Happy, Happy, Happy: My Life and Legacy as the Duck Commander

month, and rain fell for forty days and forty nights. The earth was flooded for one hundred and fifty days. As Genesis 7:23 tells us, “Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; people and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark.”
    When the floodwaters finally receded, Noah and his family left the ark. According to Genesis 9:1–3: “Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth. The fear and dread of you will fall on all the beasts of the earth, and on all the birds in the sky, on every creature that moves along the ground, and on all the fish in the sea; they are given into your hands. Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.”
    Now, I’m not a man of great intellectual depth, but it sounds to me like God Almighty has said we can pretty much rack and stack anything that swims, flies, or walks, which I consider orders from headquarters. I have permission from the Almighty to shoot whatever I want! Of course, I’ll follow whatever rule or regulation the government puts in place. My days as an outlaw have long been over.
    I really wonder if the U.S. government has any idea of the cost and work it takes to get ducks to fly to my land in the first place. At last count, we had fifty-four duck blinds on about eight hundred acres of our land. As Duck Commander grew and became more profitable through the years, Kay and I had a little bit of money to invest, and we decided to buy land. What I wanted was something I could feel, touch, and stand on—something tangible. When the stock market collapsed a few years ago, a lot of the young bucks came to me crying about all the money they lost on Wall Street. I never could figure it out. They said their money was in a brokerage account they could see on a computer, but then it was gone. Where did the money go? It didn’t disappear. Someone had to take it. Where is it? That’s why I invest in something tangible like land—no one can take it from me.
    Our first purchase was a plot of forty acres in the wetlands near our house. We bought it, then added more land through the years, until we accumulated what we have now. Mac Owen,a longtime hunting companion of mine, who appears in many of the Duckmen videos, also wanted to get in on the investments. Together Mac and I bought surrounding land as it came up for sale—usually forty acres at a time.
    Our investment has paid for itself many times over, primarily because the land we purchased was the most feasible and economical place for oil and gas companies to cross the Ouachita River with their pipelines. The fees we collected from the utility companies were more than triple what we paid for the land. I also bargained with the companies to ensure that the duck habitat would not be damaged. In the end, the pipelines were laid in a natural-looking curve. I think the plan may even have enhanced the area’s appeal to ducks because I mow the pipeline right-of-way regularly, eliminating brush and encouraging more grass to grow.
    We have planted, cultivated, and protected the grasses on our land primarily for ducks. Our wetlands are covered with native millets, sedges, and nut grass, as well as planted stands of Pennsylvania smartweed, American smartweed, and sprangletop, creating a mosaic of wild and cultivated plants. They are all prime foods for wildlife. The grasses are heavy producers of the seeds on which ducks thrive. Millet is one of the best foods available for ducks. In a good year, smartweed can produce more than five million seeds per acre. Ducks love them, and their craws are often found stuffed with the small black seeds. Sprangletop is anotherheavy seed producer; some of its seeds will remain edible for as long as seven years.
    That the grasses also sustain crawfish is a bonus. Everything eats crawfish at every stage of a crawfish’s life: fish, birds, raccoons, bullfrogs, snakes, turtles, large water beetles, and humans. Crawfish are a Louisiana delicacy, and we’ve harvested them to eat and sell. Crawfish are also an important ingredient in the swamp ecosystem, so I do everything I can to propagate them.

    Crawfish are an important ingredient in the swamp ecosystem, so I do everything I can to propagate them.

    Shortly after we bought the land in the