No doubt about it, everyone loves stickers.

Not the thorny kind, but the round-, oval- or square-shaped stickers that get slapped on the back windows of cars and trucks across the land — or wherever a sticker can be stuck.

Outdoor types are crazy about stickers that promote their favorite activities, great trails to hike or bike or favorite state parks. Some only display letters to advertise far-flung places, such as OBX for the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Pickups and Jeeps sometimes have so many stickers you wonder how the driver sees out the back window.

Stickers promoting the outdoors can be picked up for a buck or two, sometimes free, at stores that sell outdoor gear. A favorite seen recently read, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you get rid of him for the weekend.”

State park visitor centers are fine places to stock up on stickers. The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission’s Springdale nature center just got in some swell new stickers promoting the state’s outdoors.

Other stickers have to be earned. One of the newest is the Game and Fish Grand Slam sticker awarded to anglers who catch a trout, bass, bream, catfish and crappie during 2023. Now there’s one sticker that’s fun to earn and a good reason to get out on the water! Be sure to snap a photo of each fish to include with the grand slam application at agfc.com/grandslam.

I’ve not seen a grand slam sticker yet, but I’m eagerly waiting for mine to come in the mail. I’d already caught trout, bass, bream and crappie this year. I still lacked a catfish, but managed to catch a channel catfish by accident a couple weeks ago while fishing for bass with a plastic worm at Beaver Lake.

There’s another sticker I’ve always envied. That’s a marathon sticker. You know, they show the number 26.2, the miles in running a marathon.

Lots of times I’ve been behind a car at a traffic light that sported a 26.2 sticker. I’ve thought, “I could put one of those on my car. I’ve run a marathon.” Not recently, but I ran one.

Back then you could get a Bill Clinton for President sticker, but not one that said 26.2. They just weren’t around yet.

There I was last April, shooting photos for the newspaper at the 2023 Hogeye Marathon in Springdale. A vendor at the start area had running memorabilia for sale, including 26.2 stickers. I forked over $2 and, decades after running a marathon, I had my sticker. For good measure I picked up a 13.1-mile half-marathon sticker because, back when I ran a couple of those, I was only half crazy.

Sticker envy struck one Sunday morning on a bike ride with our little Tour de Madison County cycling group. One of my riding pals spied the marathon sticker on my car’s rear window and asked where I got it. He, too, had run a marathon about the time Bill and Hillary were living on Pennsylvania Avenue. Later that day his lovely bride ordered my pal a marathon sticker online and gave it to him for his birthday.

My marathon sticker, and soon a grand slam sticker, will bring back memories of crossing a finish line and feeling a fish on a different line.

Flip Putthoff can be reached at fputthoff@nwaonline.com.