Latest / The Articulate Fly / S6, Ep 98: Navigating Late Summer Waters and Mousing Tactics with Ellis Ward

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S6, Ep 98: Navigating Late Summer Waters and Mousing Tactics 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. Ellis, how are you?
• 0:12
  Ellis: I am doing well, Marv. How are you?
• 0:14
  Marvin: As always, just trying to stay out of trouble. And, you know,
• 0:18
  Marvin: we were hopeful that the hot weather was kind of going to be a thing of the
• 0:22
  Marvin: past, but I don't think that's necessarily going to be the case.
• 0:26
  Ellis: You know i've been saying since i met you that i don't know why you're trying
• 0:30
  Ellis: to predict the weather it's your job is not meteorology yeah.
• 0:36
  Marvin: Um although you know matt and i said that you should be picking the uh the first
• 0:40
  Marvin: snowfall in johnson city.
• 0:41
  Ellis: What what was i like three months off of the last freeze date a couple of years ago.
• 0:49
  Marvin: Yeah. It was bad.
• 0:51
  Ellis: Yeah. It's same thing happens this time of year.
• 0:56
  Ellis: It's, you know, we had a couple of mornings in the upper fifties and,
• 1:04
  Ellis: and that's kind of closer to not that I'm very near a quote unquote city,
• 1:09
  Ellis: but you start getting a little more elevation and, um,
• 1:16
  Ellis: The musky water is dropping from 71, 72 at peak temps in the afternoon to mid
• 1:23
  Ellis: to upper 60s by the morning.
• 1:28
  Ellis: Trout, the tailwaters are a little more insulated with the giant lakes feeding them.
• 1:34
  Ellis: So there's not a, I think, changing daylight.
• 1:40
  Ellis: Large temperature arcs tend to influence. the trout a little more.
• 1:47
  Ellis: But, you know, all that said, of course, we're finding our way back to the mean
• 1:53
  Ellis: and it was nice and toasty today.
• 1:58
  Marvin: And so what does that translate to on the water for you?
• 2:04
  Ellis: Well,
• 2:07
  Ellis: the, you know, those fronts And depending on which side of these fronts you
• 2:13
  Ellis: might be on can encourage or discourage bug activity,
• 2:20
  Ellis: that's really where you can see it and almost feel it and hear it.
• 2:27
  Ellis: That you're seeing ospreys and herons more.
• 2:31
  Ellis: The things are just a little more alive.
• 2:33
  Ellis: Now, I've mentioned that before, but being on the other side of it now for the
• 2:40
  Ellis: last couple days and now back into a warming trend, it's big skies.
• 2:47
  Ellis: And a couple days ago, actually, it's Monday, so Saturday...
• 2:56
  Ellis: I would qualify it as bad fishing conditions.
• 3:01
  Ellis: Very, very bright, very clear sky, and not super buggy.
• 3:10
  Ellis: And there's a bunch of different dynamics that come into play for each of these seasons.
• 3:18
  Ellis: And honestly, day-to-day with the tailwaters as the flows change.
• 3:21
  Ellis: Engine um we we
• 3:25
  Ellis: managed to pick off a few
• 3:28
  Ellis: risers i i
• 3:32
  Ellis: tried to encourage the angler to take one
• 3:35
  Ellis: or two horsepower off of the hook
• 3:38
  Ellis: set um but like really really
• 3:41
  Ellis: eagerly feeding trout in really big water and
• 3:45
  Ellis: then i i mean
• 3:48
  Ellis: we probably moved 20 two dozen
• 3:52
  Ellis: maybe um a couple nice ones in there and it was one of the dynamics that happens
• 4:00
  Ellis: this time of year and um forgive me for repeating myself from whether episodes
• 4:06
  Ellis: pass for my time with you but you you lift up a rock in
• 4:12
  Ellis: mid to late august and and there's a couple little you know size 28 blue wing.
• 4:21
  Ellis: Maybe some straggler larger nymphs growing around there and um that that mayfly
• 4:30
  Ellis: food source that biomass has come and gone you're starting to see caddis.
• 4:37
  Ellis: Build you know they look like size 36s but they're they're building their little homes for,
• 4:44
  Ellis: april of next year like that's
• 4:47
  Ellis: what you're seeing most of and go to different rocks with
• 4:50
  Ellis: a little bit of vegetation on them and you're you're finding a if
• 4:54
  Ellis: you shake it off your hand looks like a science experiment it's just full of
• 4:58
  Ellis: scuds and that just looks so different compared to the the same rock a month
• 5:06
  Ellis: two months three months ago and so some of this activity like a,
• 5:14
  Ellis: a pretty darn good day of fishing on saturday um in pretty bad conditions generally speaking,
• 5:24
  Ellis: i i think can just be explained by what
• 5:29
  Ellis: they're eating and i don't i tend
• 5:32
  Ellis: to not lean on that as much because trout are very opportunistic that you know
• 5:39
  Ellis: the bigger they get the more moody and and the spookier they can be um but it
• 5:46
  Ellis: has been pretty bitey and in almost all.
• 5:52
  Ellis: Conditions and in the the fishy conditions man the last month has just been
• 5:59
  Ellis: And since mid-July and up until through now,
• 6:06
  Ellis: it's been some of the best fishing I've seen.
• 6:15
  Ellis: I think that has a lot to do with I continue to fish and guide more.
• 6:19
  Ellis: But just getting out
• 6:22
  Ellis: there and and doing the
• 6:25
  Ellis: high risk high reward stuff and and fishing in ways that i'm the only boat on
• 6:32
  Ellis: a lot of the runs that i'm doing and um you know that that includes mousing
• 6:37
  Ellis: which as you experienced you get that high risk comes with,
• 6:44
  Ellis: The other side of if you don't get rewarded is a big fat zero.
• 6:52
  Ellis: And so I've continued to go with that high risk, high reward.
• 6:58
  Ellis: And yeah, it doesn't pay off sometimes, but a lot of times you miss a couple fish.
• 7:09
  Ellis: Fish and heck if one's 20 and
• 7:12
  Ellis: one's 22 that could be the like all of a
• 7:14
  Ellis: sudden these these missed eats or those could
• 7:17
  Ellis: be the best that that could be quote-unquote the best fishing day of of someone's
• 7:22
  Ellis: life and and you go home with a goose egg so there's you know there's such a
• 7:27
  Ellis: learning curve to all of this and um it it's clearly if you can't tell from
• 7:33
  Ellis: me rambling it's been an exciting,
• 7:36
  Ellis: Last month or so, um, both guiding and fishing on my own.
• 7:43
  Marvin: Yeah. It's funny. We were talking before we started recording and you're like,
• 7:46
  Marvin: you're so screwed up from your crazy fishing hours, daytime,
• 7:50
  Marvin: nighttime that you kind of, um, you're almost, you might have some form of like
• 7:55
  Marvin: a fishing delirium, right?
• 7:58
  Ellis: Yeah. I don't, I think they made a movie about me called Memento.
• 8:03
  Ellis: Some guy doesn't know where he is, and that's going to hit for like 1% of this
• 8:08
  Ellis: audience, but it should hit pretty hard.
• 8:12
  Marvin: I see the movie poster right now and, you know, got a question for you from
• 8:17
  Marvin: a long-time listener, Fleas and Meat.
• 8:21
  Marvin: And he's got a mousing question for you, and he wanted to get your thoughts
• 8:24
  Marvin: on, you know, what you can do kind of from a cadence of strip and presentation,
• 8:31
  Marvin: you know, when you're mousing in difficult conditions like when it's cooler
• 8:34
  Marvin: or, you know, the bite's not really on. What are some of your tricks?
• 8:40
  Ellis: Yeah, I mean, I find myself mousing, and specifically with clients,
• 8:48
  Ellis: just because it's at night and you can't see trees, mousing in areas that have
• 8:56
  Ellis: some of the froggiest water.
• 9:00
  Ellis: And, you know, when these tailwaters drop and you're fishing these flats with
• 9:03
  Ellis: weed beds, it's almost still water.
• 9:07
  Ellis: And it can be a little hard same with the stringer fishing it can be a little harder to.
• 9:18
  Ellis: Get the sales pitch all the way across the finish line and I'm already stealing
• 9:24
  Ellis: from Tommy Lynch and calling this a sales pitch but I've moused with him a good deal and,
• 9:31
  Ellis: you know it's a very different ball game on the
• 9:34
  Ellis: Pierre Marquette um but i've
• 9:39
  Ellis: i've learned a good deal from him and i've employed and
• 9:43
  Ellis: retweaked and over the course of now five years have have
• 9:48
  Ellis: had a lot of success and a much more subtle presentation so people talk about
• 9:53
  Ellis: you know milk in the gerbil and um almost two-handing and sometimes not almost
• 10:02
  Ellis: by literally two-handling a mouse fly with just these little tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.
• 10:10
  Ellis: I like to give it a lift or what would translate to a very long, slow, steady strip.
• 10:23
  Ellis: And then a drop or stopping it.
• 10:26
  Ellis: I like the lift because you get to, it's kind of a cheat code.
• 10:32
  Ellis: You lift, and it's creating a big B.
• 10:37
  Ellis: And then when you drop, that's the kill. Talk about the strip and kill on string recreation.
• 10:42
  Ellis: You drop, and you give them an opportunity to eat.
• 10:48
  Ellis: And when you're doing that, you're taking some line in and getting ready to lift again.
• 10:55
  Ellis: End and and a
• 10:58
  Ellis: lot of that's yeah
• 11:02
  Ellis: just off the top of my head the three biggest fish
• 11:05
  Ellis: which is say top three have come
• 11:08
  Ellis: on the lift and drop and you don't hear them you do not hear anything which
• 11:13
  Ellis: is spooky and it adds a little extra creepiness to night fishing that you're
• 11:20
  Ellis: You're getting a 25-inch fish and not hearing anything, not feeling it until...
• 11:29
  Ellis: You go to lift again, and the glow tip or whatever is tensions pushing straight down or moving.
• 11:39
  Ellis: And then, I don't know if I've talked about the set or the no set,
• 11:43
  Ellis: but just don't. Don't set on.
• 11:48
  Ellis: It's not a dry fly, let it meet, then bang.
• 11:53
  Ellis: It's more of a gradual continue to apply pressure and drive that hook home.
• 11:57
  Ellis: Because they're holding on to a little critter. They don't want,
• 11:59
  Ellis: they already have it and sometimes they'll spit it out and sometimes they'll miss it.
• 12:05
  Ellis: But most of the time they have that thing and it's your job to keep it in their mouth.
• 12:08
  Ellis: And, um, and then you have to angle like this is, you know, part of angling
• 12:16
  Ellis: part of fishing is casting your thing out there and getting a fish to eat it.
• 12:20
  Ellis: The other part is bringing them into the boat. So there's the free lunches don't
• 12:26
  Ellis: exist when you're fishing for big routes. It's just, there's nothing easy about it.
• 12:32
  Ellis: And one of the most challenging parts is the,
• 12:34
  Ellis: the holy shoot moment of a giant fish is on the line and is six feet away from
• 12:46
  Ellis: the boat. Like, how do I get it in?
• 12:48
  Ellis: Um, I am, I employ the strategy of the sooner you can do it,
• 12:53
  Ellis: the better sufficient minimum 15 pound fluoro.
• 12:57
  Ellis: But, you know, back to that retrieve cadence, I would say another maybe two
• 13:05
  Ellis: or three different variations would just be giving it a pop and then letting it die.
• 13:09
  Ellis: And these kills...
• 13:14
  Ellis: Are count to three i mean they're painful it feels like you're not even fishing but,
• 13:22
  Ellis: the number of fish that have come on a mouse just drifting
• 13:25
  Ellis: after just a little bit of a lift they have
• 13:28
  Ellis: so much better vision than we give them
• 13:30
  Ellis: credit for and and yeah they're eating a little
• 13:33
  Ellis: bit from you know the wake and the noise of it splatting all that stuff but
• 13:38
  Ellis: they're tracking in that thing and and they don't really want to go after something
• 13:43
  Ellis: that's trying to get away like that that defeats the purpose of of what they're
• 13:48
  Ellis: doing they're going after an easy meal so um,
• 13:53
  Ellis: i might misquote this guy but i heard a we we heard some swamp monster right
• 14:00
  Ellis: in front of the boat and uh my angler jumped out he was pulling his fly off
• 14:05
  Ellis: the water and he jumped back and,
• 14:08
  Ellis: remarked that it made him check for his wallet.
• 14:14
  Ellis: And it was just such a close, loud swirl.
• 14:18
  Ellis: And, you know, there was no pump bake. There's no...
• 14:22
  Ellis: You got to give him an opportunity to eat. So really extend those kills.
• 14:27
  Ellis: And as much as it might not feel like you're fishing, if you're creating a small
• 14:32
  Ellis: wake on the surface and then you're giving it a full stop um.
• 14:42
  Ellis: That's the only thing that they really want to see, and you can do that a thousand different ways.
• 14:49
  Ellis: And for any more tips, you might have to get on my boat.
• 14:54
  Marvin: Yeah, there you go. We'll get to that in just one second.
• 14:57
  Marvin: But, you know, folks, we love questions on the Articulate Fly.
• 15:00
  Marvin: You can email them to us or DM us on social media, whatever is easiest for you.
• 15:04
  Marvin: And if we use your question, I will send you some Articulate Fly swag.
• 15:09
  Marvin: And then we are drawing for some cool stuff from, uh, from Ellis at the,
• 15:13
  Marvin: uh, at the end of the season.
• 15:14
  Marvin: And, uh, Ellis, before we talk about your calendar, we wanted to make sure we
• 15:17
  Marvin: gave a shout out to the newest fly shop in Johnson city. You want to tell folks about that?
• 15:22
  Ellis: Yeah, Tailwater Flyco. My boy, John,
• 15:25
  Ellis: who has been so supportive of me both as a friend and a client,
• 15:37
  Ellis: which is pretty largely unnecessary,
• 15:41
  Ellis: but he's actually the one who pushed me to find you, Marv.
• 15:46
  Marvin: Oh, wow.
• 15:46
  Ellis: So, yeah, this was a couple years ago, and I just put a video on Instagram like,
• 15:52
  Ellis: hey, if folks have been following me, you know, I'm not really a consumer of
• 15:56
  Ellis: guides, and I'm wondering how to get my message out.
• 16:01
  Ellis: And had some helpful replies, and John was one of them saying,
• 16:06
  Ellis: you know, you should do some regional podcasts and mentioned yours.
• 16:11
  Ellis: So John has opened Tailwater Fly Co.
• 16:16
  Ellis: Right next to the South Holston River and actually stopped in there with clients
• 16:21
  Ellis: a couple days ago when I forgot a net and went to grab his. And, yeah.
• 16:30
  Ellis: He might hate me for saying it, but he's close to opening up.
• 16:33
  Ellis: He's burning the candle at both ends. So he's getting a lot of stuff together.
• 16:41
  Ellis: And the amount of stuff that he had, I mean, it's a tire's paradise.
• 16:50
  Ellis: The guy is so fishy in all respects, but specifically with tying and which hooks.
• 17:00
  Ellis: And, you know, recognizing that there are big differences between this hook
• 17:06
  Ellis: and that hook. So he's got all of them.
• 17:08
  Ellis: A-Rex, Partridge, Daiichi, everything from, you know, size 22s up to 6-0ts.
• 17:17
  Ellis: And all different materials. He's going to have local tires doing some stuff.
• 17:22
  Ellis: He's going to have some of my bucktail there.
• 17:26
  Ellis: It's, we don't have that here. and you can go and get $2,000 waiters at a couple
• 17:36
  Ellis: different places, but you can't go and get,
• 17:38
  Ellis: oh man, he's got this silver grade,
• 17:42
  Ellis: he's got a bunch of silver grade whiting rooster saddles and nightmare musky fly stuff.
• 17:51
  Ellis: It's just, he's taken so
• 17:54
  Ellis: much knowledge and I talk with him a lot and he talks to my buddy Jack and really
• 18:02
  Ellis: just cramming a lot of fishing experience and knowledge into a place for people
• 18:09
  Ellis: to get materials both locally and then, John,
• 18:14
  Ellis: I promise I'm not giving you a deadline,
• 18:16
  Ellis: but I think over the winter getting the online stuff situated as well.
• 18:20
  Ellis: But it's already an impressive collection of tying materials,
• 18:25
  Ellis: and I know he's going to keep doing cool things there.
• 18:29
  Marvin: Very, very neat. And now to get to the booking stuff, right?
• 18:32
  Marvin: So we're kind of moving into pumpkin spice latte land, which means,
• 18:36
  Marvin: you know, at some point we're going to kind of start going down the mousing
• 18:38
  Marvin: roller coaster and start going up the musky roller coaster.
• 18:41
  Marvin: So what have you got and how should folks reach out?
• 18:45
  Ellis: I mean, if those are the two things that I'm doing, I can't believe I haven't
• 18:49
  Ellis: been hospitalized yet, but I guess I'm on my way.
• 18:53
  Ellis: So yeah, mousing, stringer fishing for browns and sort of year round.
• 19:00
  Ellis: But I really like to around this time of year, next month or so,
• 19:06
  Ellis: start getting more trips over towards the musky water.
• 19:12
  Ellis: And you can get more information on that or just ask me questions at elliswardwise.com
• 19:21
  Ellis: and request a trip, ask questions, whatever,
• 19:28
  Ellis: at my cell phone at 513-543-0019.
• 19:35
  Ellis: And Instagram is elliswardguides.
• 19:40
  Marvin: Yeah, well, there you go. Well, you know, folks, a couple things.
• 19:43
  Marvin: Don't forget, we have a great community at the Articulate Flyway hosted at Patreon.
• 19:47
  Marvin: There are two great ways to support the show and to support Ellis.
• 19:50
  Marvin: At one level, you get a discount on bucktails, and that's going to be very important
• 19:53
  Marvin: here in about six to eight weeks.
• 19:56
  Marvin: And then the other is a tier where you actually get $100 per year guide credit
• 19:59
  Marvin: with Ellis. So you should check those out.
• 20:02
  Marvin: And then, of course, we're heading into a holiday weekend. I want everyone to
• 20:04
  Marvin: have a happy and safe Labor Day weekend. And as I always say,
• 20:08
  Marvin: you owe it to yourself to get out there and catch a few.
• 20:10
  Marvin: Tight lines everybody tight lines ellis appreciate it.