Missile Baits' 4.5-inch Quiver

Upon viewing John Crews’ YouTube video about Missile Baits’ 4.5-inch Quiver, a member of the Finesse News Network suggested that we should publish a gear guide about it.

We exchanged several emails with Crews, who resides in Salem, Virginia, and is president of Missile Baits, and straightaway, he sent us a package of them.

When we examined and worked with them, here is what we discovered about the 4.5-inch Quiver.

Crews created it for neko riggings. Neko is the word for cat in Japanese. In the eyes of Japanese anglers, the neko rig traverses along the bottom of a waterway the way a cat often uses its paw to scratch the ground or a litter box. Crews also notes that it can be employed on a Tokyo rig.

In the eyes of some old-time Midwest finesse anglers, the 4.5 Quiver looks like a modern-day rendition of the Reaper from the 1960s. And instead of employing the Quiver on a neko rig or Tokyo rig, Midwest finesse anglers will opt to use it affixed to a mushroom-style jig and fish it the way the forefathers of Midwest finesse fishing employed a Reaper.

According to our measurements, the 4.5 Quiver is 4 5/8 inches long.

The tip of the anterior section is cylinder shaped with a diameter of five-sixteenths of an inch and a circumference of 1 1/16 inches. It is embellished with a slight indentation, which is where Midwest finesse anglers will insert the hook and bait keeper of a mushroom-shaped jig, and it also where John Crews and others will insert a neko sinker.

The first one-quarter of an inch of the Quiver’s anterior section has a smooth epidermis. And it has a width of about five-sixteenths of an inch and a circumference of 1 1/16 inches.

The next 2 9/16 inches of its torso, which includes the rest of its anterior section and a half of an inch of the beginning of its posterior section, is encircled with 46 small ribs.

At 1 ½ inches from the tip of the anterior section, the Quiver’s torso has a width of three-eighths of an inch with a circumference of 1 ¼ inches.

At the junction of the anterior and posterior sections, the width decreases to about one-quarter of an inch and a circumference of one inch.

Three and one-eighths inches of its anterior and posterior sections are cylinder shaped. The final 1 9/16 inches of its posterior section is flat, thin, and shaped somewhat like a lanceolate leaf. Near the junction of where the cylinder shape becomes flat and thin, the cylinder portion of the posterior section has a width of about three-sixteenths of an inch and a circumference of three-quarters of an inch.

Except for two numerals and five letters and eight minor ribs that are delicately embossed on the flat sides of this final segment of the posterior section, its epidermis is smooth. At its widest spot, the flat and thin portion of the posterior section has a width of seven-sixteenths of an inch. The width at the end of this portion is about one-eighth of an inch, and near the beginning of this portion, the width is about one-quarter of an inch. This flat and thin section has a thickness of about one-sixteenth of an inch.

It is available in the following hues: Baby Bass Tail, Bama Craw, Bluetonum Green Pumpkin Core, Fisholicious, Fried Melon, Goby Bite, Green Pumpkin, Green Pumpkin Flash, Hillbilly, Orange Green Pumpkin Core, PB&J, Redbug Candy, Sunfish IPA, Super Bug, Watermelon Candy Red, and Watermelon Red Core.

It is neutrally buoyant, which Crews says accentuates the quivering motif and its durability. It is impregnated with anise oil, and a crayfish oil is added to the exterior regions of the 4.5-inch Quiver before it is packaged. It is not impregnated with salt, which is a great virtue in the eyes of many Midwest finesse anglers.

A package of eight costs 3.99. Missile Baits also makes a 6.5-inch version of the Quiver. A package of six costs $3.99.

Endnotes

1. Here is a link to Missile Baits’ website: https://missilebaits.store/products/quiver-4-5quiver.
2. Here’s a link to a Missile Baits’ YouTube video featuring John Crews explaining the virtues of the 4.5-inch Quiver: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCqU3rpIbAE.
3. Here is a link to our Oct 29, 2011, Midwest Finesse column about the history of the neko rig: https://www.in-fisherman.com/editorial/the-neko-rig/156639. Nowadays, most anglers think that neko rigging is a tactic that was created in Japan. But we noted in this column that in the 1980s and occasionally thereafter, a few U.S. anglers inserted finishing nails into the heads of the anterior sections of plastic worms and affixed the worm on a hook wacky style. But back in those days, it never caught the fancy of the bass angling community, which was enchanted with power-fishing tactics. Eventually, the finesse-minded anglers in Japan reinvented it and called it the neko rig.
4. Here is a link to the Midwest Finesse gear guide about Missile Baits’ Ned Bomb: https://www.in-fisherman.com/editorial/missle-baits-ned-bomb/359207.
5. Here is a link to a Midwest Finesse gear guide about Missile Bait’s The 48 Worm: https://www.in-fisherman.com/editorial/missile-baits-the-48-worm/153430.
6. When Midwest finesse anglers rig the 4.5-inch Quiver on a mushroom-style jig with an exposed hook, they will present it to their black-bass quarries by employing all six of their standard retrieves. From our perspectives, this is a simpler and more effective way to use the 4.5-inch Quiver than using it on a neko rig or Tokyo rig. At times, they will rig it so that the flat and thin portion of the posterior section is horizonal, and this will accentuate its ability to glide. At other times, they will rig it so that the flat and thin portion of the posterior section is vertical, and this will allow it to replicate the swimming motif of a 4.5-inch fish. Here is the link to the Midwest Finesse column that explains how to execute those retrieves: https://www.in-fisherman.com/editorial/six-midwest-finesse-retrieves/153946.
7. Here is a link to a Midwest Finesse column about the precursor to the Tokyo rig, which was called the jika rig: https://www.in-fisherman.com/editorial/stacey-the-jika-rig-king/155234. 

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