Latest / The Articulate Fly / S6, Ep 75: Hex Hatches and Big Browns: A Fishing Report from Ellis Ward

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S6, Ep 75: Hex Hatches and Big Browns: A Fishing Report from Ellis Ward · 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. Ellis, how are you?
• 0:12
  Ellis: I am good, Marvin. How are you?
• 0:14
  Marvin: As always, just trying to stay out of trouble, and you are not in East Tennessee.
• 0:19
  Ellis: No, I'm not. I've been up in northern Michigan for a couple days now,
• 0:26
  Ellis: and And the weather is, it was a low of 41 two nights ago.
• 0:36
  Ellis: But pretty cool to be up here. I've been coming up here and this is where,
• 0:41
  Ellis: you know, a big chunk of my early fishing and which really looked like trolling
• 0:51
  Ellis: Rapalas in some of the shallows for smallmouth and rock bass.
• 0:56
  Ellis: Um but it's it's fun being up
• 0:59
  Ellis: here with my mom who taught me
• 1:02
  Ellis: how to fish back in the day and going
• 1:05
  Ellis: through some of my my grandpa's old tackle and um
• 1:10
  Ellis: taking my daughter out she wants a tackle box
• 1:12
  Ellis: and it's like well you got
• 1:15
  Ellis: to go out and fish in order to get a tackle box so we're gonna go out here i
• 1:21
  Ellis: think later this afternoon when it warms up a little bit but cool to see some
• 1:26
  Ellis: hexes there's you know those tailwaters get me excited about a big bug being
• 1:32
  Ellis: you know size 14 and there's.
• 1:36
  Ellis: Size fours running around here and
• 1:39
  Ellis: i'm on the lake it's not even necessarily a trout stream but every piece of
• 1:43
  Ellis: water here is so fishy there's there's musky pike smallmouth um you know atlantic
• 1:49
  Ellis: salmon trout of a different variety and um they're they're kind of all over the place but,
• 1:59
  Ellis: good to be up here and not like i'm taking a break from fishing too much but um,
• 2:06
  Ellis: always nice to get a change of pace yeah.
• 2:08
  Marvin: I would expect nothing less you know and it's an amazing thing i mean particularly
• 2:11
  Marvin: once you kind of get like north of ann arbor and grand rapids i mean I mean,
• 2:15
  Marvin: you know, the lakes are fishy, but like all that fishy water up north,
• 2:19
  Marvin: even before you get to the UP in Michigan is pretty amazing.
• 2:23
  Ellis: When I got here, it's 80 degrees.
• 2:29
  Ellis: It's, I guess, 85, sunny, late June.
• 2:36
  Ellis: Jump in the lake and it takes your breath away. It is low 60 degrees.
• 2:43
  Ellis: And it's just all fed from these glacial springs.
• 2:49
  Ellis: Rings and everything is highly oxygenated
• 2:53
  Ellis: and clean and right it's
• 2:57
  Ellis: it's it's fishy um there's these little
• 3:01
  Ellis: little blue line new name streams that are spitting out or i like to call the
• 3:07
  Ellis: the hex floating hot dogs they're they just did relative to a fish that would
• 3:14
  Ellis: eat them it's it's like they're looking at a foot-long sub floating on the water and,
• 3:20
  Ellis: and that's just happening all around us um so it's
• 3:24
  Ellis: it's amazing you look in the paper there's 50-inch musky caught um i got a couple
• 3:31
  Ellis: spots in some connecting little lakes and in rivers that typically produce some
• 3:39
  Ellis: decent, some fun-sized pike.
• 3:44
  Ellis: But yeah, the whole place is fishy, and good to come up here with really anything.
• 3:52
  Ellis: I didn't bring, I brought an 11-weight, but
• 3:56
  Ellis: I've accumulated so much stuff out here that sort of the same deal in Tennessee
• 4:01
  Ellis: where I go out and it's like i could be throwing stuff with uh you know throwing
• 4:06
  Ellis: dry flies with a five weight or throwing musky flies with an 11 weight or or
• 4:11
  Ellis: chucking gear or doing whatever.
• 4:14
  Marvin: Very very neat and you were telling me you got to spend some time with your godfather tommy lynch.
• 4:21
  Ellis: Yeah um he couldn't believe it had been four years since we fished together
• 4:27
  Ellis: but it's You know, I try to bother him a little bit and chat on the phone every once in a while.
• 4:33
  Ellis: He's been a really influential person in my tying and guiding career.
• 4:46
  Ellis: Career and it hasn't all been direct but just seeing.
• 4:53
  Ellis: Seeing his thought process on on how the drunken disorderly was tied which you
• 4:58
  Ellis: know he's most famous for which today um i've i haven't thrown a streamer with
• 5:03
  Ellis: him and it's it's that it's.
• 5:10
  Ellis: This mentality of what does the angler sort of want to do, what are the options,
• 5:16
  Ellis: and here's what we're going to do given the conditions and this constantly changing
• 5:23
  Ellis: algorithm of flows and water temps and just what the river is giving us.
• 5:32
  Ellis: That i i didn't necessarily see in an attempt to emulate but um it is so.
• 5:41
  Ellis: True to how i fish and how i guide and just going into,
• 5:48
  Ellis: to the tailwaters and starting my own business and and fishing without regard
• 5:53
  Ellis: for what was quote-unquote the good runs or the right thing to do or the right
• 5:59
  Ellis: flows or you know is this Is this section even rowable or fishable at night? Do people even do this?
• 6:08
  Ellis: I didn't know anyone. I just figured everything out. And so that knowledge lent itself to how I guide,
• 6:17
  Ellis: which is, you know, here's all of these options and let's whittle it down to
• 6:22
  Ellis: what we want to do with any given set of experiences and time constraints and all that.
• 6:31
  Ellis: So, um, you know, going, going out with Tommy, it was just another,
• 6:35
  Ellis: another display of this.
• 6:41
  Ellis: Um, he, he wants to go out and fish in a way that's, that's fun.
• 6:45
  Ellis: And he's of course clarifying that with me and he knows me pretty well and has
• 6:50
  Ellis: some confidence in my ability to do certain things.
• 6:53
  Ellis: But he's also just, as soon as we're getting on the boat, it's,
• 6:56
  Ellis: it's what's next. It's not, you know, good boy, you can cast.
• 7:01
  Ellis: It's, all right, well, let's get to the next thing. And it's pretty technical fishing, and...
• 7:13
  Ellis: I i ended up we got one
• 7:16
  Ellis: one fish in the boat i was shaking off
• 7:19
  Ellis: fish that were you know under under
• 7:23
  Ellis: 10 inches but but plenty of
• 7:25
  Ellis: nice wild brown trout eating a
• 7:28
  Ellis: very big dry fly it's um a big golden
• 7:31
  Ellis: stone that and and
• 7:34
  Ellis: and he was happier for it because we didn't
• 7:37
  Ellis: have to stop and use the net and we could keep fishing um but
• 7:41
  Ellis: had another brown that was our low
• 7:46
  Ellis: 20s um absolutely god
• 7:49
  Ellis: they ate this thing the stonefly like they
• 7:52
  Ellis: eat mice um had him on and he just he he took my lunch money man went down shook
• 8:00
  Ellis: his head went the other way i was pulling the wrong way flies out and then had
• 8:06
  Ellis: uh I had a special fish that had Tommy making noises for the rest of the evening.
• 8:14
  Ellis: I didn't get steel in him, but we re-bypassed countless little risers that we
• 8:24
  Ellis: could have had on iso-emergers or bluing-emergers.
• 8:30
  Ellis: And um fishing that
• 8:33
  Ellis: golden stone we you know i would i would see him
• 8:36
  Ellis: it's very active it's very engaged it's um
• 8:39
  Ellis: it's all the type
• 8:42
  Ellis: of fishing that is exciting about
• 8:46
  Ellis: streamer fishing and and mousing and um the the visual reward and challenges
• 8:54
  Ellis: of you know there's logs coming in left and right it's it's almost entirely
• 9:01
  Ellis: long roll casts and um he is.
• 9:07
  Ellis: Where he is with casting and manipulation of line and rod is,
• 9:13
  Ellis: I think, something that people, until you're on the boat with him,
• 9:18
  Ellis: you just think of, you associate his name with a drunken disorderly.
• 9:25
  Ellis: I can't express this enough. We've talked about it a handful of times,
• 9:31
  Ellis: not while fishing together.
• 9:33
  Ellis: It's almost all conversation that we
• 9:36
  Ellis: have is you know him
• 9:39
  Ellis: giving me some insight on guiding um you
• 9:44
  Ellis: know joking about this and that and
• 9:47
  Ellis: then a lot of it's casting and and a lot
• 9:50
  Ellis: of that is is dry fly casting and um
• 9:53
  Ellis: so it was it was great to spend time with them and
• 9:56
  Ellis: and sort of get get the download from the
• 10:00
  Ellis: last couple years from him and and give him a little bit from
• 10:03
  Ellis: um from my life from the tailwater scene
• 10:06
  Ellis: and um finished with a
• 10:09
  Ellis: little darkness and got a couple mouse eats uh
• 10:13
  Ellis: but then that that night was the the 41
• 10:17
  Ellis: degree plunge and and things kind
• 10:20
  Ellis: of shut off then we got to a section and a motion light
• 10:23
  Ellis: went on and um i
• 10:27
  Ellis: was in the front of the boat shaking i didn't come up here to um i didn't have
• 10:33
  Ellis: gear for 41 degrees so uh we called it and i mean i couldn't have been happier
• 10:40
  Ellis: to get out with and get some shots on on some really nice fish and just.
• 10:46
  Ellis: Seeing and also listen to someone who, who, who has an understanding and a passion
• 10:54
  Ellis: for, I have a hard time saying guiding.
• 10:58
  Ellis: It's, if you say guiding to so many people, it means what a lot of people experience
• 11:06
  Ellis: as, as guided fishing trips, um,
• 11:08
  Ellis: which I could reasonably qualify as, as, as ecotourism or something like that.
• 11:14
  Ellis: Like Tommy's a guide he's a casting coach um he loves fishing and you know I I get this with,
• 11:24
  Ellis: hanging with um Matt Riley and and a couple of my buddies in in Johnson City
• 11:29
  Ellis: it's just fun spending time with someone who who approaches this this industry
• 11:36
  Ellis: their job um this sport in And in a similar way,
• 11:41
  Ellis: and even cooler to see someone who's still just pushing it at 20-something years into the game.
• 11:49
  Marvin: Yeah, it's interesting, right? Because, you know, you see those people and they
• 11:52
  Marvin: have that kind of, you know, passion and drive to perform that you see in elite
• 11:57
  Marvin: performers, you know, like whether it was like what I saw you saw in consulting
• 12:01
  Marvin: or I saw in like the law and the finance world.
• 12:03
  Marvin: And it's kind of mind boggling. and i think you know uh you
• 12:07
  Marvin: know for folks that haven't been able to spend time with tommy if you go watch
• 12:10
  Marvin: some of his tying videos that he's done there's a fly shop in
• 12:12
  Marvin: michigan that he likes to tie at um and you listen to him talk it reminds me
• 12:17
  Marvin: a lot of like listening to blaine talk like the thoughtfulness into presentation
• 12:21
  Marvin: term related terminal tackle um it's a completely you know to your point it's
• 12:27
  Marvin: a little bit different than like you know let me adjust your indicator right you.
• 12:32
  Ellis: Yeah, and I think that, like you said,
• 12:38
  Ellis: just watching someone who you don't get to with your own name and not working
• 12:47
  Ellis: for an outfitter or partnering with these major companies.
• 12:52
  Ellis: You don't get to cruising altitude and stay there for as long as he has without,
• 13:00
  Ellis: on a day-to-day basis, working.
• 13:04
  Ellis: I mean, I took pictures of the inside of his boat.
• 13:08
  Ellis: Everything's tuned up. There's a process for everything.
• 13:11
  Ellis: Thing um man when i get him
• 13:14
  Ellis: going talking about one thing or another it's it's
• 13:19
  Ellis: it's full tilt in whatever direction that we're going and um right you just
• 13:28
  Ellis: it's it's a different approach that you don't see outside of you know the the
• 13:35
  Ellis: the handful of people that are.
• 13:38
  Ellis: Are at the top and and have been at the top and you know one of the one of the
• 13:43
  Ellis: cool parts that i appreciate and definitely respect about tommy is he's,
• 13:51
  Ellis: i don't think anyone would know any anything about some of this stuff there's
• 13:56
  Ellis: yeah there's the time videos that um you can see some of the passion some of the knowledge,
• 14:02
  Ellis: man you get in that boat for just just just
• 14:05
  Ellis: the first hour and if you
• 14:08
  Ellis: don't pause him every once in
• 14:11
  Ellis: a while if you just take in all of it your head's gonna start to spin because
• 14:16
  Ellis: he will keep going and and you're just gonna continue to absorb information
• 14:22
  Ellis: that um that he's happy to provide but But it's almost like,
• 14:30
  Ellis: well, I can use it very appropriately, a consulting phrase of drinking out of
• 14:37
  Ellis: a fire hose where even if you're just talking about roll casting a non-tapered line,
• 14:43
  Ellis: he's going to press that to a different level.
• 14:50
  Ellis: Using the rod and line and just discussing all of it in such a different way
• 14:55
  Ellis: that yields a presentation that also encourages a proper hook set with a specific
• 15:03
  Ellis: leader that can fight big fish and some of these,
• 15:05
  Ellis: you know, down seeders and, you know,
• 15:10
  Ellis: avoids hang ups.
• 15:12
  Ellis: And like all of it i do a little bit
• 15:15
  Ellis: of it with streamer casting you know you want the tip in the water these
• 15:18
  Ellis: strip strip kills and everything is
• 15:21
  Ellis: to promote or encourage the next thing and all
• 15:24
  Ellis: that is about getting a good hook set and boating a fish so
• 15:27
  Ellis: to watch that happening with um i
• 15:32
  Ellis: don't know all these different variables and in this this complex system
• 15:37
  Ellis: that i know is only one of his things it is
• 15:40
  Ellis: it's it's just fascinating and um yeah
• 15:45
  Ellis: i don't know if there's i don't know if i've seen you hear
• 15:50
  Ellis: a little bit of it with blaine i've seen it with
• 15:52
  Ellis: larry um and these
• 15:56
  Ellis: guys all know each other there's no surprise so um
• 15:59
  Ellis: it it makes sense that that they do know each other and have have spent some
• 16:04
  Ellis: time together um but yeah always it's fun talking with them i'll call them every
• 16:11
  Ellis: once in a while but but to spend eight hours in the boat and really hang for
• 16:16
  Ellis: a little bit was very cool yeah.
• 16:18
  Marvin: Absolutely and you know folks we love questions at the
• 16:21
  Marvin: articulate fly you can email them to us or dm us
• 16:23
  Marvin: on social media and we've just added a little record button uh on the podcast
• 16:28
  Marvin: page of the website if you actually go there you can record your question you
• 16:31
  Marvin: may actually hear yourself on a on an episode and if we use your question i
• 16:35
  Marvin: will send you some articulate fly swag and we're drawing for some cool stuff
• 16:38
  Marvin: from ellis at the end of the season and uh you know i know you know after the
• 16:42
  Marvin: fourth you're going to be heading back down to the,
• 16:44
  Marvin: not lows in the 41 johnson city uh to uh to guide back on the south holston
• 16:49
  Marvin: wataug you want to let folks know how they can reach out and get on your guidebooks ellis.
• 16:54
  Ellis: Yeah, best way to contact me, ask about trips, anything like that is my cell phone at 513-543-0019.
• 17:05
  Ellis: Nine instagram is at ellis ward guides
• 17:08
  Ellis: and uh website which is
• 17:12
  Ellis: somewhat updated on a rolling basis um kind of give you some information about
• 17:19
  Ellis: what types of trips and and the things that i'm doing at at whatever time of
• 17:24
  Ellis: year you're looking at is at elliswardflies.com and um just a little
• 17:30
  Ellis: plug for for this summer we got um dry
• 17:35
  Ellis: fly fishing and and mousing with streamer fishing mixed in condition dependent
• 17:40
  Ellis: is is going to be rolling full steam here for the next month or two and uh hopefully
• 17:47
  Ellis: transition a little bit into more mousing and um,
• 17:52
  Ellis: and then all of a sudden we'll be looking at musky fishing so um,
• 17:59
  Ellis: lots of stuff going on and excited to get folks on the boat.
• 18:04
  Marvin: Yeah, well, there you go. Well, listen, folks, I want to wish everyone a safe
• 18:08
  Marvin: and happy 4th of July and you owe it to yourself to get out there and catch a few.
• 18:12
  Marvin: Tight lines, everybody. Tight lines, Ellis.
• 18:15
  Ellis: Appreciate it, Marth.