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. How are you, Ellis?

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

Marvin: As always, I'm just trying to stay out of trouble and been watching the Instagram

Marvin: feed and East Tennessee looks like the sulfurs have arrived, brother.

Ellis: Yeah, man. It feels nice. It feels nice to see the yellow bugs flying around.

Ellis: And as a guide, as an angler, partially as a tire, it feels nice to see fish eating them.

Marvin: Yeah, it's kind of cool, right? Because doesn't the South Holston have one of

Marvin: the longest sulfur hatches in the country?

Ellis: You're out of my depth very quickly there. And I don't know.

Ellis: That feels like something you hear.

Ellis: And then there's part of me that says who's measuring that but it really I mean

Ellis: just objectively I've only been on a handful of streams that have sulfur hatches and,

Ellis: both the South Holston and the Watauga are you know kind of mid to late May through late June,

Ellis: so it is It can be day-to-day, as with all fishing and dry fly hatches,

Ellis: but it is really a good chunk of the summer.

Ellis: And you get them through July, it's just not as prolific.

Ellis: And there's blue wings and midges, and the whole time, it's an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Ellis: Fey but those big you know big

Ellis: for tail waters 14 16 and what's

Ellis: fun about that is you can fish 12s and they're eating 12s um i i wouldn't necessarily

Ellis: do that but um that that larger size bug lasting for the better part of a really

Ellis: solid month and then and really tailing out through july it's pretty cool yeah.

Marvin: And of course it sets up your favorite program right and dry fly to the risers

Marvin: and pull streamers the rest of the time?

Ellis: Yeah, it's just too fun.

Ellis: And with the Watauga generating from 1 to 6 every afternoon outside of Sundays

Ellis: through the summer from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

Ellis: That we have water for four to five hours

Ellis: and that big water

Ellis: i think there's some misconceptions around you know

Ellis: dry fly fishing and it being hot in the

Ellis: low water look if it's low water all

Ellis: summer i'm going to tell you the dry fly fishing's hot because i'm going

Ellis: to figure it out figure out what to do high water

Ellis: dry fly fishing uh yes on

Ellis: the south holson yes definitely on the watauga um the

Ellis: otaga has flows that are

Ellis: are scheduled for six days a week um

Ellis: and the whitewater rafting companies that bring a lot of people to this area

Ellis: will say that um they depend on that and so that's not going anywhere and in

Ellis: high water dry fly fishing it can it can be like low water they're They're a little more localized,

Ellis: but man, when they find a place that they're having high water,

Ellis: they're not going all the way back down to the bottom. They're hanging right there.

Ellis: So it's sort of the same as that low water, you know, finding the shelves and

Ellis: all that. Just a different game.

Marvin: Yeah. And then, of course, you know that we're also, as it starts to warm up,

Marvin: we start to really get into the thick of mouse season too, right?

Ellis: Just about to talk through it, man, on that timeline. line starting you know meeting,

Ellis: early to mid afternoon i mean i i was just talking with a client earlier today and,

Ellis: uh first time fishing with me and kind of saying i'll meet in the morning it's

Ellis: like well it's gonna be kind of late summer i said it again it depends some

Ellis: days i do want to meet in the morning it depends on the weather but that evening hatch is,

Ellis: It can be really, really good, and then it gives us the option to hang out in the house.

Marvin: Yeah, there you go, and I've got a streamer question for you, too.

Marvin: So Brenner wanted to get your thoughts. I know we've had a ton of rain in our

Marvin: part of the world recently,

Marvin: and I know that you're a little bit protected but less protected on the Watauga

Marvin: because of the Doe River and wanted to get your thoughts on color combos for

Marvin: streamers when you're fishing in stained water.

Ellis: Yeah. I think I'm just going to start officially beating this drum publicly.

Ellis: I don't care about color.

Ellis: That's incorrect. I want something that is white, maybe like some sort of off-olive

Ellis: yellow, something that I can really, really see.

Ellis: And when I say that, it's something you can see, something clients can see.

Ellis: And I'm probably fishing it pretty high in the water column.

Ellis: And if I can get it to be bigger, I would appreciate that as well.

Ellis: I would say it depends on how you're fishing.

Ellis: So for a lot of my fishing as a guide and even when I'm out on my own on either

Ellis: of the rivers, I am, it's hard to say fishing to fish.

Ellis: It's not like I know exactly that cast is perfect, but man, some of them, yeah, at this point I do.

Ellis: And so it's finding those spots and I want something they can see.

Ellis: And I've just amassed enough data at this point to say that.

Ellis: Something with opacity, something that is opaque, light does not penetrate it.

Ellis: I don't care if it's white.

Ellis: When something's coming from below it, there's no light down there.

Ellis: And then if it's closer to the surface, aka closer to sunlight,

Ellis: it projects more of a difference in light.

Ellis: So if it's down low there's not as much light hitting the top of it to create

Ellis: a profile below so it's really just putting a spotlight shining shining something

Ellis: to give the fish the silhouette,

Ellis: to say i'm going to eat that thing and i've i've

Ellis: seen it happen now i know i've said this before but i will

Ellis: continue to say it i've seen

Ellis: brown trout blow through the water erupting on

Ellis: a streamer taking it through the surface in

Ellis: all but chocolate i mean all but like debris filled chocolate milk really i

Ellis: would say unfishable water um relative to my understanding before Before doing

Ellis: what I've been doing for the last four years.

Ellis: So hiring the water column and something that really does block light, that's not feathers.

Ellis: It's, you know, craft fur changers are two of my favorites.

Ellis: And then I have a streamer that I have sort of jokingly called the Luff,

Ellis: which is more like an articulated, just a two-section craft fur streamer.

Ellis: And yeah, the rate of success there, and I've had days where we switch to that

Ellis: and it's immediate. So, yeah.

Ellis: More than a few of those days. And I think that folks should be willing to try

Ellis: it at this point because, gosh, it's too fun.

Ellis: Was I on that one?

Marvin: No, you did. You did great. I literally just put the safety back on the trigger.

Marvin: So you're good. But to follow up. Yeah, but to follow up on that.

Marvin: See, this is how I'm going to get you your extra couple minutes. minutes so you.

Ellis: Like you.

Marvin: Like a lighter colored fly because if you're fishing high you want the predator

Marvin: to see the belly right and so that's the color jam.

Ellis: I'll clarify there the color jam is for human eyes i want something that i can

Ellis: see i want something that the angler can see,

Ellis: and as you go away from white um i've tried to convince myself that black is

Ellis: really visible but it's it's just not um so there's just.

Ellis: There isn't much light below the

Ellis: streamer the sun's coming from the top of it shining directly down and then

Ellis: um the trout normally are are sharking it if you're fishing higher in the water

Ellis: column they're they're coming from below so there's really no thought process around color

Ellis: outside of I want to track what's happening and in muddy water that can be more

Ellis: challenging so the whiter and

Ellis: really I just I mean if you if you want to do a lot of flash go nuts but.

Ellis: I had this this Rolodex this montage of video clips in my head of watching Watching

Ellis: these events, striper, brown trout,

Ellis: eat big craft fur changers, and the swim bug fishing higher in the water column

Ellis: to a certain extent the drunk.

Ellis: One of the great things, and in this very specific instance,

Ellis: one of the drawbacks is that the drunk finds depth pretty quickly.

Ellis: So keeping something that rides higher in the water column,

Ellis: is kind of where the swim bug comes in in this instance and then craft for a

Ellis: changer is just for your retrieve speed trying to make sure you're deepening up where it should be,

Ellis: and yeah at that point.

Ellis: You know all these cliffs have a fly with very little flash involved.

Marvin: Got it how about rattles.

Ellis: Big fan now kind of tough because some of these you know i'm thinking of fishing the drunk and

Ellis: having fish track it up to the boat and eating on that kill eating on that pump

Ellis: fake just before you take it out don't pretend like you're gonna take it out

Ellis: and then don't so when it hangs on the surface there for a second so i don't

Ellis: know are they tracking it in because of the rattle and then they're finally eating it,

Ellis: because of that boat side let's hang out at the surface for a second so do we

Ellis: bypass that and just fish higher in the water column and not worry about flash or rattles but,

Ellis: as a rule I like to add them in where I can you know last thing on that is,

Ellis: a lot of these high water muddy water,

Ellis: 40-inch strike, I mean, giant fish inhaling a fly at the surface and about four gallons of water.

Ellis: Browns doing the same thing, not 40 inches.

Ellis: Those are without rattles and very little flash. I don't think those two things hurt, though.

Marvin: Yeah, well, there you go. And, you know, folks, we love questions at 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 schwag.

Marvin: We're going to enter a drawing for something cool from Ellis at the end of the

Marvin: season. And, you know, Ellis, I know you're stacking days on your calendar.

Marvin: You want to let folks know, you know, where they can find you,

Marvin: what you have available, how they can talk fishing and book you.

Marvin: But also, I suspect you might be hanging on to a few Easter pastel bucktails

Marvin: you might want to share with folks.

Ellis: Yeah, so the best way to contact me for anything really is my cell phone at 513-543-0019.

Ellis: Instagram is at Ellis Ward Guides.

Ellis: And website is EllisWardFlies.com. As for bucktail,

Ellis: I will be moving nearby, and the new spot has a 30x40 workshop,

Ellis: so things are going to get sporty next deer season.

Ellis: And currently, yeah, I have a good number of tails left, and I'm pretty sure some twos and threes.

Ellis: But yeah definitely continuing to continuing to develop that part of the business

Ellis: as well and as for me and I'll kind of jump it all over the place,

Ellis: if you are interested in the dry flying mousing,

Ellis: give me a shout and let's get some good dates on the calendar if we can get

Ellis: dates with the right moons and things like that It's better to plan around that one.

Ellis: Some of this stuff can be day-to-day, but if you're planning a night fish, let's talk about it now.

Marvin: There you go. And remember, folks, we've got two great opportunities in our community.

Marvin: One of them is 100 off-guide credit with Ellis, and another is a 10% discount on Bucktail.

Marvin: So check that out. That's hosted over on our Patreon site, and there's a link in the show notes.

Marvin: And as I always say, you owe it to yourself to get out there and catch a few.

Marvin: Tight lines, everybody. Tight lines, Ellis.

Ellis: Appreciate it Marv.