Congrats Nebe [Archive] - Striper Talk Striped Bass Fishing, Surfcasting, Boating

RIROCKHOUND

06-25-2006, 11:02 AM

Wakefield man's striper lures are true works of art

01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, June 25, 2006

By TOM MEADE
Journal Sports Writer

SOUTH KINGSTOWN -- Eben Horton, a master glass blower, has turned his artist's eye toward creating fishing lures, and he's finding remarkable similarities between working with molten glass and melting plastic for his Surf Hogs.

There always has been a connection between his art and his sport.

"I don't go fishing to catch fish," he says. "I go out to think. I do a lot of glass conceptualizing while I'm fishing. That's what keeps me from getting bored."

Horton, 32, has been sailing and fishing since his family moved to Rhode Island when he was five. His grandfather took the boy to the Goat Island Causeway to fish for squid and "choggies," small fish generally regarded as a nuisance. When he was old enough to go to Ocean Drive on his own, Horton asked questions and learned to fish the surf.

"I got seriously into surf fishing before college," he remembers. "I caught some big bass, and I was hooked." He attended The School for American Crafts at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York.

"When I got back, I built an 18-foot kayak, and did really well at Seal Ledge and some of the reefs," he says. "When the kayak started leaking, I went back to fishing the surf."

Before his son was born two years ago, Horton fished every night of the striper season. Though he fishes less frequently now, he's out more than most people, fishing the waters from Brenton Point in Newport to Napatree Point in Westerly. "But," he adds, "80 percent of my fishing is between the Towers in Narragansett to the West Wall" in Jerusalem.

That stretch of shore is home water to Steve McKenna and Bill Nolan, two surf masters Horton came to know and admire. Nolan generally fishes with live eels as bait. McKenna fishes almost exclusively with the Slug-Go, a soft-plastic lure that swims like a live eel.

Horton had been making his own wooden plugs -- poppers, needlefish, and metal-lipped darters -- and was fishing them successfully.

Then, he remembers, McKenna told him, "Hey Kid, you're not going to catch fish on wood. You've got to use an eel or a Slug-Go."

"I started using a Slug-Go," Horton says, "and my catch rate doubled, thanks to Steve."

That's when his artist's eye kicked in.

"The creative builder in me started looking at the Slug-Go, dissecting it, looking at what makes it so good at catching fish," he says.

Horton began carving models for soft-plastic lures that would evolve into the Surf Hog, something that looks nothing like a Slug-Go. The Slug-Go is a smooth wedge that looks a little like a sailboat keel. The Surf Hog, in contrast, has a prominent, bulbous head with large eyes, and a creepy silhouette. Horton mixes menhaden oil into the plastic.

Wildwood Outfitters in Wakefield and The Saltwater Edge in Middletown started to sell the lure this spring. From the start, it has been catching fish, including a 32-pound striper in the Block Island surf.

Horton has been rigging the lure with two hooks, but, he says, "I recently found that you don't need the rear hook, because all the lures have been hit in the head." He speculates that predatory bass focus on their prey's eyes when they strike.

Horton recommends fishing the lure in a variety of ways, from a slow, jerky retrieve to rigging it with a jig head to fish on the bottom.

"Bass are drawn to a jerky retrieve, I think, because they think [the lure] is a squid."

Horton makes 8 1/2-inch Surf Hogs in black, pearl, eel green, white, chartreuse and bubblegum-pink. A longer version is in the works.

A night-time fisherman, his favorite lure color is black. "Black and night," he says, "is like beer and pretzels."

Blowing glass is still a priority, but Horton works on lures every day in his glass studio behind the Glass Station, his gallery.

"I come in in the morning and turn the [glass] equipment on. While it's heating up, I pour a couple of molds, and then I'm ready to make glass. It's like my morning meditation."

Horton melts glass at about 3,000 degrees for his art. He melts plastic at about 300 degrees for his fishing lures.

"They have a similar consistency when they're ready to work," he says.

Molding lures is like molding bronze, a skill he learned in art school.

"These are things I know how to do," he says. "I think I am destined to do this work."