KONA, HAWAII — WRITING SINCE 1964 · LURE MAKER FROM THE EARLY 1960s · d. JULY 2, 2017

If this archive has a patron saint, it's Jim Rizzuto. For more than half a century he was Hawaii's foremost fishing writer and historian — the person who, more than anyone, documented and taught the Kona-style lure-making tradition this museum celebrates. A schoolteacher by training, he began writing about Hawaii fishing in 1964 and never stopped: thousands of articles, a weekly column in West Hawaii Today, a monthly in Hawaii Fishing News, and a 30-plus-year run as one of Marlin magazine's earliest freelance contributors, plus bylines in BlueWater, Field & Stream, Salt Water Sportsman, and more.

His books are the canon. Modern Hawaiian Gamefishing (University of Hawaii Press, 1977), the three-volume Fishing Hawaii Style series, the comprehensive Fishing Hawaii Offshore (1990, regarded as one of the most thorough works of its kind), and The Kona Fishing Chronicles captured the people and the catches — while his Lure-Making 101/102 and Lure-Making 201/202 remain among the finest instructional works ever written on designing, making, and fishing big-game trolling lures, an open homage to the artisans who carried lure-making into the modern age.

Rizzuto wasn't only an observer — he made lures himself. By his own account he was tinkering from boyhood: a photo from around 1945 shows a young Jim swiping hackle feathers and thread to tie wooly-bug flies for small fish. His interest in Kona-style skirted big-game lures came in the early 1950s, when they were still secret weapons known to only a handful of Hawaii experts, and he worked out how to build his own by the early 1960s. From there his creations included center-pull "Fat Boy" scoops, early plunger-style heads, wing-cut vinyl overskirts, and handmade poured-resin eyes, and he took deep joy in raising blue marlin to lures of his own resin and vinyl.

As a museum and archive, we honor the late Jim Rizzuto — writer, teacher, lure maker, and the great chronicler of Hawaii's lure-making tradition, without whom much of this history would be lost.

Notable works/shapes: Books — Modern Hawaiian Gamefishing, Fishing Hawaii Offshore, The Kona Fishing Chronicles, Lure-Making 101/102 and 201/202. Lures — center-pull "Fat Boy" scoops, early plungers, wing-cut vinyl overskirts, resin eyes

Identification tips:

• Primarily a writer/historian and personal lure maker — his own lures are scarce and were largely made for his own fishing
• His real "signature" is the documentation itself: if you want to identify or understand almost any Hawaiian maker, his books are the reference

Below, you’ll find our ever-growing digital archive showcasing every lure that has come through our shop. This collection is constantly evolving as new lures arrive, making it a living record of rare, limited-production lures. We will continue updating this database regularly, building what we aim to be the largest digital archive of offshore trolling lures in the world.

If you have any further information or any lures you believe deserve to be showcased, please reach out to us at ren@luremonger.com