Latest / The Articulate Fly / S6, Ep 68: East Tennessee Dry Fly Tactics and Streamer Insights with Ellis Ward

Transcript

S6, Ep 68: East Tennessee Dry Fly Tactics and Streamer Insights with 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.
• 0:10
  Marvin: How are you doing, Ellis?
• 0:12
  Ellis: I'm doing well, Mark. How are you?
• 0:14
  Marvin: As always, just trying to stay out of trouble, and we were talking before we started recording.
• 0:18
  Marvin: You're in your new place. You're starting to get into your groove.
• 0:21
  Marvin: Things are looking good.
• 0:23
  Marvin: You're getting a little bit of rain. It's not super crazy hot,
• 0:26
  Marvin: but not too bad for mid-June, right?
• 0:30
  Ellis: No, and we're getting, you know, these storms that are the reason why I tell
• 0:38
  Ellis: everyone to bring Rain Jacket.
• 0:42
  Ellis: We just get these splashes that are really feeling developing throughout the afternoon.
• 0:49
  Ellis: But they tend to happen pretty quick, last about, you know, 15,
• 0:55
  Ellis: 20, 30 minutes maybe. Maybe in the short, partly cloudy, maybe 10 degrees cooler.
• 1:03
  Ellis: Make for a nice evening if you're not soaking wet. But we've had one or two
• 1:09
  Ellis: of those recently, and it's nice.
• 1:15
  Ellis: The trips last week were just, we're catching fish on dry flies.
• 1:22
  Ellis: Lives in in a bunch of different ways and you know a a fish eating a dry fly on top is the,
• 1:33
  Ellis: i think the catch-all for what we're
• 1:37
  Ellis: doing you're you're seeing them eating so we're not really blind
• 1:40
  Ellis: casting and just drifting we're stopped we're seeing them eat and and we're
• 1:45
  Ellis: catching them but the rules in which we approach that process can vary and in
• 1:56
  Ellis: the the less bloody times,
• 1:59
  Ellis: uh i don't know just get times when you're really isolating certain areas and a specific type of,
• 2:11
  Ellis: a specific type of bug, a very, not very, but a pretty specific drift.
• 2:21
  Ellis: There certainly is,
• 2:24
  Ellis: Lots of bugs from sizes, you know, 14 to 22.
• 2:32
  Ellis: And, or both. I mean, they're really, the fish are in there eating.
• 2:37
  Ellis: And we had a couple days in a row of being able to kind of work with some tree
• 2:49
  Ellis: toddler and some shade and positioning of the boat.
• 2:52
  Ellis: To where we're actually we're not just the fish we are seeing that we're actually
• 2:56
  Ellis: seeing this through the water and and watching it come up and sort of knows the fly and then eat it,
• 3:04
  Ellis: and it's made for it which is just a whole different you want to talk about
• 3:09
  Ellis: sight fishing like that's normally if you're casting to i see a trout over there
• 3:15
  Ellis: that's rising and here's the
• 3:18
  Ellis: bug i think is going to that trout that's pretty
• 3:21
  Ellis: classic with tight fishing it's you know
• 3:24
  Ellis: casting to a specific fish and a lot of these fish aren't even holding current
• 3:27
  Ellis: they're just they're outside of the scene they're in for slack water and it
• 3:32
  Ellis: requires a little bit of doing where there's been some some dry fly casting
• 3:36
  Ellis: and coaching um shout out my boy connor for becoming coming locally and admittedly,
• 3:46
  Ellis: I'll say, a dry fly convert,
• 3:49
  Ellis: small mouth, steelhead.
• 3:53
  Ellis: Not necessarily tiny dry fly, especially a natto, but that changed frequently.
• 3:59
  Ellis: We had one of these days, and that night is an example.
• 4:06
  Ellis: Ten minutes between 19-inch brown trouts, one of them on the stringer,
• 4:11
  Ellis: and actually the portlier of the two on a dry fly a few minutes later.
• 4:17
  Ellis: So, I mean, you add that as, let's say, our first four to six hours of thipping.
• 4:25
  Ellis: And, sorry, you add that to what we have in the night, which is,
• 4:35
  Ellis: which week we're looking at 60 degrees, less 60s.
• 4:39
  Ellis: And it's just, it's really comfortable to be mousing.
• 4:45
  Ellis: I mean, I crested a little bit in March, April, but having these 90-degree days.
• 4:53
  Ellis: It's when you start fishing at two or three with
• 4:57
  Ellis: with the eye towards you know
• 5:00
  Ellis: we're going to fish towards the lower light fish the the relutions
• 5:04
  Ellis: in the afternoons and evenings and then uh
• 5:08
  Ellis: fish under darkness the feet
• 5:11
  Ellis: will round three or four p.m especially if there's no clouds that'll
• 5:14
  Ellis: let you know you you're making the right decision and trips are agreeing so
• 5:22
  Ellis: getting good fish in the boat on on drive and and it's not just like fishing
• 5:28
  Ellis: the big ones and doing the technical stuff there's,
• 5:32
  Ellis: so saying about the the different the different
• 5:35
  Ellis: types are also you know seeing them eat very aggressively
• 5:38
  Ellis: and finding pods of really healthy like
• 5:41
  Ellis: 12 to 14 inch rainbows um and
• 5:45
  Ellis: it you know it's not
• 5:48
  Ellis: gonna be every day but um we're in
• 5:51
  Ellis: that zone right now and that that zone can last uh through during july and then
• 5:59
  Ellis: you know things things look a little different there's these kind of micro seasons
• 6:03
  Ellis: within these tailwaters but this is um this is definitely one of my favorites.
• 6:10
  Marvin: Yeah. Is there anything kind of, uh, with respect to the streamer bite you want to share with folks?
• 6:16
  Ellis: You know I said for anyone watching any of my YouTube videos that was word for
• 6:25
  Ellis: sharing YouTube this is going to be familiar same thing with Instagram,
• 6:32
  Ellis: there I really try to not drink my own Kool-Aid I,
• 6:39
  Ellis: think that I get towards an 80-20 most of the time um you know getting in the
• 6:46
  Ellis: right place and and doing the right thing to get food back and um,
• 6:52
  Ellis: i i i've just gotten some
• 6:56
  Ellis: feedback from social media which
• 6:59
  Ellis: is always a this is a dangerous game to play but it's just interesting with
• 7:05
  Ellis: the i love pine streamers i love fishing them if i can get get away with it
• 7:10
  Ellis: i love fishing eight inch crafty changers for brown trout clear water,
• 7:18
  Ellis: um reasonable flows and a big sun not the time i mean you can do it for fun
• 7:25
  Ellis: or if things are looking really sporty or if things are not looking sporty at
• 7:30
  Ellis: all but kind of staying within that.
• 7:36
  Ellis: Maybe down to two and a half. The only reason that I limit on the downside is
• 7:41
  Ellis: I don't think going smaller makes a big difference.
• 7:46
  Ellis: And I want to be able to see it. And you want to be able to see it.
• 7:50
  Ellis: And so that can be done, you know, something visible with a really small profile.
• 7:54
  Ellis: Profile, you can do that with a
• 7:56
  Ellis: flashy, you know, a couple extra pieces of flash on a Clasar or a Krelak.
• 8:03
  Ellis: That's really the low end that I really haven't even been fishing Krelaks that
• 8:09
  Ellis: much, but you know, the double bugger platform,
• 8:13
  Ellis: peanut end beef, that type of thing, and the dungeon variants,
• 8:19
  Ellis: and using Crasher and all that, that and and
• 8:23
  Ellis: kind of pooping in that if if you're not getting
• 8:25
  Ellis: feedback on the bigger stuff which i cannot fault
• 8:29
  Ellis: you for starting there i tend to start there myself and
• 8:32
  Ellis: i am the start client there as well i'm pretty quick to switch because i value
• 8:38
  Ellis: people time and money but i do want to see if they're going to smash the sections
• 8:42
  Ellis: client top that we got we got to check that box first but um Very quick to go
• 8:48
  Ellis: into the olives and the natural,
• 8:50
  Ellis: they're slightly sinkier and let's not make them come up towards where the birds are.
• 8:57
  Ellis: A lot of times, looks like between three and four and we'll say classic trout streamer,
• 9:08
  Ellis: also trout streamer, streamer in general, baitfish pattern, crawfish pattern.
• 9:15
  Ellis: But you know if you're out there as much as that can be working like if that's
• 9:19
  Ellis: working great you can do that and do the same thing and get that same feedback
• 9:23
  Ellis: all day or if you're finding that that's working after a little while maybe
• 9:28
  Ellis: go smaller maybe go bigger,
• 9:31
  Ellis: I would say just continue to test how that is changing and,
• 9:38
  Ellis: section to section river to river you can see some differences and you,
• 9:44
  Ellis: Yeah, if you're not getting feedback on the smaller stuff, it can't hurt at all.
• 9:48
  Ellis: They're fun to tie. They're fun to cast when you do it well.
• 9:52
  Ellis: It can't hurt at all to fish big stuff for a little bit and see what happens.
• 9:56
  Marvin: Well, folks, there you go. And, you know, we love questions on the Articulate Fly.
• 10:00
  Marvin: You can email them to us or DM us on social media, whatever is easiest for you.
• 10:03
  Marvin: And if we use your question, I will send you some Articulate Fly swag.
• 10:07
  Marvin: And we're going to do a drawing for some cool stuff from Ellis at the end of
• 10:09
  Marvin: the season. And Ellis, before I let you go, you want to let folks know where
• 10:13
  Marvin: they can find you and fish with you.
• 10:15
  Marvin: I know you've been putting some YouTube content up too, all that kind of good stuff.
• 10:20
  Ellis: Yeah, you like that little, I don't know what they call that in the biz,
• 10:23
  Ellis: but work at Ellis Ward Fishing on YouTube.
• 10:28
  Ellis: And I have a bunch of time videos up there. I should do a better job of promoting
• 10:32
  Ellis: all the content I have there.
• 10:35
  Ellis: Instagram is at Ellis Ward Dives. website is at elliswardfly and that's where
• 10:43
  Ellis: you can contact me book trips, ask questions,
• 10:47
  Ellis: talk about how excited you are for bufftail coming up,
• 10:52
  Ellis: text me your questions about which days are the best days for you to be coming
• 10:56
  Ellis: here and dry fly fishing, streamer fishing and mouthing for multiple days in
• 11:00
  Ellis: a row my cell phone at 513-543-0019 nine.
• 11:07
  Marvin: Yeah. And I've got links to your YouTube channel and everything in the show
• 11:10
  Marvin: notes and folks remember to, you know, if you join our community on Patreon,
• 11:14
  Marvin: there are a couple options where you get discounts on Ellis's bucktails.
• 11:17
  Marvin: But another great one is there's one where you have a guide credit every year
• 11:21
  Marvin: for taking trips with Ellis.
• 11:22
  Marvin: So great way to support the articulate fly. Great way to support Ellis.
• 11:26
  Marvin: And, you know, as we start moving deeper into summer, as I always say,
• 11:30
  Marvin: you owe it to yourself to get out there and catch a few tight lines,
• 11:33
  Marvin: everybody tight lines, I.
• 11:35
  Ellis: Appreciate it, Marshall.