Letort Cricket

The Letort Cricket is a legendary terrestrial dry fly pattern created by Ed Shenk in the 1950s, a pioneering angler and fly tier from Pennsylvania's limestone-rich Letort Spring Run. Known for its finicky trout and challenging conditions. Letort demanded flies that could accurately imitate land-based insects like crickets and hoppers. Shenk, who worked alongside the likes of Vince Marinaro and Charlie Fox, developed the Letort series—Cricket, Hopper, and Ant—to fool the highly selective trout of these spring creeks.

Grease Selectively: Apply floatant only to the deer hair body and leave the tail and hook bend untreated. This causes the fly to sit lower in the surface film, mimicking a struggling or waterlogged cricket—a deadly trigger for wary fish.