December 4, 2025 • 15 mins
In this East Tennessee Fishing Report from The Articulate Fly, host Marvin Cash connects with guide Ellis Ward to discuss the seasonal transition from brown trout to prime musky fishing on the French Broad River.
Ellis breaks down why December is a great time to chase musky in East Tennessee, explaining how low water conditions create unique presentation opportunities and how recent rain is settling the river into its winter patterns. With baby number three arriving this week, Ellis shares his strategic approach to the December lull, focusing clients on musky fishing while brown trout actively spawn.
In response to listener Austin's question about exploring new water, Ellis delivers a masterclass in scouting strategy, explaining how to use Google Maps to identify high-percentage areas like creek mouths, spring creek confluences and reservoir feeder streams throughout the region's extensive tailwater and lake systems. He emphasizes the importance of dedicated time on the water—three to four days per week minimum—to truly pattern any fishery, whether targeting stripers, smallmouth or trophy browns. Ellis wraps up by highlighting why January and February represent his favorite months for post-spawn trout fishing, promising "bonkers" days for anglers willing to brave the cold.
To learn more about Ellis, check out our interview!
Related Content
S6, Ep 142 - Winter Musky Adventures and Streamer Tactics with Ellis Ward
S6, Ep 146 - Musky Mysteries: Winter Tactics and Fly Tying Tips with Matt Reilly
S6, Ep 139 - Exploring East Tennessee's Changing Waters with Ellis Ward
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
Hey, folks, it's Marvin Cash,the host of The Articulate Fly. We're
back with another EastTennessee Fishing Report with the
man himself, Ellis Ward.Ellis, how are you?
I'm doing good, Marv. How are you?
As always, just trying to stayout of trouble. And just so our listeners
appreciate this, you are elbowdeep in deer death in your front
yard, right.
Backyard.
(00:24):
Backyard.
But yes, I am currently. As Isay these words, cutting into a bucktail
with my trusty danko fillet knife.
Well, there you go. Probablyhave, I don't know, a couple hundred
pounds of borax, right?
Yeah. I need to make a run,honestly, but I do have a little
(00:47):
bit of stash.
Yeah. So, you know, it's kindof, we're kind of teetering over
and this is one of the reasonsyou have time to process is we're
kind of teetering away fromtrout. The trout are spawning, shifting
to muskie fishing. So you havea little bit more time off the water,
but, you know, you're stillchasing the fish too, right?
Yeah, yeah. It's. Definitelymusky season and we tread pretty
(01:12):
low water on the French Broad.Got out last week. And. So thankfully
we had, we, we got a goodsoaking last night. And it's, it's
going to be, we're, we're kindof finally in a little bit of a few
(01:33):
days on few days off,precipitation, rain. So things are
going to be settling intotheir respective winter norms, which
a lot of times for muskiemeans their winter lies. And. You
know, fun part about theFrench Broad is that it's. Almost
(01:58):
efficient tail waters fortrout and headwaters for muskie.
So a lot of it's not all. Ifish and guide about 22, 23 miles
of that river. And so, so someof it falls into the. The same category
that you might find on the newor the James or the, the muskies
move and really changebehaviors. During the winter. But
(02:23):
then on the upper reaches,it's, it's almost tailwater because
it's a headwater. So in thewinter it doesn't get nearly as cold
as the lower reaches becauseit's, it's sort of insulated by all
of the springs that arefeeding it. So. Yeah, no, it's a
good time of year. And. I havea kid. Number three will be joining
(02:52):
us this week. So kind of agood time to not be super busy. And
then just looking at thecalendar and both trips and, and
the fishing prospects.December goes by really quickly.
This is also a good time ofyear where if, if I'M getting trout
(03:14):
trips or if guys are askingabout fishing. It's. I'm really pushing
to muskie because.
The.
Browns are very activelyspawning. They have been for a few
weeks. And. Speaking veryopenly, the rivers are somewhat packed
with. With boats that areanchored over areas where they're
(03:39):
spawning. And. That combinedwith the fact that, you know, not
all trout are spawning at thesame time. But things just. Things
just get a little weird. Theychange behaviors, their minds are
on different things. A lot ofthem are just for my boat completely
off the menu. And then theother one's just. It's. It's funky.
(04:06):
So. Yeah, a little bit. I'mnot sure if you call it a shoulder
season, but. Musking bucktailfor right now. And then in just a
few short weeks we will be inpost spawn. I'm going to. I have
a couple videos that I'm goingto be sharing to get folks juiced
(04:29):
up. But January and Februaryare my favorite times of year to
be doing what we do. And. Icertainly like the other months as
it gets warmer and you know,Cattus. I love dry flies. Sulphur
gets going. May, June, July.With the water releases on the Wataga.
(04:49):
There's a lot of good stuffhere. But. January and February can
be unique and they can offeran opportunity to. The ceilings on
good days are pretty bonkers.So I'm excited.
Yeah. And of course that shotof rain. I know water's been low
and so anything you do to geta little bit more water in the system
(05:12):
and get a little stain in thewater kind of tilts the odds back
in the angler's favor on themusky front.
Right. Yes. I have. I just puta post up a couple weeks ago saying
that this is, you know,someone's 40 inch muskie and his
(05:33):
first. Hour of ever fishingfor muskie. Which makes sense in.
In a way that only muskiefishing can have something make sense.
So oddly. In a lot ofdifferent respects it's. You know,
it takes time to. To acclimateto certain conditions. I think that
(05:55):
happens for both the fish andfor the anglers. But. There'S same
thing goes with. With trout.It's just when you're able to get
a presentation in areas where,you know, fish are that might otherwise
be a little more difficult toget a good presentation with a fly.
So said a different way youhave maybe a little outside bend
(06:19):
that is just a little pushy.So both from a rowing perspective,
you can maybe only get four orfive, six decent shots and everything's
A little slower and biggerwith muskie fishing, but it's actually
been so low where some ofthose areas are pooling out a little
bit. So. I think for the sakeof your own fishing and, and for
(06:43):
my guiding, there's. They canbe spunkier at certain times, but.
One of our biggest challengesis, is to get flies near where they
might be when they are goingto eat. And. Low water can certainly
offer that clear. Not myfavorite sunny days also not great.
(07:06):
So the weather that we havenow is certainly helping that.
Yeah, absolutely. And got aquestion from Austin. I think he
hit you up on Instagram. Youknow, knows that there's a ton of
options from water and speciesin southwest Virginia, east Tennessee,
but kind of want to get yourthoughts on, you know, and this is
kind of apropos for headinginto 20, 26, maybe New Year's resolution
(07:26):
to fish new and differentwater. You know, how do you decide
on new places to fish and kindof how do you start fishing them?
Yeah. Austin, I appreciatethat. Question, that message. I think
(07:46):
about this a lot. I've beenthinking about it since I moved here.
It's been six years and theWatauga is 10 minutes from my house.
South Olson's 20. So when I'mlooking at trout water, it's. I really
have to think about. What I'mdoing and, and I get a little mucked
(08:11):
up with my, with, you know,value of time and. You know, is,
is this. Am I approachingsomething with the, with the prospect
of guiding? And so I've donethat a lot for, for muskie fishing.
And. That can be challengingsort of as a mental game of just
(08:35):
sticking something out andseeing it through and realizing maybe
that you have to go and work.And especially if you're going for
big browns, muskies, striperareas that might hold larger small
mouth, you know, carb flats,any of this fun stuff. Like part
(08:56):
of it is going out and puttingtogether what might look good. Which
when you have this is aconversation that I have on a cast
to cast basis with the Frenchbroad muskie and browns on the tail
waters, you can start to castbehind me. And it's because there
(09:21):
are so many options that youwant to get a good presentation in
each one. And realistically,you just need to choose the best
spot on a cast to cast basisand ignore everything else. And so
when you, when you do have somuch stuff in front of you as Austin
(09:43):
and any others are looking atGoogle Maps and reading books and
blogs and dude, so many peopleare just trying to Sell you something,
be it a trip or some gear oryou know, get you to the nearest
fly shop around wherever withfishing reports. So you're gonna
(10:05):
do I, I think the best byyourself and whoever you're with
to go on Google Maps and lookat what's around. So are there spring
creeks coming in? Are there,are there known trout streams in
that area? Are there knownsmallmouth streams in that area?
(10:27):
Where are muskie endemic to?Where have they been stocked? Where,
where are people running tripsand what creeks connect to them and
then start working like thehigh percentage areas like mouths
of streams or creeks cominginto lakes. The same thing with bigger
rivers, like looking at wherelittle spring creeks are coming into
(10:51):
the NOLA Chucky or the FrenchBroad and you know, spending some
time just on the main channelat the mouths of those places, but
also up into those places. Andheck, I've, I've gone up and fished
some streams that feed theNOLA Chucky just to see what's going
on in there and have foundthat they're nice little trout streams.
(11:14):
And so it's like, all right,well what does that tell you about
the base of that stream? Andif that, the base of that stream
is, has some deep pools andmaybe another creek or two that come
in there, then it's a somewhatself sustaining ecosystem. And that's
a good place for big fish tostay because there's gonna be bait
(11:35):
that are happy all year long,even when it's too hot or too cold
in many other places on, onthat stretch of the river. And then
another place or another thingabout this area that can feel overwhelming
is the number of reservoirsand tailwaters and just that lake
(11:57):
Dam River. Lake Dam river thatgoes all the way through Tennessee,
starting up in Virginia. Butthose are, man, they get fed by cold
water and a lot of them aredeep and a lot of them are fed by
streams like I was talkingabout that are in their own right
(12:18):
good trout and smallmouthstreams. So you know the edges of
those lakes and reservoirsand. You know, different regions
of, of those reservoirsthemselves. If you have a boat can
just be. Everything can haveits time. And I think one of the
(12:40):
best pieces of advice is goout with an intention. So I want
to figure out if there'ssomething about striper in this reservoir.
It's like you need to dedicatea season to that minimum and recognize
that you might miss the gooddays. So you're not gonna really
(13:01):
know what the potential is ofany body of water in my opinion,
until you've Done ittirelessly, three, four, five days
a week, maybe a couple hours aday. But really, as much as you can
be getting out there,constantly doing it at night, doing
it in all types of conditionsjust to see what's going on, try
(13:24):
to pattern different things.And so there's, you know, there's
pros and cons to all thatbecause a little bit of that's impossible
unless you're a guide. But itcan also be like a little pet project.
You can have something thatyou just, you know, has some potential,
and that's the one thing thatyou spend your free time doing. And.
(13:47):
Man, there's a lot of fishystuff around here. So odds are it's
going to pay off if you justdedicate some time into stuff that,
that has all the right things.And maybe you haven't seen a whole
lot or heard a lot, but youspend time out there, you're gonna
find it.
Oh, there you go, Austin. Ihope that was helpful. And you know,
folks, we love questions atthe Articulate Fly. You can email
me or DM me on social media,whatever's easiest for you. And you
(14:10):
can DM Ellis as well as we'vejust seen. And if we use your question,
I will send you somearticulate Fly swag and enter, you
know, drawing for some coolstuff. I guess we'll drew this will
probably be maybe the firstepisode of 2026. We'll do the drawing
and some cool stuff fromAlice. And Alice, before I let you
go and continue to be elbowdeep in dead deer and borax and bucktails
(14:30):
and rit dye, you want to letfolks kind of know how to reach out,
get on the guide calendar,pick up some bucktails, pick up some
flies and all that kind ofgood stuff.
Yes. Muskie fishing andpostpon browns. January, February,
musky fishing right nowthrough the same period of time into
March and April. Text me, callme. But if you like streamer fish
(14:57):
and if you like muskiefishing, it's. It's time to go. My
number is 513-543-0019.Information, pictures, whatever.
If you need to get sold on, onsome of this stuff, visually, it
can be found along with someflies and bucktail can be found at
(15:18):
elliswardflies.com.
Oh, well, there you go. Well,folks, you owe it to yourself to
get out there and catch a fewtight lines, everybody. Tight lines,
Ellis.
Appreciate it, Marvin.
Hey, folks, it's Marvin Cash,the host of The Articulate Fly. We're
back with another EastTennessee Fishing Report with the
man himself, Ellis Ward.Ellis, how are you?
I'm doing good, Marv. How are you?
As always, just trying to stayout of trouble. And just so our listeners
appreciate this, you are elbowdeep in deer death in your front
yard, right.
Backyard.
(00:24):
Backyard.
But yes, I am currently. As Isay these words, cutting into a bucktail
with my trusty danko fillet knife.
Well, there you go. Probablyhave, I don't know, a couple hundred
pounds of borax, right?
Yeah. I need to make a run,honestly, but I do have a little
(00:47):
bit of stash.
Yeah. So, you know, it's kindof, we're kind of teetering over
and this is one of the reasonsyou have time to process is we're
kind of teetering away fromtrout. The trout are spawning, shifting
to muskie fishing. So you havea little bit more time off the water,
but, you know, you're stillchasing the fish too, right?
Yeah, yeah. It's. Definitelymusky season and we tread pretty
(01:12):
low water on the French Broad.Got out last week. And. So thankfully
we had, we, we got a goodsoaking last night. And it's, it's
going to be, we're, we're kindof finally in a little bit of a few
(01:33):
days on few days off,precipitation, rain. So things are
going to be settling intotheir respective winter norms, which
a lot of times for muskiemeans their winter lies. And. You
know, fun part about theFrench Broad is that it's. Almost
(01:58):
efficient tail waters fortrout and headwaters for muskie.
So a lot of it's not all. Ifish and guide about 22, 23 miles
of that river. And so, so someof it falls into the. The same category
that you might find on the newor the James or the, the muskies
move and really changebehaviors. During the winter. But
(02:23):
then on the upper reaches,it's, it's almost tailwater because
it's a headwater. So in thewinter it doesn't get nearly as cold
as the lower reaches becauseit's, it's sort of insulated by all
of the springs that arefeeding it. So. Yeah, no, it's a
good time of year. And. I havea kid. Number three will be joining
(02:52):
us this week. So kind of agood time to not be super busy. And
then just looking at thecalendar and both trips and, and
the fishing prospects.December goes by really quickly.
This is also a good time ofyear where if, if I'M getting trout
(03:14):
trips or if guys are askingabout fishing. It's. I'm really pushing
to muskie because.
The.
Browns are very activelyspawning. They have been for a few
weeks. And. Speaking veryopenly, the rivers are somewhat packed
with. With boats that areanchored over areas where they're
(03:39):
spawning. And. That combinedwith the fact that, you know, not
all trout are spawning at thesame time. But things just. Things
just get a little weird. Theychange behaviors, their minds are
on different things. A lot ofthem are just for my boat completely
off the menu. And then theother one's just. It's. It's funky.
(04:06):
So. Yeah, a little bit. I'mnot sure if you call it a shoulder
season, but. Musking bucktailfor right now. And then in just a
few short weeks we will be inpost spawn. I'm going to. I have
a couple videos that I'm goingto be sharing to get folks juiced
(04:29):
up. But January and Februaryare my favorite times of year to
be doing what we do. And. Icertainly like the other months as
it gets warmer and you know,Cattus. I love dry flies. Sulphur
gets going. May, June, July.With the water releases on the Wataga.
(04:49):
There's a lot of good stuffhere. But. January and February can
be unique and they can offeran opportunity to. The ceilings on
good days are pretty bonkers.So I'm excited.
Yeah. And of course that shotof rain. I know water's been low
and so anything you do to geta little bit more water in the system
(05:12):
and get a little stain in thewater kind of tilts the odds back
in the angler's favor on themusky front.
Right. Yes. I have. I just puta post up a couple weeks ago saying
that this is, you know,someone's 40 inch muskie and his
(05:33):
first. Hour of ever fishingfor muskie. Which makes sense in.
In a way that only muskiefishing can have something make sense.
So oddly. In a lot ofdifferent respects it's. You know,
it takes time to. To acclimateto certain conditions. I think that
(05:55):
happens for both the fish andfor the anglers. But. There'S same
thing goes with. With trout.It's just when you're able to get
a presentation in areas where,you know, fish are that might otherwise
be a little more difficult toget a good presentation with a fly.
So said a different way youhave maybe a little outside bend
(06:19):
that is just a little pushy.So both from a rowing perspective,
you can maybe only get four orfive, six decent shots and everything's
A little slower and biggerwith muskie fishing, but it's actually
been so low where some ofthose areas are pooling out a little
bit. So. I think for the sakeof your own fishing and, and for
(06:43):
my guiding, there's. They canbe spunkier at certain times, but.
One of our biggest challengesis, is to get flies near where they
might be when they are goingto eat. And. Low water can certainly
offer that clear. Not myfavorite sunny days also not great.
(07:06):
So the weather that we havenow is certainly helping that.
Yeah, absolutely. And got aquestion from Austin. I think he
hit you up on Instagram. Youknow, knows that there's a ton of
options from water and speciesin southwest Virginia, east Tennessee,
but kind of want to get yourthoughts on, you know, and this is
kind of apropos for headinginto 20, 26, maybe New Year's resolution
(07:26):
to fish new and differentwater. You know, how do you decide
on new places to fish and kindof how do you start fishing them?
Yeah. Austin, I appreciatethat. Question, that message. I think
(07:46):
about this a lot. I've beenthinking about it since I moved here.
It's been six years and theWatauga is 10 minutes from my house.
South Olson's 20. So when I'mlooking at trout water, it's. I really
have to think about. What I'mdoing and, and I get a little mucked
(08:11):
up with my, with, you know,value of time and. You know, is,
is this. Am I approachingsomething with the, with the prospect
of guiding? And so I've donethat a lot for, for muskie fishing.
And. That can be challengingsort of as a mental game of just
(08:35):
sticking something out andseeing it through and realizing maybe
that you have to go and work.And especially if you're going for
big browns, muskies, striperareas that might hold larger small
mouth, you know, carb flats,any of this fun stuff. Like part
(08:56):
of it is going out and puttingtogether what might look good. Which
when you have this is aconversation that I have on a cast
to cast basis with the Frenchbroad muskie and browns on the tail
waters, you can start to castbehind me. And it's because there
(09:21):
are so many options that youwant to get a good presentation in
each one. And realistically,you just need to choose the best
spot on a cast to cast basisand ignore everything else. And so
when you, when you do have somuch stuff in front of you as Austin
(09:43):
and any others are looking atGoogle Maps and reading books and
blogs and dude, so many peopleare just trying to Sell you something,
be it a trip or some gear oryou know, get you to the nearest
fly shop around wherever withfishing reports. So you're gonna
(10:05):
do I, I think the best byyourself and whoever you're with
to go on Google Maps and lookat what's around. So are there spring
creeks coming in? Are there,are there known trout streams in
that area? Are there knownsmallmouth streams in that area?
(10:27):
Where are muskie endemic to?Where have they been stocked? Where,
where are people running tripsand what creeks connect to them and
then start working like thehigh percentage areas like mouths
of streams or creeks cominginto lakes. The same thing with bigger
rivers, like looking at wherelittle spring creeks are coming into
(10:51):
the NOLA Chucky or the FrenchBroad and you know, spending some
time just on the main channelat the mouths of those places, but
also up into those places. Andheck, I've, I've gone up and fished
some streams that feed theNOLA Chucky just to see what's going
on in there and have foundthat they're nice little trout streams.
(11:14):
And so it's like, all right,well what does that tell you about
the base of that stream? Andif that, the base of that stream
is, has some deep pools andmaybe another creek or two that come
in there, then it's a somewhatself sustaining ecosystem. And that's
a good place for big fish tostay because there's gonna be bait
(11:35):
that are happy all year long,even when it's too hot or too cold
in many other places on, onthat stretch of the river. And then
another place or another thingabout this area that can feel overwhelming
is the number of reservoirsand tailwaters and just that lake
(11:57):
Dam River. Lake Dam river thatgoes all the way through Tennessee,
starting up in Virginia. Butthose are, man, they get fed by cold
water and a lot of them aredeep and a lot of them are fed by
streams like I was talkingabout that are in their own right
(12:18):
good trout and smallmouthstreams. So you know the edges of
those lakes and reservoirsand. You know, different regions
of, of those reservoirsthemselves. If you have a boat can
just be. Everything can haveits time. And I think one of the
(12:40):
best pieces of advice is goout with an intention. So I want
to figure out if there'ssomething about striper in this reservoir.
It's like you need to dedicatea season to that minimum and recognize
that you might miss the gooddays. So you're not gonna really
(13:01):
know what the potential is ofany body of water in my opinion,
until you've Done ittirelessly, three, four, five days
a week, maybe a couple hours aday. But really, as much as you can
be getting out there,constantly doing it at night, doing
it in all types of conditionsjust to see what's going on, try
(13:24):
to pattern different things.And so there's, you know, there's
pros and cons to all thatbecause a little bit of that's impossible
unless you're a guide. But itcan also be like a little pet project.
You can have something thatyou just, you know, has some potential,
and that's the one thing thatyou spend your free time doing. And.
(13:47):
Man, there's a lot of fishystuff around here. So odds are it's
going to pay off if you justdedicate some time into stuff that,
that has all the right things.And maybe you haven't seen a whole
lot or heard a lot, but youspend time out there, you're gonna
find it.
Oh, there you go, Austin. Ihope that was helpful. And you know,
folks, we love questions atthe Articulate Fly. You can email
me or DM me on social media,whatever's easiest for you. And you
(14:10):
can DM Ellis as well as we'vejust seen. And if we use your question,
I will send you somearticulate Fly swag and enter, you
know, drawing for some coolstuff. I guess we'll drew this will
probably be maybe the firstepisode of 2026. We'll do the drawing
and some cool stuff fromAlice. And Alice, before I let you
go and continue to be elbowdeep in dead deer and borax and bucktails
(14:30):
and rit dye, you want to letfolks kind of know how to reach out,
get on the guide calendar,pick up some bucktails, pick up some
flies and all that kind ofgood stuff.
Yes. Muskie fishing andpostpon browns. January, February,
musky fishing right nowthrough the same period of time into
March and April. Text me, callme. But if you like streamer fish
(14:57):
and if you like muskiefishing, it's. It's time to go. My
number is 513-543-0019.Information, pictures, whatever.
If you need to get sold on, onsome of this stuff, visually, it
can be found along with someflies and bucktail can be found at
(15:18):
elliswardflies.com.
Oh, well, there you go. Well,folks, you owe it to yourself to
get out there and catch a fewtight lines, everybody. Tight lines,
Ellis.
Appreciate it, Marvin.
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