CLAIM YOUR FREE STICKER
United States residents only
Fill out this form to receive your free bumper sticker - anywhere in the United States.
If you live in Colorado, you’ll also have an opportunity to send a message to the Colorado Parks and Wildlife commissioners showing your support for a safer, local bait supply. This is optional, and you’ll receive your free sticker either way - but contacting the commissioners shows that anglers in Colorado care about preserving local fishing for the next generation.
The best way to keep our lakes and rivers healthy for the next generation is to
buy local and stay local.
Show your pride for your home waters and spread the word.
We’re giving away free "Local bait keeps fishing great" stickers to anglers across the country.
Preserve native fish populations.
Protect local lakes and rivers from invasive hitchhikers.
Support local shops and healthy fishing.
YOUR FISHING HOLE IS UNDER THREAT.
Every year, over a billion live baitfish are trucked and flown across state lines from a handful of industrial megafarms¹. They're cheap to ship. They're profitable to sell. And they're putting your favorite waters at serious risk.
What the industry doesn’t advertise:
Long-distance bait shipments routinely carry invasive fish species, parasites, and viruses - hidden inside bait that arrives with a "certified" label².
This isn't speculation. Peer-reviewed science has found silver carp, bighead carp, invasive crayfish, and dangerous pathogens mixed into certified shipments³. The Asian fish tapeworm was first documented in Arkansas baitfish supplies in 1993. By 2008, it had traveled via long-distance bait to Lake Huron - where it now permanently threatens Michigan's walleye fishery⁴. That fishery will never fully recover.
The safeguards meant to stop this?
Today's screening programs test for only 13% of known high-risk pathogens and invasive species. On some farms, these programs sample just one fish for every eight football fields of pond water⁵. Once an invasive species enters a watershed, no screening program on earth can remove it.
Who pays the bill?
Meanwhile, the average cost of a single aquatic invasion runs $7.4 million to address - a bill paid by local governments, local taxpayers, and local anglers⁶. Not by the out-of-state corporations that shipped the bait and took the profit.
You're being asked to carry all the risk so they can keep all the margin.
THREE STATES ALREADY FIXED THIS. YOURS CAN TOO.
Three states made a straightforward decision: source bait locally (Maine, Minnesota, and Montana)⁷.
The result is a supply that's safer by design — not by testing, not by paperwork, but because baitfish raised right here in your state simply cannot carry invasive species from a farm a thousand miles away. That's a guarantee no screening program can match.
The change is already working. And the benefits stack up fast:
✅ Cleaner water. Local bait eliminates the highest-risk pathway for invasive species - at the source⁸.
✅ Stronger communities. Your bait dollars stay here, supporting local family farms and local jobs.
✅ Better fishing. The waters you love today stay fishable for the next generation.
You don't have to wait for a policy fix to make a difference. Anglers who talk - at the dock, in the forum, at the tackle shop - are the ones who change what's considered normal.
Grab your free sticker, share your support, and join the anglers who are choosing to protect what they love.
The fishing hole you grew up on is worth fighting for.
Peer-reviewed sources
We believe in verifiable, peer-reviewed science. Sources for all key claims above can be verified in the following scientific publications and government reports.
1. United States Department of Agriculture. 2022 Census of Agriculture: 2023 Census of Aquaculture. (2024).
DeRooy, V. & Hansen, A. Live fish highway: Uncovering the pathways that move millions of minnows across the United States. PLoS One21, e0347150 (2026).
2. Gunderson, J. Minnow Importation Risk Report: Assessing the Risk of Importing Golden Shiners into Minnesota from Arkansas. (2018).
Agency of Natural Resources. VT Fish & Wildlife Responds to Baitfish Violation. State of Vermonthttps://web.archive.org/web/20250408201706/https://anr.vermont.gov/node/1081 (2018).
3. Mulligan, H., Schall, B. J., Davis, T. & Coulter, A. A. Opportunities for regional collaboration and prevention: Assessing the risk of the live bait trade as a pathway of invasive species. Biol. Conserv.287, (2023).
McEachran, M. C., Mor, S. K. & Phelps, N. B. D. Detection of pathogens and non-target species in the baitfish supply chain. Management of Biological Invasions12, 363–377 (2021).
Snyder, M. R. et al. Detecting aquatic invasive species in bait and pond stores with targeted environmental (e)DNA high-throughput sequencing metabarcode assays: Angler, retailer, and manager implications. Biol. Conserv.245, (2020).
Stepien, C. A., Snyder, M. R. & Elz, A. E. Invasion genetics of the silver carp Hypophthalmichthys molitrix across North America: Differentiation of fronts, introgression, and eDNA metabarcode detection. PLoS One14, e0203012 (2019).
Boonthai, T. et al. Retail baitfish in Michigan harbor serious fish viral pathogens. J. Aquat. Anim. Health30, 253–263 (2018).
Mahon, A. R., Horton, D. J., Learman, D. R., Nathan, L. R. & Jerde, C. L. Investigating diversity of pathogenic microbes in commercial bait trade water. PeerJ6, e5468 (2018).
Boonthai, T. et al. The Asian fish tapeworm Schyzocotyle acheilognathi is widespread in baitfish retail stores in Michigan, USA. Parasit. Vectors10, 618 (2017).
Nathan, L. R., Jerde, C. L., Budny, M. L. & Mahon, A. R. The use of environmental DNA in invasive species surveillance of the Great Lakes commercial bait trade. Conserv. Biol.29, 430–439 (2015).
Mahon, A. R., Nathan, L. R. & Jerde, C. L. Meta-genomic surveillance of invasive species in the bait trade. Conserv. Genet. Resour.6, 563–567 (2014).
McCann, R. L. Viral survey of fathead minnows, golden shiners, and white suckers form baitfish dealers in Wisconsin. (University of Winsconsin-La Crosse, 2012).
DiStefano, R. J., Litvan, M. E. & Horner, P. T. The bait industry as a potential vector for alien crayfish introductions: Problem recognition by fisheries agencies and a Missouri evaluation. Fisheries34, 586–597 (2009).
4. Boonthai, T. et al. The Asian fish tapeworm Schyzocotyle acheilognathi is widespread in baitfish retail stores in Michigan, USA. Parasit. Vectors10, 618 (2017).
Marcogliese, D. First report of the Asian fish tapeworm in the great lakes. Journal of Great Lakes Research34, 566–569 (2008).
Heckmann, R., Greger, P. & Furtek, R. The Asian fish tapeworm, Bothriocephalus acheilognathi in fishes from Nevada. Journal of the Helminthological Society of Washington60, 127–128 (1993).
5. Arkansas screens for 4 diseases vs. 32 "severe" pathogens in the industry-standard publication used for biosurveillance, the AFS Blue Book (13%); 13 invasive species vs. 98 "high risk" AIS in the US (13%).
AFS-FHS (American Fisheries Society-Fish Health Section). FHS Blue Book: Suggested Procedures for the Detection and Identification of Certain Finfish and Shellfish Pathogens. (2014).
Dean, E. M. et al. America’s Most Wanted Fishes: cataloging risk assessments to prioritize invasive species for management action. Management of Biological Invasions15, 1–20 (2024).
Arkansas regulations (2 CAR § 24-110) require only 300 fish tested per farm per year. One major Arkansas operation farms 3,400 acres of pond water. 300 fish ÷ 3,400 acres = 1 fish per 11.3 acres, equivalent to approximately 8 football fields. 300 fish represents 0.00002% of the 1.3 billion fish farmed annually by that same operation — equivalent, as the authors put it, to testing all passengers on a single New York subway car and declaring the entire Western Hemisphere disease-free.
6. Diagne, C. et al. InvaCost, a public database of the economic costs of biological invasions worldwide. Sci Data7, 277 (2020).
Crystal-Ornelas, R. et al. Economic costs of biological invasions within North America. Ned. Boekengids67, 485–510 (2021).
7. DeRooy, V. & Hansen, A. Mapping the landscape of live baitfish regulations for aquatic invasive species prevention in the United States. EcoEvoRxivhttps://ecoevorxiv.org/repository/view/10167/ (2025).
Kerr, S. J. The Management of Bait in Ontario: A Review. https://dr6j45jk9xcmk.cloudfront.net/documents/2547/stdprod-098927.pdf (2012).
8. Gallardo, B., Clavero, M., Sánchez, M. I. & Vilà, M. Global ecological impacts of invasive species in aquatic ecosystems. Glob. Chang. Biol.22, 151–163 (01/2016).
Nagy, R., Fusaro, A., Conard, W. & Morningstar, C. Procambarus clarkii (Girard, 1852). U.S. Geological Survey, Nonindigenous Aquatic Species Databasehttps://web.archive.org/web/20250911072224/https://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/factsheet.aspx?SpeciesID=217 (2025).
Gunderson, J. Minnow Importation Risk Report: Assessing the Risk of Importing Golden Shiners into Minnesota from Arkansas. (2018).