Mark White Lures

KAUAʻI, HAWAII — ACTIVE YEARS ~2006 – PRESENT (R&D from ~2000)

Mark White Lures stand apart for one big reason: they're made of ceramic, not resin. A professional potter with a master's in ceramic arts, Mark White moved to Kauaʻi in 1978 and ran a pottery studio with his wife for decades — until his four-year-old son Jesse asked to learn to fish. That sent the two from bamboo poles and worms to whipping the Kauaʻi reefs, and got Mark wondering whether anyone had ever made surface plugs from the material he knew best.

He started experimenting around 2000 and, after roughly a decade of mixing ceramic batches, building molds, firing and testing, founded Mark White Lures around 2006 with a trio of shapes — slants, pushers, and bullets. Fired in a kiln and then painted, the high-tech ceramic heads proved nearly indestructible, a revelation to commercial fishermen tired of ono shredding their resin lures; the lures even carry a lifetime warranty against breakage. He had help and encouragement along the way from Kona commercial fisherman Abram Boido (his trolling-line advisor), writer Jim Rizzuto (who covered the lures in Hawaii Fishing News), and ceramic-lure forefather Peter Dunn-Rankin (inventor of the PILI and SuperLolo poppers), who became a mentor.

The line spans trolling heads, surface plugs and poppers, and ulua/papio casting bars, with the side-jetted "Smoker" — whose four side jets throw an unusually wide smoke trail — among the best known. Today the lures are largely handmade by Jesse White, the son whose simple question started it all, carrying the family's ceramic craft into a second generation.

Notable shapes: The side-jetted "Smoker" (7" & 9"); slants, pushers, bullets, inverts; surface plugs/poppers; ulua & papio casting bars; wood lures

Identification tips:

• Ceramic (kiln-fired) construction is the signature — distinct from the resin nearly everyone else uses, and famously durable
• "Mark White Lures"; one-of-a-kind handmade pieces; the four-side-jet "Smoker" is a recognizable head

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