September 11, 2025 • 16 mins
The Articulate Fly delivers another essential East Tennessee Fishing Report with veteran guide Ellis Ward, covering the critical fall transition period when serious fly fishers need to adapt their approach.
Ward, who operates in the premier East Tennessee tailwater system, breaks down current conditions on the Watauga River (low flows no recreational releases) and South Holston River (reliable generation), while detailing the shift to smaller fall patterns with bugs in the 16-22 range.
This episode delivers actionable techniques for fishing floating lines at distance, including Ward's proven lift-and-drop method that positions anglers for downstream hook sets and eliminates problematic line slack. Ward explains why downstream positioning is crucial when everything becomes "muted by fly line stretch and rod tip," especially during the pickier fall conditions.
Whether you're planning fall trips to the Watauga and South Holston systems or looking to refine your distance nymphing and dry fly techniques, this report provides the local intelligence and technical insights that separate successful anglers from the crowd.
To learn more about Ellis, check out our interview!
Related Content
S6, Ep 139 - Exploring East Tennessee's Changing Waters with Ellis Ward
S6, Ep 37 - Streamer Secrets and Dry Fly Dreams with East Tennessee's Ellis Ward
S6, Ep 128 - Catch Big Fish: Ellis Ward's Insider Tips for East Tennessee Anglers
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
It's Marvin Cash, the host ofThe Articulate Fly. And we're back
with another East Tennesseefishing report with the man himself,
Ellis Ward. Ellis, how are you?
Oh, feeling like the manhimself. How are you?
You know me, I'm just tryingto stay out of trouble. And, you
know, we've been kind oflucky. We had a little bit of a warm
up here in the mid Atlanticover the weekend, but we've kind
of knocking on wood like we'regetting really close to pumpkin spice
(00:27):
latte weather. It's kind ofcool and dry, really sunny, not a
lot of rain. What are youseeing on the water?
I mean, out outside of my ownPSLs. That's. That's an acronym for
pumpkin spice latte. For theuninitiated, it's. We're going. We're.
We're fully into. It's kind offelt this way for a little bit even
(00:50):
when it was hot, which justfeels like bad fishing. But into
the. The fall patterns ofsmaller bugs, you. You'll. You'll
hear and see some of thecaddis. I think that I and many others
want there to be a moreprominent October caddis hatch than.
(01:16):
Than there ever really is.But, you know, but then those are
16s, 18s so bugs are in the 16to 22. But this is the time of year
where I really start trailingmost dry flies with a 20 where that,
that initial. That front dryfly is almost the one that you're.
(01:39):
You're able to see in theback. One's real sparse and real
small and flows are. We're offthe recreational, you know, one to
six guaranteed releases on theWatauga. So the Wataga has been low.
South Holston's beengenerating pretty reliably and I'm
(02:04):
as I have in the last fewyears pushing more for mousing and.
And muskie. And that's mainlybecause I get, you know, we. There's
a good number of folks who arecoming somewhat consistently for
streamer fishing and I'm surewe'll have that again this year.
(02:27):
And I'm just kind of trying topush for continuing to expand horizons
and get the guys who have donethe streamer fishing thing and have
them experience other parts ofthis area and fly fishing and mouse
and muskie are both good, goodways to do that. It's nice though.
(02:52):
It's nice being out not eventerribly early and it's still chilly.
So the feels of pumpkin spicelattes and little bit in the back
of my head thinking thishappens every year. What am I thinking
(03:16):
with guiding for Muskie andyou know, I got some dates on the
books for postponed browns inJanuary and February and just those,
those long 40 degree days. Butevery year that you just, you acclimate.
So it feels chilling now. Butyou know, this is, this is a cool
(03:39):
time of year that I thinkshoulder seasons get a bad rap and
it's just stuff changes. Butyou get out and spend enough time
doing it, you're. It's, it'sjust as predictable as the rest.
Yeah. And you know, gun seasonwill be here before you know it and
you'll be have. You'll havegarbage bags of bucktails to process.
Right. Yes. Uh, that, that isa different sick conversation for
(04:09):
a different day. But I havealready been making calls and, and
organizing some things toexpand operations this year and I'm
excited about that. So that,that process started for me in August
(04:33):
and it was I think last yearmaybe this time late September, early
October. I'm just thinking,okay, right around the corner. And
this year we're, we'reshifting up and I still have a bunch
that are going to be goinginto shops. I know tying seasons.
Just say it, it takes a backseat for at least for the bucktail
(04:57):
stuff for July, August. But weare back in it and I'm excited for
it.
Yeah. Have you found adomestic borax source so you can
minimize the tariff hit?
That's a great question. No, Iwas planning on talking with the
(05:21):
guy down at the boat rampwho's always there around like one
or two in the morning and Ifeel like he could probably get me
something that'll work.
There you go. We'll leave thatone there. Random people that you
meet in the wee hours of themorning mousing in East Tennessee
at boat ramps.
But we do have, they have aborax hookup. I guarantee it.
(05:45):
I'm sure they do. I bet youthey can hook you up for a bunch
of other stuff too.
That's right.
I got a question for you fromAustin. And he to wants wanted to
get your thoughts on, youknow, tips for fishing floating lines
and in particular probably,you know, fishing them at distance.
Right. Which creates a, youknow, one, there's accuracy and then
there's like what on earth doyou do when you need to set the hook?
Right. Yeah. Yeah. There's.There's a couple things that you
(06:13):
just have to accept aboutthat. And one of them is that if
your angle is, is not right,such that when you set the hook you
are either coming slightly tothe side of Downstream or you are
(06:35):
coming downstream. It's, it'stough. Especially if you're fishing
under an indicator. It isreally hard when things are picky
because normally if you'refishing like that, it means things
are getting picky. It's, it'shard to keep fish penned if you don't
(06:58):
get that downstream set. AndI, I know that a lot of the times
when you and I talk,especially if I am all of a sudden
talking about sinking line andelliptical back casts in a streamer
cast versus X, Y and Z, it'sjust, it doesn't make a whole lot
(07:19):
of sense. So, so this is kindof going to Fly Fishing 101. Most
of the time when you'refishing current, you are, you are
fishing to a fish who isfacing upstream and they eat looking
(07:40):
forward or up. And when thathappens and you are upstream of them
and set with your rod comingbackwards or to the side in an upstream
direction, you're pulling inthe direction of the mouth opening
(08:02):
as opposed to, it's eatingupstream and you're maybe casting
from the side and you're ableto then set downstream. You're putting
it either into their cheek orinto the top of their jaw. When you're
fishing at a distance likethat, that's just so much more important
(08:26):
because everything becomesmuted, everything becomes elongated.
That set time, that little yousee the bioreactive tick down, tick,
snap, you give it that set.That snap is muted by the fly line
and it's muted by your rodtip. It's muted by the stretchiness
of your fly line. It's mutedby all of the S's that you have artfully
(08:52):
put into your fly line to geta drag free drift. And if, if all
of that combination ends witha set that not only is coming somewhat
upstream and that's, you know,angle of approach, but is also coming
(09:15):
lateral so in the direction ofthe surface of the water versus coming
up which would be, you know,into the fish's top jaw. You're,
you're just, you continue toset things up for failure and a way
to get around some of thisstuff. And, and I know I'm, I'm creating
(09:39):
a, an image and a problem sethere that might be tough to comprehend.
But a way to get around thisproblem is that instead of when you
cast, say you're fishing outto your right, you cast, you throw
(09:59):
some men's in, your water ismoving right to left, it's pulling
some, some of your line down,you're throwing more men's in all
Of a sudden, when you set, andeven if you set to the left there,
there's been so much movementin your line that you have to set
through like six or sevenfeet, maybe more just of those little
(10:24):
S's that you've thrown inuntil you actually get real tension
on that fly. And one thing Ilike to do with both nymphing and
dry flies is after you getthat cast out up to the right, lift
hard and fast up upstream. Soyou're not just lifting your rod
(10:48):
tip up, you are moving itupstream and you're lifting it up.
And that allows you to, afteryou get it all the way up, you drop
it and you let it drop as yourline moves downstream and you're
able to get a really, reallycontrolled dead drift and position
(11:11):
yourself as you're dropping,you're always positioned to, to get
that hook set downstream. Thiswas a somewhat specific question,
and I think a lot of peoplewho are in that situation might understand
what I'm saying. But I, Ireally would encourage people to,
(11:33):
if, if they're, if they can'tquite envision what I'm, I'm talking
about, reach out to me. I haveso many videos on this where I'm
not necessarily giving theinstruction, but the, the cast out,
let it land, lift all the wayup and then drop down with the current
(11:54):
instead of cast all the wayout and then throw a giant, somewhat
uncontrolled mend in that biglift up. You know, it skates the
fly. You can, in a reallycontrolled way, position your, your
indicator or nymph, rig,whatever it is, and then you can
get a really controlled driftdownstream. So it is very helpful
(12:18):
and I would encourage folks toreach out if what I'm saying sort
of makes sense. Doesn't makesense at all, or it does. And they
still have questions.
Yeah. And you also too, Iwould say, you know, like, one of
the things I talk with MacBrown is he's got a technique he
calls the vector pole, right?Which is a way not to pre, pre position
the line, but when you need torecover a lot of line quickly, that
(12:40):
allows you, when you kind ofdo the lift, to basically the way
you kind of pull back, you'repulling back kind of 2x the line,
right. So, you know, howeverlong your arm is, you're actually
getting, you know, a line legon the ride side and then away from
you as well. So you canrecover like 5 or 6ft of line to
get all those S's out. If youhaven't been able to set it up kind
of the way you talked about.
(13:02):
Yeah, I. I think one of the.I'll. I'll do it. Not that it makes
any sense at all, but I'll doa light plug for my ETSU fly fishing
course. One of the, the partsthat I, I try to impress upon everyone
because we're just, you know,we cast in the lawn for a little
(13:23):
while. It's. It's really just.We're focused on how to cast different
rods from a 5 weight to a 12weight. And then we go out and fish
however the students want tofish. And I think the most important
thing is, like, nothing thatwe do is going to translate. Nothing
(13:45):
that we do in practice isgoing to translate on. On the water
because things are moving.You're getting, you know, there's.
There's a tree there, there'swind, blah, blah. So learning those
things from Mac doing, youknow, learning all these little things
to. I'll call it play yourslice like you want. You want to
(14:06):
do as best as you can, butit's just, you're not going to every
time. So there's a lot oflittle tricks like that that are
really valuable to understandbecause just takes a junk cast and
turns it into something that'sactually really good and you have
control over versus the justguessing. Yeah.
(14:28):
And I'll raise you a plug. Thebest way to learn this, right. Is
to get in the boat.
Wow.
See, I raised you a plug. Sowe'll go from class plug to guideboat
plug and we'll leave. We won'teven remind people that they need
to send in questions to getswag and cool stuff in a drawing.
So, you know, why don't you.We were talking before we started
recording. You know, you're inthe transition season, so you've
got kind of ideal mousingconditions. You can transition to
(14:51):
muskie fishing. You know, ifyou want to. Really want to get out
there and be super proactiveon the plan front. You got post spawn,
January, February, streamerfishing. Why don't you let folks
know kind of what you haveavailable, how to reach out and all
that good stuff.
Yeah. Very happy and veryproud to say that a lot of, um, a
(15:15):
lot of chunks are gettingbooked up through September and October.
There are still some good daysleft. November, December. I'm. I
push almost everything tomuskie at that point. Trout's still
viable. It's just they startacting funky because they're doing
(15:39):
their business and we're notfishing over reds. So it's, it's
not a a total deal breaker.But I like muskie fishing and I want
to do it with people. So bestway to reach out and get your dates.
Ask about what days areavailable. Should we be stringer
(16:02):
fishing for trout? Should webe catching a bunch of muskies? Is
my Cell phone at 513-543-0019and website information pictures
all that bucktail flies, acouple Muskie Lures is ellisward
(16:24):
flies.com and I am onInstagram at Ellis Ward Guides.
Well, there you go. Wellfolks, as always, say yo to yourself
to get out there and catch afew. Tight lines everybody. Tight
lines.
Ellis Appreciate it Marv.
It's Marvin Cash, the host ofThe Articulate Fly. And we're back
with another East Tennesseefishing report with the man himself,
Ellis Ward. Ellis, how are you?
Oh, feeling like the manhimself. How are you?
You know me, I'm just tryingto stay out of trouble. And, you
know, we've been kind oflucky. We had a little bit of a warm
up here in the mid Atlanticover the weekend, but we've kind
of knocking on wood like we'regetting really close to pumpkin spice
(00:27):
latte weather. It's kind ofcool and dry, really sunny, not a
lot of rain. What are youseeing on the water?
I mean, out outside of my ownPSLs. That's. That's an acronym for
pumpkin spice latte. For theuninitiated, it's. We're going. We're.
We're fully into. It's kind offelt this way for a little bit even
(00:50):
when it was hot, which justfeels like bad fishing. But into
the. The fall patterns ofsmaller bugs, you. You'll. You'll
hear and see some of thecaddis. I think that I and many others
want there to be a moreprominent October caddis hatch than.
(01:16):
Than there ever really is.But, you know, but then those are
16s, 18s so bugs are in the 16to 22. But this is the time of year
where I really start trailingmost dry flies with a 20 where that,
that initial. That front dryfly is almost the one that you're.
(01:39):
You're able to see in theback. One's real sparse and real
small and flows are. We're offthe recreational, you know, one to
six guaranteed releases on theWatauga. So the Wataga has been low.
South Holston's beengenerating pretty reliably and I'm
(02:04):
as I have in the last fewyears pushing more for mousing and.
And muskie. And that's mainlybecause I get, you know, we. There's
a good number of folks who arecoming somewhat consistently for
streamer fishing and I'm surewe'll have that again this year.
(02:27):
And I'm just kind of trying topush for continuing to expand horizons
and get the guys who have donethe streamer fishing thing and have
them experience other parts ofthis area and fly fishing and mouse
and muskie are both good, goodways to do that. It's nice though.
(02:52):
It's nice being out not eventerribly early and it's still chilly.
So the feels of pumpkin spicelattes and little bit in the back
of my head thinking thishappens every year. What am I thinking
(03:16):
with guiding for Muskie andyou know, I got some dates on the
books for postponed browns inJanuary and February and just those,
those long 40 degree days. Butevery year that you just, you acclimate.
So it feels chilling now. Butyou know, this is, this is a cool
(03:39):
time of year that I thinkshoulder seasons get a bad rap and
it's just stuff changes. Butyou get out and spend enough time
doing it, you're. It's, it'sjust as predictable as the rest.
Yeah. And you know, gun seasonwill be here before you know it and
you'll be have. You'll havegarbage bags of bucktails to process.
Right. Yes. Uh, that, that isa different sick conversation for
(04:09):
a different day. But I havealready been making calls and, and
organizing some things toexpand operations this year and I'm
excited about that. So that,that process started for me in August
(04:33):
and it was I think last yearmaybe this time late September, early
October. I'm just thinking,okay, right around the corner. And
this year we're, we'reshifting up and I still have a bunch
that are going to be goinginto shops. I know tying seasons.
Just say it, it takes a backseat for at least for the bucktail
(04:57):
stuff for July, August. But weare back in it and I'm excited for
it.
Yeah. Have you found adomestic borax source so you can
minimize the tariff hit?
That's a great question. No, Iwas planning on talking with the
(05:21):
guy down at the boat rampwho's always there around like one
or two in the morning and Ifeel like he could probably get me
something that'll work.
There you go. We'll leave thatone there. Random people that you
meet in the wee hours of themorning mousing in East Tennessee
at boat ramps.
But we do have, they have aborax hookup. I guarantee it.
(05:45):
I'm sure they do. I bet youthey can hook you up for a bunch
of other stuff too.
That's right.
I got a question for you fromAustin. And he to wants wanted to
get your thoughts on, youknow, tips for fishing floating lines
and in particular probably,you know, fishing them at distance.
Right. Which creates a, youknow, one, there's accuracy and then
there's like what on earth doyou do when you need to set the hook?
Right. Yeah. Yeah. There's.There's a couple things that you
(06:13):
just have to accept aboutthat. And one of them is that if
your angle is, is not right,such that when you set the hook you
are either coming slightly tothe side of Downstream or you are
(06:35):
coming downstream. It's, it'stough. Especially if you're fishing
under an indicator. It isreally hard when things are picky
because normally if you'refishing like that, it means things
are getting picky. It's, it'shard to keep fish penned if you don't
(06:58):
get that downstream set. AndI, I know that a lot of the times
when you and I talk,especially if I am all of a sudden
talking about sinking line andelliptical back casts in a streamer
cast versus X, Y and Z, it'sjust, it doesn't make a whole lot
(07:19):
of sense. So, so this is kindof going to Fly Fishing 101. Most
of the time when you'refishing current, you are, you are
fishing to a fish who isfacing upstream and they eat looking
(07:40):
forward or up. And when thathappens and you are upstream of them
and set with your rod comingbackwards or to the side in an upstream
direction, you're pulling inthe direction of the mouth opening
(08:02):
as opposed to, it's eatingupstream and you're maybe casting
from the side and you're ableto then set downstream. You're putting
it either into their cheek orinto the top of their jaw. When you're
fishing at a distance likethat, that's just so much more important
(08:26):
because everything becomesmuted, everything becomes elongated.
That set time, that little yousee the bioreactive tick down, tick,
snap, you give it that set.That snap is muted by the fly line
and it's muted by your rodtip. It's muted by the stretchiness
of your fly line. It's mutedby all of the S's that you have artfully
(08:52):
put into your fly line to geta drag free drift. And if, if all
of that combination ends witha set that not only is coming somewhat
upstream and that's, you know,angle of approach, but is also coming
(09:15):
lateral so in the direction ofthe surface of the water versus coming
up which would be, you know,into the fish's top jaw. You're,
you're just, you continue toset things up for failure and a way
to get around some of thisstuff. And, and I know I'm, I'm creating
(09:39):
a, an image and a problem sethere that might be tough to comprehend.
But a way to get around thisproblem is that instead of when you
cast, say you're fishing outto your right, you cast, you throw
(09:59):
some men's in, your water ismoving right to left, it's pulling
some, some of your line down,you're throwing more men's in all
Of a sudden, when you set, andeven if you set to the left there,
there's been so much movementin your line that you have to set
through like six or sevenfeet, maybe more just of those little
(10:24):
S's that you've thrown inuntil you actually get real tension
on that fly. And one thing Ilike to do with both nymphing and
dry flies is after you getthat cast out up to the right, lift
hard and fast up upstream. Soyou're not just lifting your rod
(10:48):
tip up, you are moving itupstream and you're lifting it up.
And that allows you to, afteryou get it all the way up, you drop
it and you let it drop as yourline moves downstream and you're
able to get a really, reallycontrolled dead drift and position
(11:11):
yourself as you're dropping,you're always positioned to, to get
that hook set downstream. Thiswas a somewhat specific question,
and I think a lot of peoplewho are in that situation might understand
what I'm saying. But I, Ireally would encourage people to,
(11:33):
if, if they're, if they can'tquite envision what I'm, I'm talking
about, reach out to me. I haveso many videos on this where I'm
not necessarily giving theinstruction, but the, the cast out,
let it land, lift all the wayup and then drop down with the current
(11:54):
instead of cast all the wayout and then throw a giant, somewhat
uncontrolled mend in that biglift up. You know, it skates the
fly. You can, in a reallycontrolled way, position your, your
indicator or nymph, rig,whatever it is, and then you can
get a really controlled driftdownstream. So it is very helpful
(12:18):
and I would encourage folks toreach out if what I'm saying sort
of makes sense. Doesn't makesense at all, or it does. And they
still have questions.
Yeah. And you also too, Iwould say, you know, like, one of
the things I talk with MacBrown is he's got a technique he
calls the vector pole, right?Which is a way not to pre, pre position
the line, but when you need torecover a lot of line quickly, that
(12:40):
allows you, when you kind ofdo the lift, to basically the way
you kind of pull back, you'repulling back kind of 2x the line,
right. So, you know, howeverlong your arm is, you're actually
getting, you know, a line legon the ride side and then away from
you as well. So you canrecover like 5 or 6ft of line to
get all those S's out. If youhaven't been able to set it up kind
of the way you talked about.
(13:02):
Yeah, I. I think one of the.I'll. I'll do it. Not that it makes
any sense at all, but I'll doa light plug for my ETSU fly fishing
course. One of the, the partsthat I, I try to impress upon everyone
because we're just, you know,we cast in the lawn for a little
(13:23):
while. It's. It's really just.We're focused on how to cast different
rods from a 5 weight to a 12weight. And then we go out and fish
however the students want tofish. And I think the most important
thing is, like, nothing thatwe do is going to translate. Nothing
(13:45):
that we do in practice isgoing to translate on. On the water
because things are moving.You're getting, you know, there's.
There's a tree there, there'swind, blah, blah. So learning those
things from Mac doing, youknow, learning all these little things
to. I'll call it play yourslice like you want. You want to
(14:06):
do as best as you can, butit's just, you're not going to every
time. So there's a lot oflittle tricks like that that are
really valuable to understandbecause just takes a junk cast and
turns it into something that'sactually really good and you have
control over versus the justguessing. Yeah.
(14:28):
And I'll raise you a plug. Thebest way to learn this, right. Is
to get in the boat.
Wow.
See, I raised you a plug. Sowe'll go from class plug to guideboat
plug and we'll leave. We won'teven remind people that they need
to send in questions to getswag and cool stuff in a drawing.
So, you know, why don't you.We were talking before we started
recording. You know, you're inthe transition season, so you've
got kind of ideal mousingconditions. You can transition to
(14:51):
muskie fishing. You know, ifyou want to. Really want to get out
there and be super proactiveon the plan front. You got post spawn,
January, February, streamerfishing. Why don't you let folks
know kind of what you haveavailable, how to reach out and all
that good stuff.
Yeah. Very happy and veryproud to say that a lot of, um, a
(15:15):
lot of chunks are gettingbooked up through September and October.
There are still some good daysleft. November, December. I'm. I
push almost everything tomuskie at that point. Trout's still
viable. It's just they startacting funky because they're doing
(15:39):
their business and we're notfishing over reds. So it's, it's
not a a total deal breaker.But I like muskie fishing and I want
to do it with people. So bestway to reach out and get your dates.
Ask about what days areavailable. Should we be stringer
(16:02):
fishing for trout? Should webe catching a bunch of muskies? Is
my Cell phone at 513-543-0019and website information pictures
all that bucktail flies, acouple Muskie Lures is ellisward
(16:24):
flies.com and I am onInstagram at Ellis Ward Guides.
Well, there you go. Wellfolks, as always, say yo to yourself
to get out there and catch afew. Tight lines everybody. Tight
lines.
Ellis Appreciate it Marv.
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