer hair. So you get a lot of water stoppage.
I mean, you can time more sparsely, but they are, compared to synthetics, they're just denser.
But, you know, you can have all these things you can do to kind of vary how much water starts to move through the fly, which kind of gives you a little bit more versatility too, right?
Ellis:
[11:22] Yeah, I mean that... In my opinion, changers are an entirely different set, and then there are different sets within that different set, but totally different set between hair bugs and jig flies, which are the other two, I would say, to be very simple, the other two categories of trout flies. Changers are ...
There's so much ... You could be fishing a jiggy type changer and be getting some good action.
But yeah, the density and the material selection and man, I've become a complete nerd on tying those, which I'm somewhat less vocal about, I guess on social media, but trying to get a really good combination of a push and kill and sink rate and still have it be able to, you can launch it if you need to, but do it on a six or a seven weight with a profile that screams six or seven inch fat fish.
But yeah, there's a lot more going on there. .
[12:36] Outside of the material selection that like you said that head density and material selection combined with I spent a lot of time focusing on the tail and and how that affects swim and Yeah, that's it's a very thoughtful fly especially when you're thinking about The different situations that you'd like to be fishing in Yeah, well James.
Marvin:
[13:00] I hope that helps. I mean, I think I I almost opened Pandora's box when we started talking about changers, but we could talk about it forever.
But I would say, you know, the only reason I wanted to bring it up is I think it's important to kind of understand the kind of the hydrodynamics, right?
Because that will, you know, is like, you know, LSU and I talk about all the time. If you start to understand why, then you can start to solve a lot of these problems yourself, right?
You know, if you need a pattern that, um, you know, has a little, let's a little bit more water flow through it. Cause you need to fish in a different way.
Um, just kind of something to kind of file away. But, uh, James, if we didn't hit it, hit us back and, um, you know, folks, we love questions on 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 are 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 can find you so they can book you and fish with you?
Ellis:
[13:59] Yes, sir. Website is elliswardfishing.com.
It's also elliswardflies.com. And Instagram is elliswardguides.
And the best way to reach me, contact me, ask me about the color of the caddis you should be fishing or swim flies versus jig flies, anything between that and booking a trip with me is my cell phone at 513-543-0019.
Marvin:
[14:33] Well, there you go. Well, folks, you owe it to yourself to get out there and catch a few. Tight lines, everybody. Tight lines, Ellis.
Ellis:
[14:40] Appreciate it, Marv.