Hareline Tomsu's Supreme Cricket Pronotum Cutter

What it is

Hareline Tomsu's Supreme Cricket Pronotum Cutter is a fly-tying tool made to cut a pronotum shape for a cricket imitation. It uses sharp, durable blades to make clean, consistent cuts, so you can turn out matching pieces from one fly to the next. It’s a bench tool that’s all about precision rather than freehand trimming.

What to tie with it

Use it to punch out the pronotum piece for a Mormon Cricket fly, then tie that cut piece in as the pronotum/wing-case area over the top of the body. Because it repeats the same shape every time, it’s handy when you’re batch-tying and want the profile to stay consistent.

Flies and the fish they're for

Mormon Cricket patterns are fished when big terrestrials are getting blown or dropped into the water, and they’re a staple for trout on Western rivers and spring creeks during those outbreaks. That same bulky cricket profile also gets eaten by opportunistic warmwater fish like smallmouth bass in rivers when the banks are loaded with hoppers and crickets. This cutter is specifically for building the pronotum on that Mormon Cricket imitation, keeping the silhouette uniform across a box of flies.