AS A KID growing up in Athens, Alabama, Brandon Bailes used to spend a lot of time in his grandfather’s woodshop. His grandpa would cut a block of cedar for Bailes, then sketch something on it—the outline of a northern cardinal, for example—and hand it over to Bailes. “OK,” his grandpa would say. “Now that you’ve got an idea of what’s inside that block of wood, start carving and whittling away until it shows itself.”
Decades later, Bailes is still whittling away at what’s inside. Only these days, instead of blocks of wood, he’s working with fluff balls of deer hair spun onto fishing hooks. And instead of cardinals or other critters, what ultimately wind