Re-weighting Squirrely Burts

A couple of new Burts have arrived, thanks to Lure Lounge for super quick delivery. Two shiny new Musky Mania Squirrelly Burts. All my others are a mess with so many teeth marks. A super lure that bags me so many fish. But the thing with Burts is, not all Burts are the same. There are un weighted and weighted versions. These two are weighted. However, you usually need to tinker so that you can set them up to suit. That part is the fun part and also the most useful when you are on the bank. Because you can have four or five Burts that do different things. Now these two Burts I have already tested, bagged one fish, lost two and had a load of interested from fussy pike (coming up and rolling but not taking....aaaargh! lol). 

Both these Burts are shallow and didn't go down too far, may be two to three feet but that was hard work. The aim of a Burt for most people is to set them up so the tail is in the air and the nose is pointing down. On the down stroke of your rod, this will push the lure down in the water and you can work it to the required depth. With multiple Burts you can then add more or less weight so they sink, suspend or float on the pause. You can then have them set up to work varying situations you will encounter. I also keep one of these weighted Burts as is, so that it just works that 2-3 foot depth and this lure is perfect for shallow bays. Also don't forget the surface Burt, a slow retrieve of a Burt on the surface is a killer!

My two new Burts I wanted to add some weight to help set them nose down, arse up. One way is to drill the lure and pop some weight in, but I'm not going to cover that as I'm too impatient and I'm also usually pretty crap at things like this so I'd end up ruining a Burt. So the way I do it, and others, is to stick a bit of lead on. Simple as that.

The first thing you need to do is get some lead. Cut it up in to small random pieces and then it's trial and error to get the lure to do what you want. An easy way I find is to just tape a bit of lead to the nose of your lure and pop it in some water, luckily for me I have a garden pond so testing is easy. When adding some weight, you need to remember to add a wire trace and also consider that you will be using epoxy to fix the lead in place too. These two Burts are now ready to test.

In the water, these two are perfect for what I want. Nose down, tail up and floating. On the down stroke they will dive deeper, tap again and they go down again. On the pause they will slowly float to the surface. For me this is perfect for 6-8 feet deep water that could be snaggy. You can get it down but also know it will come back up out of harms way. The photo below shows how they sit in the water.

Final step is to mix up a bit of epoxy and stick the lead to your lure, remembering which bit of lead goes with which lure. You can see in the photo below, that mine aren't a work of art or anything. I'm not too fussed for a square lump on the front, pike aren't fussed either. However if you are bit more patient you can take time to shape the lead and round off the corners and even paint it up so that when finished it isn't such an eye sore. That's time on the bank though to me so I don't bother.

Final tips for Burt owners. They come with big hooks and seriously strong split rings. Designed for 50lb Musky so they need to be tough. If you fish places with no snags, that's not a problem. However if you fish snaggy rivers like me, then those strong hooks and strong split rings will have you losing a lure. So change the hooks to something like Eagle Claw 3/0. These will bend out of snags a little easier. You can also switch the split rings for some that bend out at 30 or 40lb.

Check the tail. Some of them I have bought in the past have not been fixed in and it will fall out after a fish or two. Epoxy is good for setting them firmly in place. These two from Lure Lounge seem fine. One last check, look for holes around the hook eyes. For some reason they aren't always covered and you end up with a lure that sinks fast when it fills with water so use that epoxy to fill the hole. Again, these two are spot on.

That's it, your Burts are now super fish catching lures. I know a few people who don't always get on with them and can't catch a pike. I promise you if you follow this guide your Burt will catch pike. That downward stroke followed by a pause, however long or short you want, will trigger a fish at some point.