WEST MONROE – If you’ve fished, you’ve used Jack Armstrong’s product. For a while, it’ll be a little harder to get it.

About 3 million crickets at Armstrong’s Cricket Farm perished Monday night in a fire in one of the buildings housing them.

Armstrong told the News-Star that their value was about $500,000.

He said the loss could have been worse and that the 3 million chirpers were but a small portion of the farm’s total population.

He said some of the crickets lost in the fire were scheduled to be shipped out Wednesday to PetSmart locations across the country, and the rest were intended to be sold as fish bait in early May.

By Jiminy, he said, “We may not have as many crickets as we usually have, but we’re doing everything we can to alleviate what we have lost,” he said.