Some fish are raised so people can eat them. These fish are raised to go on the end of a fishing line. Baitfish are small live minnows, grown in ponds and sold to people heading out to fish — and USDA counts what the farms make selling them. Which state's fish farms sold the most? Tap the states most-to-least.
Tapping assigns 1→4 in order
Fishing means the sea. Florida! 🐾
2Answer
Among the states USDA prints a number for, the real order is…
Arkansas — $27,402,000 worth of baitfish in a single year, more than half of the whole country's total, and about 6.8× the next state on USDA's list. Arkansas touches no ocean. Its fish are not caught — they are grown in ponds dug into flat ground, and the Encyclopedia of Arkansas says the business settled there because of what the land gives: soils that hold water, enough water to fill the ponds, a favorable climate, and a way to ship. One more thing helped: the golden shiner, the minnow most of those ponds grow, was already living wild in an Arkansas bayou. And look who else Arkansas is: the state that grows the most rice in America. Flat ground that holds water instead of drinking it is exactly what a rice field needs too.
📚 BackgroundA baitfish farm grows a fish that nobody eats for dinner. The Encyclopedia of Arkansas defines baitfish as “small minnows used as fishing bait to catch predatory game fish such as crappie, catfish, walleye, and largemouth bass,” and feeder fish as “small fish sold as live food for fish and animals in aquariums and zoos.” They are grown in ponds dug into flat ground — usually five to twenty acres for golden shiners — and harvested by dropping sinking feed into one corner and throwing a fine-mesh net around the fish that come to eat. The reason this business settled where it did is the land itself: Arkansas became the center of baitfish production through “abundant land with water-holding soils, sufficient water, favorable climate, and transportation facilities.” It helped that the golden shiner “occurred naturally in the waters of Bayou Meto” and took well to pond life.(Encyclopedia of Arkansas (Central Arkansas Library System), “Baitfish Industry”)
Note: this is money from sales, not a count of fish, and it counts only fish raised on farms — minnows scooped out of a creek are not in this table. The Census of Aquaculture is taken once every five years. USDA NASS, 2023 Census of Aquaculture. Only 15 states have a printed number here. USDA withholds the figure for 15 more — Texas, California, Michigan, Missouri and Illinois among them — because too few farms are behind them to publish without revealing an individual farm, and 20 states are not in the table at all. Everything the withheld states could hold together is far smaller than Arkansas's figure, so first place is the national one; below first place this is the order among the states with a printed number.
USDA NASS Quick Stats: BAITFISH - SALES, MEASURED IN $, 2023 Census of Aquaculture, by state (2026-08-20) — Published values only (the committed raw file holds the API response verbatim). USDA printed a baitfish-sales figure for 15 states. Fifteen more — Texas, California, Michigan, Missouri and Illinois among them — are withheld because too few farms are behind them to print a number without giving those farms away, and the other 20 states are not in the table at all. Everything the withheld states could hold together is far smaller than Arkansas's figure, so Arkansas's first place is the national one — a check this site re-runs on every build. Below first place, this is the order among the states with a printed number.
↳ In Quick Stats, pick BAITFISH / BAITFISH - SALES, MEASURED IN $, Census year 2023, Total domain, and compare states.