i was reading an article from a fishing magazine this month that i thought was interesting so i thought i would share it. it was a study on plastic bates that came out of a small college in Maine. and it said if you use the older style type plastic bates and it breaks off and the fish swallows it. the fish can die because the older plastic bates are non-biodegradeable. you now can buy biodegradeable plastics but you have to look for them because there hard to find right now.