The Murdoch Quill Minnow

Hello, today's featured vintage British lure is the quill minnow.

I must admit to knowing next to nothing about this generic type of lure, despite this they are one of my favourite antique fishing lures.


This lack of knowledge is my reasoning for encouraging response from more knowledgeable readers.

The lure pictured today was manufactured by a company called Murdochs. However, the basic type of lure was made by most tackle manufacturers, and in later posts I will feature some of those. Possibly by then I will be able to include more detailed information as well.


So today's post is relatively brief.


The quill minnow was, obviously, made from quill. I am not sure what kind of quill was generally used. The term quill I think includes the stiff spine of a birds feather, and also more unusual sources such as porcupine quills. I was always disbelieving when a lad, that there were sufficient porcupines worldwide to be able to supply the vast number of porcupine quill floats that had been popular in those, and the preceding decades.


The quill of the lure has been cut open at each end, to allow the wire hook trace to pass through. The quill itself is usually painted with a background colour (above was turquoise), and then a spine colour and belly colour possibly added. The paint job is usually finished off with a few stripes and patches, and a couple of painted eyes.

A set of fins is added to the front to allow the lure to spin, and generally you can get left or right hand spinning lures. If there is going to be a makers name anywhere it will be on the fins, or vanes as they are also called. There was no name on this minnow.

The above minnow is 2 1/4 inches long. They generally seem to come at lengths between about 1 inch and 3 inches. The number of treble hooks varies, I have seen between 1 and 3.

The lures are usually presented to the original buyer by being tied to a card. The card included basic details of the manufacturer, what the product is and the dimensions of the lure. My lure featured above came from a manufacturer called Murdochs, who were based in Redditch,Worcestershire. A number of tackle manufacturers were based in Redditch, the most famous being Allcocks.

Actually I don't live too far away from Redditch,about a 20 minute drive. One of my plans on a day off work, is to visit the town and have a look around to see if any tackle makers still exist. I then thought of visiting the library to see what locally published books on the town, and its businesses are available. You often get books written by local authors, often ex workers, that cover the history of local industries. Not sure what is in the local museum either.

How old are quill minnows? For the above minnow I don't know exactly, but I bought it at auction alongside some more lures that came from the 1930s. It is recorded that Hardy's quill minnows were on sale from the 1880s up to the 1960s. Which presumably showed that they worked!

OK folks, that's all for today. Probably back to Hardy's for the next antique fishing lure in a few days. Thanks for reading, bye.