Using live bait caught from same body of water that it will be used in. Alternately, bait purchased from a local baitshop. (Never dump minnows or minnow bucket water into the lake or stream, never transfer fish from one water to another.)

safe Angling Practice #7:

Inherent in the use of live bait is the potential of transferring disease or bacteria from one body of water to another. While one body of water and it’s plants and animals, including fish, may have developed an immunity and ecological balance with a particular bacteria, virus, disease, parasite, or other organism, the transfer of those things along with baitfish foreign to another body of water could prove disastrous, throwing off the balance of it’s own particular ecosystem.

Even the baitfish or any other fish transported from one body of water to anotherbody of water can produce long-lasting, widespread and potentially negative effects, such as has been seen with Gobies, Grass and Asian Carp, and Zebra Mussels.