Marvin: Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of the Articulate Fly,

Marvin: and we're back with another East Tennessee Fishing Report with Ellis Ward.

Marvin: How are you doing, Ellis?

Ellis: I'm doing well, Mark. How are you?

Marvin: As always, just trying to stay out of trouble, and we were talking before we started recording.

Marvin: You're in your new place. You're starting to get into your groove.

Marvin: Things are looking good.

Marvin: You're getting a little bit of rain. It's not super crazy hot,

Marvin: but not too bad for mid-June, right?

Ellis: No, and we're getting, you know, these storms that are the reason why I tell

Ellis: everyone to bring Rain Jacket.

Ellis: We just get these splashes that are really feeling developing throughout the afternoon.

Ellis: But they tend to happen pretty quick, last about, you know, 15,

Ellis: 20, 30 minutes maybe. Maybe in the short, partly cloudy, maybe 10 degrees cooler.

Ellis: Make for a nice evening if you're not soaking wet. But we've had one or two

Ellis: of those recently, and it's nice.

Ellis: The trips last week were just, we're catching fish on dry flies.

Ellis: Lives in in a bunch of different ways and you know a a fish eating a dry fly on top is the,

Ellis: i think the catch-all for what we're

Ellis: doing you're you're seeing them eating so we're not really blind

Ellis: casting and just drifting we're stopped we're seeing them eat and and we're

Ellis: catching them but the rules in which we approach that process can vary and in

Ellis: the the less bloody times,

Ellis: uh i don't know just get times when you're really isolating certain areas and a specific type of,

Ellis: a specific type of bug, a very, not very, but a pretty specific drift.

Ellis: There certainly is,

Ellis: Lots of bugs from sizes, you know, 14 to 22.

Ellis: And, or both. I mean, they're really, the fish are in there eating.

Ellis: And we had a couple days in a row of being able to kind of work with some tree

Ellis: toddler and some shade and positioning of the boat.

Ellis: To where we're actually we're not just the fish we are seeing that we're actually

Ellis: seeing this through the water and and watching it come up and sort of knows the fly and then eat it,

Ellis: and it's made for it which is just a whole different you want to talk about

Ellis: sight fishing like that's normally if you're casting to i see a trout over there

Ellis: that's rising and here's the

Ellis: bug i think is going to that trout that's pretty

Ellis: classic with tight fishing it's you know

Ellis: casting to a specific fish and a lot of these fish aren't even holding current

Ellis: they're just they're outside of the scene they're in for slack water and it

Ellis: requires a little bit of doing where there's been some some dry fly casting

Ellis: and coaching um shout out my boy connor for becoming coming locally and admittedly,

Ellis: I'll say, a dry fly convert,

Ellis: small mouth, steelhead.

Ellis: Not necessarily tiny dry fly, especially a natto, but that changed frequently.

Ellis: We had one of these days, and that night is an example.

Ellis: Ten minutes between 19-inch brown trouts, one of them on the stringer,

Ellis: and actually the portlier of the two on a dry fly a few minutes later.

Ellis: So, I mean, you add that as, let's say, our first four to six hours of thipping.

Ellis: And, sorry, you add that to what we have in the night, which is,

Ellis: which week we're looking at 60 degrees, less 60s.

Ellis: And it's just, it's really comfortable to be mousing.

Ellis: I mean, I crested a little bit in March, April, but having these 90-degree days.

Ellis: It's when you start fishing at two or three with

Ellis: with the eye towards you know

Ellis: we're going to fish towards the lower light fish the the relutions

Ellis: in the afternoons and evenings and then uh

Ellis: fish under darkness the feet

Ellis: will round three or four p.m especially if there's no clouds that'll

Ellis: let you know you you're making the right decision and trips are agreeing so

Ellis: getting good fish in the boat on on drive and and it's not just like fishing

Ellis: the big ones and doing the technical stuff there's,

Ellis: so saying about the the different the different

Ellis: types are also you know seeing them eat very aggressively

Ellis: and finding pods of really healthy like

Ellis: 12 to 14 inch rainbows um and

Ellis: it you know it's not

Ellis: gonna be every day but um we're in

Ellis: that zone right now and that that zone can last uh through during july and then

Ellis: you know things things look a little different there's these kind of micro seasons

Ellis: within these tailwaters but this is um this is definitely one of my favorites.

Marvin: Yeah. Is there anything kind of, uh, with respect to the streamer bite you want to share with folks?

Ellis: You know I said for anyone watching any of my YouTube videos that was word for

Ellis: sharing YouTube this is going to be familiar same thing with Instagram,

Ellis: there I really try to not drink my own Kool-Aid I,

Ellis: think that I get towards an 80-20 most of the time um you know getting in the

Ellis: right place and and doing the right thing to get food back and um,

Ellis: i i i've just gotten some

Ellis: feedback from social media which

Ellis: is always a this is a dangerous game to play but it's just interesting with

Ellis: the i love pine streamers i love fishing them if i can get get away with it

Ellis: i love fishing eight inch crafty changers for brown trout clear water,

Ellis: um reasonable flows and a big sun not the time i mean you can do it for fun

Ellis: or if things are looking really sporty or if things are not looking sporty at

Ellis: all but kind of staying within that.

Ellis: Maybe down to two and a half. The only reason that I limit on the downside is

Ellis: I don't think going smaller makes a big difference.

Ellis: And I want to be able to see it. And you want to be able to see it.

Ellis: And so that can be done, you know, something visible with a really small profile.

Ellis: Profile, you can do that with a

Ellis: flashy, you know, a couple extra pieces of flash on a Clasar or a Krelak.

Ellis: That's really the low end that I really haven't even been fishing Krelaks that

Ellis: much, but you know, the double bugger platform,

Ellis: peanut end beef, that type of thing, and the dungeon variants,

Ellis: and using Crasher and all that, that and and

Ellis: kind of pooping in that if if you're not getting

Ellis: feedback on the bigger stuff which i cannot fault

Ellis: you for starting there i tend to start there myself and

Ellis: i am the start client there as well i'm pretty quick to switch because i value

Ellis: people time and money but i do want to see if they're going to smash the sections

Ellis: client top that we got we got to check that box first but um Very quick to go

Ellis: into the olives and the natural,

Ellis: they're slightly sinkier and let's not make them come up towards where the birds are.

Ellis: A lot of times, looks like between three and four and we'll say classic trout streamer,

Ellis: also trout streamer, streamer in general, baitfish pattern, crawfish pattern.

Ellis: But you know if you're out there as much as that can be working like if that's

Ellis: working great you can do that and do the same thing and get that same feedback

Ellis: all day or if you're finding that that's working after a little while maybe

Ellis: go smaller maybe go bigger,

Ellis: I would say just continue to test how that is changing and,

Ellis: section to section river to river you can see some differences and you,

Ellis: Yeah, if you're not getting feedback on the smaller stuff, it can't hurt at all.

Ellis: They're fun to tie. They're fun to cast when you do it well.

Ellis: It can't hurt at all to fish big stuff for a little bit and see what happens.

Marvin: Well, folks, there you go. And, you know, we love questions on the Articulate Fly.

Marvin: You can email them to us or DM us on social media, whatever is easiest for you.

Marvin: And if we use your question, I will send you some Articulate Fly swag.

Marvin: And we're going to do a drawing for some cool stuff from Ellis at the end of

Marvin: the season. And Ellis, before I let you go, you want to let folks know where

Marvin: they can find you and fish with you.

Marvin: I know you've been putting some YouTube content up too, all that kind of good stuff.

Ellis: Yeah, you like that little, I don't know what they call that in the biz,

Ellis: but work at Ellis Ward Fishing on YouTube.

Ellis: And I have a bunch of time videos up there. I should do a better job of promoting

Ellis: all the content I have there.

Ellis: Instagram is at Ellis Ward Dives. website is at elliswardfly and that's where

Ellis: you can contact me book trips, ask questions,

Ellis: talk about how excited you are for bufftail coming up,

Ellis: text me your questions about which days are the best days for you to be coming

Ellis: here and dry fly fishing, streamer fishing and mouthing for multiple days in

Ellis: a row my cell phone at 513-543-0019 nine.

Marvin: Yeah. And I've got links to your YouTube channel and everything in the show

Marvin: notes and folks remember to, you know, if you join our community on Patreon,

Marvin: there are a couple options where you get discounts on Ellis's bucktails.

Marvin: But another great one is there's one where you have a guide credit every year

Marvin: for taking trips with Ellis.

Marvin: So great way to support the articulate fly. Great way to support Ellis.

Marvin: And, you know, as we start moving deeper into summer, as I always say,

Marvin: you owe it to yourself to get out there and catch a few tight lines,

Marvin: everybody tight lines, I.

Ellis: Appreciate it, Marshall.