When many anglers think of tungsten, their immediate thoughts turn to the super-heavy weights, those one ounce and over, and of course that’s one realm where they excel. The Reins punch shot in its heaviest versions is a perfect tool for those applications, but South Carolina pro Michael Murphy stresses that anglers need to look at the lighter models, too. He’s increasingly utilizing the 3/8 and ½ ounce Punch Shots as one of his primary jig substitutes.
“We’ve seen the evolution of jigs,” he said. “From the football head jig to the wobble head jig to the sliding football head. But now with the punch shot, I find that paired with a punch skirt it replaces a jig a lot of the time. With a ½ ounce punch shot, I can peg a Reins craw tube to it and skip it better than any jig.”
He said that’s the strong suit of the entire Reins lineup up, “making terminal tackle more user friendly.” Not only does this rig skip well, but it comes through heavy cover better than an open-hooked jig.
Increasingly he finds himself mining Lake Murray’s docks with this combination. He uses a 7’2” medium-heavy Denali Rod for the technique, although he noted that he’s tall, and shorter anglers might want to downsize their rod slightly. He said that 20 lb. fluorocarbon is his chosen line – it still skips well, it’s abrasion-resistant, and it holds up to the big bass that live in the deepest recesses of the dock’s lakes.
His favorite colors of Craw Tube are various shades of green pumpkin – the “plain” version, green pumpkin blue, and green pumpkin silver, which he said is especially effective in the spring. The tube doesn’t have a lot of action, which is what he wants for pre-spawn fish. He rigs it on a 4/0 Gamakatsu straight shank flipping hook, and pegs it with a generic bobber stop. As the year goes on, he’ll keep on skipping the Punch Shot, but he’ll add other lures – like the Reins Ring Craw and Ax Craw – that offer more action. This is a 12 month out of the year technique, and the more you employ it, the more tournaments you’ll win.
