“ They ’ ll make your whole rod jump in your hands sometimes .”
— Wally Kilpatrick
“ I thought you said this wouldn ’ t work here …”
tanley Dunn could barely bring himself to look in the direction of the statement . To be fair , few anglers can when such a statement is directed toward them . There ’ s not much gray area in its implication : You were wrong .
Then again , as he reached into the net to pull out yet another quality bass for his fishing partner , Dunn shouldn ’ t have been surprised . A student shouldn ’ t tell a master like Wally Kilpatrick something won ’ t work . It rarely turns out well . And Kilpatrick truly is a master . That ’ s why Dunn called him in the first place . He wanted to learn how to fish hair in the winter .
The owner of Yank-Um Custom Tackle , Kilpatrick is one the best with the techniques his company has become best known for : floating flies , aspirin-head hair jigs and micro hair jigs . Every winter , anglers around lakes like Dale Hollow , Cumberland , Tims Ford , Center Hill and other clear-water fisheries in Tennessee and Kentucky
ELECTRONICS HAVE MADE finding schools of baitfish easier than ever , but even if you ’ re terrible with your electronics , Mother Nature has your back . “ I often look for where the loons are in a creek ,” says Kilpatrick . “ They ’ ll always give away where the shad are located .” Kilpatrick remembers the day he got clued in on them . He ’ d used his electronics to find the baitfish midway back in a creek in the morning , and he caught fish there before leaving to check another place . But when he came back , he idled all over the midsection of the creek but couldn ’ t find the baitfish . “ Then I noticed all the loons were near the mouth of the creek ,” Kilpatrick says . “ So I idled there , and that ’ s where the baitfish had moved .” Sometimes the more primitive methods can be best when contemporary techniques fail you . And sometimes straying from the beaten path – and turning to tiny hair offerings – is all you need to turn a bad day into a bonanza when the water gets cold and the bite gets tough . buy out stores of his diminutive jigs and flies .
So , seeing as Tims Ford is not all too far from Lake Chickamauga – where Kilpatrick calls home – Dunn assumed that ’ s where they ’ d go to learn the technique . Kilpatrick had other plans .
“ I said ‘ Let ’ s just do it here on Chick ’,” Kilpatrick says . “ He said ‘ There ’ s no way it ’ d work on a lake like that ’.”
With that , the lesson had begun , and a short time later they were launching in Soddy Creek . They never even got on pad , idling until Kilpatrick found what he wanted . Kilpatrick then made five casts , had five “ takedowns ” of his floating fly and landed four fish over 5 pounds . The “ you were wrong ” statement came shortly thereafter .
Then again , it ’ s a pretty good assumption most people would have been ( and continue to be ) wrong about the effectiveness of these offerings . Yet , as Kilpatrick showed Dunn and even anglers like Toyota Series pro Todd Hollowell , these lures will catch bass all through the winter months , often better than whatever you ’ re using on more lakes than you imagine .
DECEMBER-JANUARY 2022 | MAJORLEAGUEFISHING . COM 57