Latest / The Articulate Fly / S6, Ep 46: Ellis Ward's East Tennessee Euphoria: Dry Flies and Midge Magic

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S6, Ep 46: Ellis Ward's East Tennessee Euphoria: Dry Flies and Midge Magic · The Articulate Fly

• 0:03
  Marvin: Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of the Articulate Fly,
• 0:06
  Marvin: and we're back with another East Tennessee Fishing Report with Ellis Ward. How are you, Ellis?
• 0:11
  Ellis: I am doing well, Marv. How are you?
• 0:14
  Marvin: I'm getting there. I was looking at your weather, as I always do,
• 0:17
  Marvin: and you know, you've got probably, looks like you've got a front coming through
• 0:20
  Marvin: that's going to drop your temperatures, but the good news for you is you've
• 0:23
  Marvin: got a little bit of rain for like the next four days. You ought to be going
• 0:26
  Marvin: out of your mind on the draft life, right?
• 0:30
  Ellis: Yeah, I'm pretty excited. It's been, you know, I think last we talked,
• 0:37
  Ellis: it was just the tale of maybe the last two times of just that,
• 0:42
  Ellis: you know, call it the shoulder season.
• 0:44
  Ellis: I get a little cringy with that because you can always find something,
• 0:49
  Ellis: but it truly was just a lot of wind, big sun,
• 0:56
  Ellis: You know, followed by 80 degree days, followed by 40 degree days.
• 1:00
  Ellis: So kind of mellowing out into some consistency here with even with the temperature
• 1:05
  Ellis: dropping, you know, it's going down to low to mid 60s.
• 1:08
  Ellis: I think tomorrow will be mid 70s, even with gray skies and rain coming through.
• 1:16
  Ellis: So, yeah, on the drive-fly front,
• 1:21
  Ellis: I'm guessing, I mean, it's pretty rare that these podcasts happen to fall on
• 1:29
  Ellis: a day where I'm like, oh, man,
• 1:31
  Ellis: the next foreseeable future looks really good compared to, let's just say, the last week.
• 1:38
  Ellis: But that is the case today where just started getting some water moving on the
• 1:44
  Ellis: South Holston and that's been the first time in years.
• 1:51
  Ellis: Beyond the hour pushes, they'll do these pulse releases on the South Holston from the dam.
• 2:01
  Ellis: And beyond that, there's been
• 2:04
  Ellis: one or two hours intermittently where we're getting some all-day flows.
• 2:10
  Ellis: And after it sort of clears up, that's been going for a day or two now.
• 2:17
  Ellis: And after that, it sort of clears up because there's a lot of bank.
• 2:20
  Ellis: There's just, there's a lot of structure.
• 2:22
  Ellis: There's a lot of stuff that has not seen consistent high flows for months.
• 2:28
  Ellis: I mean, since the fall.
• 2:32
  Ellis: And so it's, you know, it's pushing some debris down, but that's,
• 2:36
  Ellis: it kind of triggers a couple of things happening in the lake.
• 2:39
  Ellis: And, you know, a lot of the, obviously, predator lies does open up when you get water.
• 2:49
  Ellis: You can actually float the river. So it does a couple of different things.
• 2:53
  Ellis: One, it obviously opens up the South Holston for fishing.
• 2:56
  Ellis: And then for the Watauga and just for other areas in northeast Tennessee,
• 3:05
  Ellis: it acts as sort of a siphon because it has not been fished and people have been,
• 3:12
  Ellis: you know, guides primarily have been fishing the same sections of water on the
• 3:17
  Ellis: Watauga day in and day out for a while now.
• 3:20
  Ellis: And so a lot of the good stuff that on the Watauga has not seen much water.
• 3:28
  Ellis: We've been getting a little bit here and there, maybe a week on,
• 3:34
  Ellis: but generally pretty low water there too.
• 3:38
  Ellis: But it's opening up with bigger water, and now we have two rivers.
• 3:43
  Ellis: So there's just, there's a lot of river on both of the rivers that.
• 3:53
  Ellis: It's almost new, and it's coinciding with the amount of the daylight that we have,
• 4:04
  Ellis: which I continue to think is more influential than ambient temperatures.
• 4:11
  Ellis: But getting getting some of the bigger yellow bugs and,
• 4:17
  Ellis: kind of seeing the last of the caddis but those the big caddis those you know
• 4:23
  Ellis: size 16 to 20 still hang around and then yeah man next couple days.
• 4:32
  Ellis: Remains to be seen if if the first push of sulfurs are going to happen on an overcast day.
• 4:42
  Ellis: It typically likes on your days. I was actually talking with a biologist about
• 4:47
  Ellis: why that might be the case versus the blue wings.
• 4:52
  Ellis: I think at the end of the day, some of the blue wings are pretty light and tan
• 4:59
  Ellis: and some of the sulfurs are sort of darker and tan.
• 5:04
  Ellis: So if you can get a dry fly or just fishing double dries that maybe one's an
• 5:11
  Ellis: emerger and they're kind of in the 18-ish range and they're sort of yellowy tan,
• 5:17
  Ellis: you'll probably be doing all right.
• 5:21
  Marvin: Well, there you go. And, you know, we got a question for you while we're on
• 5:24
  Marvin: the small bug topic from Tom. He wanted to get your thoughts on your favorite
• 5:28
  Marvin: midge patterns for this time of year.
• 5:32
  Ellis: Sure. Yeah, you mentioned Midge,
• 5:37
  Ellis: and I immediately thought of Nymph,
• 5:40
  Ellis: which I know folks don't necessarily – when I talk with people and, you know,
• 5:49
  Ellis: be it other guides or folks that think I'm just a diehard streamer junkie or whatever,
• 5:57
  Ellis: that tone elicits, yes, I love streamer fishing.
• 6:00
  Ellis: Fishing yes i love dry fly fishing for you know my atsu class for a lot of beginning
• 6:05
  Ellis: anglers for heck for people that were streamer fishing like there are spots where i like to stop and,
• 6:13
  Ellis: and dunk some bugs in and um you
• 6:17
  Ellis: know sit there and fishing indicators you know floating all day and and going
• 6:23
  Ellis: with the current again fantastic way to catch fish just not necessarily my style
• 6:27
  Ellis: so So I have been doing a lot of classes for ETSU.
• 6:34
  Ellis: And man, this time of year just gets, there's just this life force emerging
• 6:41
  Ellis: from under rocks, literally.
• 6:44
  Ellis: So something about it gets me nymphing a lot more and gets me tying smaller bugs.
• 6:50
  Ellis: So I'll say for the submerged.
• 6:57
  Ellis: For the weighted, for the classic NIMH midge patterns, I can't get away from
• 7:07
  Ellis: a black zebra midge with silver wire.
• 7:11
  Ellis: And it's hard to – my buddy John was talking about A-B testing,
• 7:19
  Ellis: some different patterns that he has, and a guy like that as thoughtful as he
• 7:26
  Ellis: is, sure, you can do that.
• 7:28
  Ellis: That but i think it's hard to be able to to
• 7:31
  Ellis: compare and contrast the difference between
• 7:34
  Ellis: let's say a black zebra midge
• 7:37
  Ellis: on you know an 18 curve
• 7:41
  Ellis: nymph hook with a two millimeter tungsten bead
• 7:45
  Ellis: and a little bit of um you know
• 7:49
  Ellis: densely wrapped black uv ice dub versus one with a 2.4 millimeter tungsten bead
• 7:59
  Ellis: and no ice dub and you know like all that said with all the different variations in it,
• 8:10
  Ellis: Something with a little bit of scraggly, dark, but also shiny collar.
• 8:19
  Ellis: I see outfish two to one.
• 8:25
  Ellis: And I tend to throw either a good piece of split shot or two smaller ones on.
• 8:33
  Ellis: So I'm getting bugs down anyways. ways and avoiding some of the detail there
• 8:38
  Ellis: it's it's something um small you know i also tie the zebra midges with a pretty
• 8:46
  Ellis: significant taper and when you start talking about like a an 18,
• 8:53
  Ellis: black zebra midge with a pronounced taper you start popping under rocks that thing looks like
• 9:01
  Ellis: so much it looks like half of the little bugs in there and so there's standouts
• 9:07
  Ellis: and i generally fish two nymphs and one of them this time of year is going to
• 9:12
  Ellis: look a little more sulfur-y.
• 9:14
  Ellis: Um but the yeah that that midge pattern even go down to a 22 but there's just
• 9:19
  Ellis: this time of year there's so many bugs midges and and betas and sulfurs that
• 9:28
  Ellis: are dark and there is segmentation.
• 9:34
  Ellis: And that fly with the little scraggly whatever, it doesn't have to be UVI stub, some sort of dubbin.
• 9:46
  Ellis: And that's certainly one of my go-tos. And then for the top water, it's the best water.
• 9:58
  Ellis: This can be a tricky one just because you're oftentimes fishing in times where
• 10:06
  Ellis: you can't see flies in the water.
• 10:08
  Ellis: And when you do see the flies, they don't make hook that are even twice the
• 10:18
  Ellis: size of what you're looking at, let alone the actual size. So, yeah.
• 10:24
  Ellis: And I've tied down to a 26 and I'll fish that fly, but it's a little bit of
• 10:30
  Ellis: a pain because you're fishing at that point to actually get a decent presentation with it.
• 10:35
  Ellis: You're fishing on 6.5 or 7X, really 7X.
• 10:40
  Ellis: And the diameter of that hook is the, you know, the wire gauge is so small that
• 10:46
  Ellis: it is almost a zero hook set just because it's a fish that it's already in.
• 10:52
  Ellis: And if you put any pressure onto 7X on a dry fly eat, especially if it's the
• 10:59
  Ellis: first one of the day and you might have the yips, you're breaking that thing off immediately.
• 11:03
  Ellis: So I tend to stop fishing dries around the 22.
• 11:09
  Ellis: And at that point, you can go with the cluster. It is hard to get hackle that small.
• 11:15
  Ellis: So, you know, fishing a Griffith's gnat is a great pattern.
• 11:20
  Ellis: I've also seen people have different names for it, but the Puff Daddy,
• 11:26
  Ellis: the Thread Body with a little bit of taper, not terribly pronounced,
• 11:32
  Ellis: and then two or three wraps, Palmer CDC,
• 11:35
  Ellis: which CDCs have shown great.
• 11:38
  Ellis: Because it has these, all those little barbules have these really,
• 11:42
  Ellis: really fine touch points, and it's random.
• 11:45
  Ellis: It doesn't look like the hackle on an Atoms where it's these very finite touch
• 11:53
  Ellis: points that are, for example, feet or legs from a bug.
• 11:57
  Ellis: That CDC is just sort of splayed out, and it's all sort of touching in,
• 12:02
  Ellis: you know, like thousands and thousands of different points.
• 12:07
  Ellis: Um, so if you're not going super small, doing something that is more,
• 12:12
  Ellis: you know, buggy or like a Griffith's gnat, um,
• 12:16
  Ellis: or a messy CDC emerger, uh, like a puff daddy or are two good options.
• 12:23
  Ellis: And then if you're tying or if you can find in the shop or you happen to know a guy,
• 12:31
  Ellis: getting down into the 2022s and doing something like a CDC comparadon with a really sparse tail.
• 12:41
  Ellis: And either hone in on your dry fly presentations because it's pretty easy to
• 12:47
  Ellis: cast those things right through the film and the water or just drop it behind
• 12:51
  Ellis: one of those 18s, drop it behind a Griffiths Nat, drop it behind a Puff Daddy,
• 12:55
  Ellis: drop it behind some other.
• 12:58
  Ellis: Honestly, Parachute Adams doesn't really seem like a buggy fly to me,
• 13:02
  Ellis: but I like to not drink my own Kool-Aid, so I'll sort of pivot back to that every once in a while.
• 13:09
  Ellis: Thing catches fish so put your your tiny bug um you know 12 to 18 inches behind
• 13:17
  Ellis: that that bigger fly and it'll stop it from puncturing through the meniscus
• 13:22
  Ellis: it'll sort of slow it down on its descent and also give you an indicator since
• 13:26
  Ellis: you can't really see a size 22 yeah.
• 13:29
  Marvin: And i would say maybe uh go with a decaf and only half of a strawberry pop tart
• 13:33
  Marvin: and that'll help you on the early hook set.
• 13:37
  Ellis: Yeah I mean you're also going to have me screaming about,
• 13:43
  Ellis: I typically, I typically encourage hard hook sets.
• 13:49
  Ellis: It's a good problem to have. I'll, I'll, I'll take a, I'll take an amped up hook set over not.
• 13:56
  Marvin: Yeah, there you go. Well, you know, folks, we love questions at the articulate fly.
• 13:59
  Marvin: You can email them to us or DM us on social media, whatever's easiest for you.
• 14:03
  Marvin: And if we use your question, I will send you some articulate fly swag and you
• 14:08
  Marvin: were going to enter, you know, drawing for some cool stuff from Ellis at the end of the season.
• 14:10
  Marvin: And, you know, as we're getting ready to get into the thick of the sulfur hatch,
• 14:15
  Marvin: Ellis, you want to let folks know where they can find you so they can book in fish with you?
• 14:21
  Ellis: Yeah. Website is elliswardflies.com. Instagram, which is sort of most of a picture
• 14:31
  Ellis: of what I'm doing on, we'll say, week-to-week basis.
• 14:35
  Ellis: But that's at elliswardguides. and
• 14:40
  Ellis: then if you want to give me a call and actually see what's what's going on on
• 14:46
  Ellis: a day-to-day basis as opposed to websites sort of i'll do kind of a seasonal
• 14:51
  Ellis: update um instagram is mostly what's,
• 14:56
  Ellis: visually appealing um so if you want to talk about trips see what's going on
• 15:00
  Ellis: here um book trip I best way to do that is myself running 513-543-0019.
• 15:08
  Marvin: Well, there you go. Well, listen, folks, show it to yourself to get out there
• 15:11
  Marvin: and catch a few. Tight lines, everybody. Tight lines, Ellis.
• 15:16
  Ellis: Appreciate it, Marv.