In 2005, Kay and I sold majority interest of Duck Commander to Korie and Willie, and Willie became the company’s CEO. I have to admit he took Duck Commander way past anything I could have done with it. They purchased a thirty-thousand-square-foot warehouse in West Monroe, which was previously the storage space of Howard Books, which Korie’s family also owned. They moved Duck Commander’s operations from my house to the warehouse. They also simplified and computerized the company’s bookkeeping and accounting, which Kay had handled for years, and made it more efficient.
Willie also gets credit for making flowing, untrimmed beards the standard appearance for Duck Commander employees. In a lot of ways, he became the new face of the company. I couldn’t be prouder of him. He’s taken the company where I never thought it could go. He’s a great businessman, and he’s a heck of a hard worker. He’s a visionary, and he had a vision for what Duck Commander could be. I call him Donald Trump II because he’s a dealmaker and knows how to network in the hunting industry.
With Willie in charge, it was easy for me to walk away from Duck Commander. When Willie and Korie took over the company, I told them, “Y’all take care of the company and send me my check every month. As long as the checks keep coming, I’ll know y’all are doing well. I’ll stay in the woods, and as long as a check comes in the mailbox every month, you won’t hear anything from me.” I don’t go to the Duck Commander warehouse very much anymore. I’m not often up there sticking my nose into their business. A lot of old guys who start businesses and then turn them over to their children want to hang around and can’t let them go. Not me. When I told them to take it over and run with it, I meant it and have left them alone.
Willie also gets credit for making flowing, untrimmed beards the standard appearance for Duck Commander employees.
The thing that has probably pleased me the most about Duck Commander since Willie took over is that it’s still a family business, just like when I started the company. Heck, you basically have to have Robertson blood in your veins to get a job there! Jase, Jep, Willie, and Si are still very involved in the day-to-day operations of Duck Commander, and now Alan is back in the fold, too. Now all of my boys have come home to where it started.
Through all of our trials and tribulations, Kay and I have realized that raising a family is about love and forgiveness. Our boys weren’t perfect growing up, but they always had an anchor—our faith in Jesus Christ—and that helped us get through our struggles. As it says in Proverbs 22:6 (KJV): “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old he will not depart from it.” My boys might have strayed from God’s path for them at times, but they always had their faith to fall back on. If you don’t have faith, there’s nowhere to turn. My boys always knew where to go when they ran into trouble.
RIVER RATS
Rule No. 13 for Living Happy, Happy, Happy
Share God’s Word (It’s What He Asks of You)
For the first twenty-eight years of my life, I didn’t know the gospel and I didn’t know Jesus Christ. Now I’m trying to make up for lost time. Jesus said all the authority was given to Him, and He told us to go preach the gospel and make disciples of all the people we baptize. Basically, Jesus is telling me to go forward and share with people what I didn’t know until I was saved. So I’ve been sharing everything I’ve learned since I was converted. Nowadays, I get asked to speak to churches, colleges, hunting clubs, and other groups around the country. The Almighty has put me on the road, but some of my best work still occurs on the Ouachita River right in front of our house.
When I was still a commercial fisherman, I sometimes had over one hundred hoop nets and trotlines stretching all the way across the Ouachita River. But these pirates on the river kept stealing my fish. Now, people have been shot in Louisiana for taking fish out of someone else’s nets or off their trotlines—which might make sense when you realize someone’s livelihood is being stolen.
When I saw people stealing my fish, I’d run them down with my shotgun and scare the daylights out of them. It didn’t do much good, though, and they kept stealing from me. But I kept scaring them, and I was making enemies up and down the river. People were probably saying, “That ol’ sucker down there is about as mean as a junkyard dog.”
I kept reading and studying my Bible, while the stealing continued unabated. I read Romans 12:17–21, where it says:
Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary:
“If your enemy is hungry; feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”
Do not be overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good.
I read the verse and sat there thinking, There ain’t no way that’s going to work. No way! Be good to them. But, Lord, they’re stealing from me! But then I had a revelation: Hey, wait a minute! I’ve never tried that. I keep running them off with a shotgun.
It honestly made no sense to me, but I was going to try the Lord’s way. So I decided the next time I saw someone lifting one of my nets, I would initiate the biblical way of dealing with them. I was going to be good to them. Sure enough, I walked out one day and heard a motor running. I looked and saw some guys pulling up one of my nets. I stood there and watched them for a few minutes. My boat was parked right on the riverbank, and I took off running and jumped in it. I had my shotgun with me. I was going to try God’s way, but my faith was still a little weak, so I had my shotgun as insurance! I was going to try to be good to them, but if they wanted to get mean, I was going to have to survive.
It honestly made no sense to me, but I was going to try the Lord’s way.
So I ran out on the river, and these guys were still coming up with my nets. I cruised right up on ’em. They saw me coming, dropped the net, and threw the float back into the water—and started fishing.
“Hey! What are y’all doing?” I shouted.
“We’re just trying to catch a few fish,” one of them told me.
“What were you doing with that net in your hand?” I asked him.
“Well, you know,” he said as he started to stutter and mumble. “What is that? Is that what that is?”
“Is that what that is?” I repeated. “Y’all know what’s on the other end of that float!”
Then I changed my tactics. In a cheerful and exuberant voice, I shouted, “Good times have come your way!”
They looked at me, wondering exactly what I was up to. I still had my hand on my Browning A5 shotgun.
“What?” one of them asked.
“Good times have come your way,” I said again. “I’m going to give ’em to you. You were going to steal my fish. Evidently, you’ve planned a fish fry, but y’all aren’t catching any. But you want a fish fry. Since you didn’t catch ’em, you’re going to steal ’em. Well, here’s the good news: I’m going to give you what you were trying to steal—free of charge.”
“Nah, we were just going to—” one of them started to say, but I cut him off.
“Nope, you want a fish fry,” I said. “We’re going to have us a fish fry. How many people you got coming?”
I reached over and grabbed the rope on the net and told them to keep their boat right there. “Let’s see what y’all were fixing to catch,” I said.
I raised my net up and looked in it.
“Whoo! Y’all would have done pretty good,” I said.
By then I’m sure they figured I was certifiably nuts.
“I’ve got a lot of fish in here,” I said. “Get your boat over here.”
They started paddling and were watching me, probably to make sure I wasn’t going to shoot them. I dumped the fish from my net into my boat and told them to bring their boat closer. I began throwing even more fish
into their boat.
“What about this big white perch here?” I asked them. “I’m probably supposed to throw him back. What do y’all think?”
“Nah, we’ll keep ’im,” one of them said.
The fish kept hitting the bottom of the men’s boat, and they kept watching me throw them over. Finally one of them protested mildly, saying, “I think that’s probably enough.”
“Look, you start frying fish, and kinfolk will start showing up who haven’t been around in months,” I told them. “Let’s make sure you have enough.”
So I threw all of my fish into their boat.
“Now! Y’all got plenty,” I said.
“Yes, sir, that’s plenty,” one of them replied.
“Now, here’s the deal,” I told them. “Why steal something if you can get it for free?”
“Man, look, we’re sorry,” one of them said.
“I understand,” I said. “Look, I live right over there. From now on, just come up there if you aren’t catching anything. I’ll give y’all the fish. That way, you won’t have to steal. You’ll get your fish. You’re happy. Everybody’s happy, happy, happy.”
I let the net back down into the river and said, “Good to see y’all.”
The men pulled away in their boat and started motoring down the river. They had plenty of fish. They were looking back at me, probably thinking, Is this guy for real? Maybe they remembered I had a shotgun and were about half-scared, but I never saw them again.
After that episode, everyone quit stealing from me. Every time I saw someone eyeing my nets, I’d offer ’em free fish. I was giving away less fish than what was previously being stolen from me.
I reread the texts from Romans 12 and thought, You know what? I get it. What the Almighty is saying is that no matter how sorry and low-down somebody might be, everybody’s worth something. But you’re never going to turn them if you’re as evil as they are. If you’re good to them, you might appeal to their conscience—if they have any conscience. Now, there are some people who might be so mean you probably can’t be good to them. But most people are perplexed after someone is good to them when he should have been mean. Most of the time, they end up giving up their evil ways.
The Almighty was right—as He always is. The incident on the river had a profound impact on me. From that point forward, I wanted to help others, whether it was by sharing the gospel and baptizing them, giving them fish, or assisting them in any way possible. Over the past twenty years, my sons and I have literally led thousands of people to Jesus Christ. Alan, Jase, and Willie are ordained ministers and attended seminary at White’s Ferry Road Church. Often, after one of us speaks at a church or somewhere else, as many as one hundred people will come forward, expressing their desires to become Christians. Many visitors to my house walk down the hill with us to be baptized at the boat launch—sometimes even at night, with car headlights illuminating the scene.
What the Almighty is saying is that no matter how sorry and low-down somebody might be, everybody’s worth something.
One of the first opportunities I had to speak to a large crowd was at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans in the early 1990s. I was invited to speak and demonstrate duck calls during a hunting and fishing show. I had a crowd of about one thousand people listening to me, and I blew my calls and gave them some hunting tips. Then I reached into my bag and pulled out a Bible. I told them, “Folks, while I’m here, I think I’m gonna preach you a little sermon.” I thought I owed it to them to share the gospel.
“I’m standing under a sign that says, ‘Budweiser is the king of beers,’ and everybody’s got their beers here today,” I told them. “But I’m here to talk about the King of Kings. I know I might look like a preacher, but I’m not. Here’s how you can tell whether someone’s a preacher or not: if he gets up and says some words and passes a hat for you to put money in, that’s a preacher. This is free. This is free of charge, which proves I’m not a preacher.”
I preached for about forty-five minutes, and afterward several men came up and thanked me for sharing my story. A few of them even invited me to preach at their churches, so that’s kind of how my road show started. I like to think of myself as a guerilla fighter for Jesus. Because of the success of Duck Dynasty, I’m getting more opportunities to speak to larger audiences now. But I don’t care if I’m talking to one person or one thousand; if I can help save one lost soul and bring him back to Jesus, it’s well worth it to me.
The good Lord leads us to lost souls in many different ways. We meet some of them at our speaking engagements, others at church, and some simply stop by the house. I’ll never forget the time when someone called my house to order duck calls, back when Duck Commander was still being run out of our living room. The man kept using the Lord’s name in vain during his conversation with me.
“Let me ask you something,” I told him. “Why would you keep cursing the only one who can save you from death?”
There was silence on the other end.
“You got my order?” the man asked.
“Yeah, I got your order,” I told him.
Click. He hung up the phone. A few minutes later, the phone rang again.
“Mr. Robertson, I’ve never thought about what you said,” the guy told me.
“Well, you ought to,” I told him. “Let me ask you something: Where are you from?”
“Alabama,” he said.
“You’re about ten hours away,” I said. “You ought to load up and head this way. I’ll tell you a story about the one you’ve been cursing.”
About a week later, there was a knock on the front door. This young buck stepped in the house and asked, “You know who I am?”
“I don’t reckon I do,” I told him.
“I’m that fella from Alabama who was cursing God,” he said.
The man had a buddy with him, and I told them the story of Jesus Christ. By the time I was finished, they were on the floor crying like babies. I took them down to the river and baptized both of them that night.
I remember another time when I gave a duck-call demonstration at a sporting goods store. True to my homage to the Almighty, I blew on some duck calls and then preached from the Bible. When I was finished, I concluded with what I always tell my audience: “Where else can you go on a Friday evening in America and get first-rate duck-call instruction and a gospel sermon at the same time?”
Well, about five years later, a guy who was there wrote me a four-page letter. He said he went to the sporting goods store to listen to a duck-call guru because he wanted to become a better duck hunter. However, he wasn’t prepared to listen to what I had to say about the Bible, about how we’re all sinners and we’re all going to die. He thought I’d taken advantage of him. When the man went home, he burned every one of my duck calls and for the next several years told anyone who would listen to him that I was the sorriest, most low-down man he’d ever met.
He shared that story on the first two pages of the letter he sent me, but I didn’t hold it against him and kept on reading. On the third page, he told me he woke up one morning and realized he couldn’t get what he’d heard out of his mind. He couldn’t forget me telling him that God loved him, his sins had been paid for, and that he could be raised from the dead. After a couple of years of romping on me so badly, he asked himself why he was so mad at someone who loved him enough to tell him that story. So he picked up a Bible and started reading it himself. It confirmed everything I’d told him. He told me his wife was thrilled, his kids were happy, and they were a much closer family now. He felt guilty because he thought I knew he’d been poor-mouthing me, which, of course, I didn’t, and wanted to apologize for being an idiot.
Here’s the point of his letter: if you really love someone and want to tell them about what God’s done for us, there’s no way to escape without being persecuted. I usually tell anyone I talk to that I’m going to share the gospel because I love them. I tell them it’s not contingent on how they feel about me. If they hate me,
I’m not going to hold it against them. If they don’t like me, they can walk away. But I have to love my enemies. If anyone has a better explanation as to how I can be resurrected, I’m open to listening to new ideas. I’m all ears when it comes to an alternative, but I’ve never found another way in which I’m going to make it out of here alive. I don’t know any other way, so I’m sticking with what I know to be the gospel.
I’m all ears when it comes to an alternative, but I’ve never found another way in which I’m going to make it out of here alive.
The man who wrote me the letter was baptized and saved, but he went down kicking and screaming. Most of the other people we’ve converted over the years have accepted Jesus Christ as their savior more willingly. For about twenty years, we had Bible study at our house on a weekday night and house church on Sunday nights. One time, Jep and his best friend, Trey Fisher, brought eighteen teenagers to the house, and we baptized every one of them that night in the river.
We were never really sure what we’d find on the riverbank when we walked down for a baptism. One night, we took about twenty people down to the river to take their confessions and baptize them. About the time we were ready to walk into the water, a couple of rednecks pulled up in their boat. It was obvious they’d had a couple of beers to drink.
“What the hell is going on around here?” one of them yelled.
“I’ll tell you what,” I said. “We just preached the gospel to these people, and we’re gonna baptize ’em right here. You all want in on the action?”
I ain’t never seen a motor crank up that fast and leave!
Our dogs always seemed to follow the crowd to the river for baptisms. I was baptizing a young man one time, and just as soon as I pulled him out of the water, the dogs started fighting for some reason. Without skipping a beat, I told the young man he must have had an evil spirit in him, which God had miraculously transferred to the dogs! There were about ten dogs squealing and barking, and I told him the dogs were going to fight the demon out of them! The funny part is everyone on the riverbank thought I was telling the truth!
Happy, Happy, Happy: My Life and Legacy as the Duck Commander Page 14
