Jase Robertson Quotes

God uses flawed sons and daughters to make the all-perfect Christ known, and if He can use me, He can use anyone.

As Psalm 136:5--9 tell us, creation was God's power expressed in love. By reading and understanding the Bible as a series of love letters to men and women, you begin to recognize the tender and mighty love of God. The Bible is not a rule book for life or a collection of fairy tales; it's a weapon of mass instruction. It's a love letter from God to humanity. It's an introduction to Jesus Christ, who is God in human form. It declares to the world: God is for you, not against you. To me, the Bible is a work of nonfiction broken into three parts: from Genesis to Malachi, it's about Jesus Christ coming to earth; from Matthew to John, it's about Jesus' life on earth; and from Acts to Revelation, it's about Jesus coming back to earth. It's all about Jesus and how we can have a relationship with the omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, eternal, holy, and righteous Almighty. This relationship is more important than simply joining a church or doing a few good things.

I thought Clint Eastwood was cool in all the western movies, but I'm not gonna drive somewhere he's at and stand in line to see him. I told Missy, my wife, 'The only person I'd stand in line for is God Almighty. You made the universe? All right, I'll get in line!'

Most things can be fixed with duct tape and extension cords.

Reed was involved in some of our most famous duck hunts; he even has a blind named after him. It's called the Reed Robertson Hole. One year, we were having a really bad duck season. It was hot and there always seemed to be southwest winds, which aren't ideal conditions on Phil's property. One Sunday, the forecast called for more southwest winds, so nobody wanted to go hunting. I wasn't going to pass up a morning in the duck blind, so I decided to take Reed with me. My expectations were so low that I was really only taking him to see the sunrise. I was convinced we wouldn't see a single duck.
Well, it got to be daylight and nothing happened. But we were still spending quality time together, and I was talking to him about God and the outdoors. I looked up and saw two birds. I literally thought it was two crows flying overhead. But then I realized it was two mallard drakes. I called them and they made two passes over our blind before backpedaling right in front of us. They seemed to stop in motion about ten feet in front of us.
"Shoot!" I said.
Reed raised his gun and shot three times in less than three seconds. Apparently, he still believed his shotgun was an AK-47. He went boom! Boom! Boom! By the time Reed was gone, I raised my gun and shot both of them. He looked at me and was like, "What happened?" He looked at his gun and thought something was wrong with it.
"Son, you got excited and fired too quickly," I said. "You've got to get on the duck."
As s

Go to where the ducks are. Forget the duck calls. If you go where the ducks are coming, you're going to shoot more ducks.

I believe the circumstances of my childhood set up a perfect path for me to be used by God. At fourteen, I came to understand God's message, and my baptism in the Ouachita River provided me with a peace about my relationship with Him. But my biggest hurdle in becoming one of God's disciples was my shy disposition. My personality has always been laid-back, and as I mentioned before, I think my dad's wild days in my childhood contributed to my becoming introverted. As I became a teenager, I still didn't say much, and my Christian life was really about trying to avoid doing things that were wrong. As some of my friends began to experiment with sex, drugs, and alcohol, I simply tried to survive as a Christian.

Every time I walk through a swamp or the woods, or climb into a boat on the Ouachita River, I see evidence of God all around me. As far as I'm concerned, that's all the proof I need to know I'm living in His house.

Catching frogs can take a toll on your body. I have repeatedly been battered and actually was knocked out cold when I dove headfirst into a cypress tree. One time, I jumped out of a boat to catch a frog in a thicket, and as I lunged to grab the frog, a purple poisonous thorn stuck me behind the ear. I vomited for three days and my face was badly swollen. If it had stuck me in the temple, I probably would have died. My greatest frog catch occurred after our boat ran aground. I saw the biggest bullfrog I've ever seen! The problem was, there were three snakes in between the frog and me: a cottonmouth water moccasin, a nonvenomous water snake, and then a bigger fish snake. Undeterred, I triple-jumped the three snakes and grabbed the frog in one swoop. Then I triple-jumped back the other way without getting bit. It probably wasn't the smartest thing I've ever done, but, hey, I got the frog!

I realized then that the only thing worse than being in the wrong spot was being close enough to hear someone else in the right spot!

A couple of years later, I found out an angry hog is even worse than an angry beaver. My buddy Mike Williams invited me to go hog-hunting with him on a cantaloupe farm. Wild boars were destroying the cantaloupe crop, and the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries gave the landowner permission to have hunters kill the hogs. They even let us chase the boars and shoot them from the back of a truck while the game wardens watched the proceedings from a distance! Now, I'd never hunted hogs, but a few of the guys I was hunting with claimed they were experts. We shot one or two hogs apiece and then chased a 360-pound boar into an adjoining cotton field.
My buddies convinced me to go into the overgrown cotton field and attempt to flush the hog out into the open. About a hundred yards into the thick brush, I heard the hog grunt. The hog was so close to me that when I put my scope on it to shoot, I couldn't tell if it was its front end or rear end! I fired my gun. Unfortunately, I shot the hog in the rear, which only made it madder! The hog turned around and charged toward me. I turned and ran out of the cotton field. I felt its tusks clipping at my ankles as I ran. Fortunately, I stayed ahead of the hog until we reached the cantaloupe field, and then to my surprise the hog fell into a heap. It was dead. I looked at my buddies and they were laughing and rolling on the ground. I thought it was a very strange response to my almost getting devoured by a vicious wild hog. I did

While Missy has acquired a taste for frog legs, she still doesn't understand my fascination with catching them. One night after church, we were stopped at an intersection while driving home. Our two sons, Reed and Cole, and our daughter, Mia, were in Missy's car with us. It was raining, and I saw one of the biggest bullfrogs I've ever seen sitting in the middle of the road. I put her car in park.
"What are you about to do, Jason?" Missy asked me.
"I'm going to catch that frog," I said. "Y'all want to flag traffic for me?"
"Don't you dare get out of this car," she said.
Before she could finish her sentence, I'd jumped out of the driver's seat and was maneuvering my way to the frog. I moved toward the back of it, assumed the frog position, and then leaped on him! Missy and Mia were screaming in the car, and my boys were laughing. As I got back in the car, I explained to everyone that I probably saved that frog's life by catching him at a busy intersection. I held the frog in one hand and drove with the other the entire way home.
When I walked into the kitchen, Missy asked me, "What are you fixing to do?"
I cleaned the frog on the kitchen table and fried its legs in a frying pan.
"I can't believe you just did that," Missy said. "I thought you saved his life."
Hey, but I gave him a noble death.

My relationship with my brothers really hasn't changed much in adulthood. We're still best friends and go hunting and fishing together as much as we can. Of course, we don't physically fight anymore; one of us might end up in the hospital if we did. Willie's my boss, but he learned a long time ago to leave me alone and let me do my job. He knows deep down I take a lot of pride in making the duck calls and ensuring that every one of them sounds perfect. Sure, we have our disagreements from time to time, but he's still my brother and one of my best friends. I mean, we're brothers. What's he going to do, fire me?

A duck tastes the same whether they're shot sitting or flying.

My tradition of shaving on the final day of hunting season lasted until Duck Dynasty started. Now I keep the beard year-round because we're filming episodes all the time. The last time I completely shaved my face, my daughter, Mia, was about five years old. I had to go to the barbershop to get my beard shaved off because it was so thick and long. When I walked in, the look on the barber's face was priceless. We both knew I was fixing to get my money's worth. When I came home, I walked in the door and Mia started crying. She even took off running! She didn't know who I was! She wouldn't speak to me for about a week out of fear. Finally, she realized it really was me. That was the last time my face was ever completely smooth.

I'm into the true meaning of Christmas - Faith, Family, and Facial hair.

The Robertsons' goal was never to be known as TV stars (except maybe Uncle Si, but, hey, he's nuts - in a good way). In fact, I wasn't even convinced the show would actually happen until I looked out my window one morning and saw cameramen running through my brother Willie's front yard like bees swarming to a hive. I'll never forget overhearing what one of the cameramen whispered to a technician on the first day of filming. He was sad that the show would probably tear our family apart. I remember thinking to myself, He hasn't met my family. He didn't know that the only kind of stardom my family and I are interested in is the lifestyle in Christ as described in Philippians 2:15 - 16: "Children of God . . . [that] shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life.

Missy and I haven't spent a lot of time asking God why Mia was born with her difficulties. We have accepted that it's yet another opportunity to glorify Him. A couple of years after Mia was born, one of the nurses at St. Francis Medical Center in Monroe called Missy. The nurse told her that there was a couple at the hospital, and they had just given birth to a baby with a cleft lip and soft palate. The couple was really struggling with the shock, and the nurse told Missy she remembered how we handled it. Missy and I went to the hospital and talked to the parents. Missy told the nurses to call us whenever a similar situation occurred.
A few months later, Missy and Mia were in Dallas for a checkup. The nurse from St. Francis called Missy and told her there was another baby born with the same condition. Since Missy was out of town, she called me.
"Jason, you have to go up there," she said.
"I can't do this," I said.
"The parents are devastated," she said. "You have to go."
"I can't," I said.
After I hung up the phone, I thought about the situation for several minutes. I remembered how Missy and I felt when Mia was born, and I knew the parents at the hospital needed all the support in the world. I called Missy back and told her I was going. When I walked into the hospital room, the parents were there with some family members. Everybody was crying, and it seemed like the normal joy of a child being born was missing. They looked at me like, "Who is thi

Of course, there has been a lot of speculation over the last couple of years that our wives must have married us bearded ugly ducklings because of our fame and fortune. The fact is that none of us had much at all when we met our wives, and our long, full beards came after we married them. Our crazy uncle Si likes to joke that our gift of gab--or "hot air," as he puts it--is what helped woo our wives. Actually, our relationships were built on spiritual principles such as faith, hope, and love. Through our poverty, rugged appearances, and, at times, musty aromas, I learned that true joy doesn't come from what you have or how you look but from what kind of man you are on the inside. On my second date with Missy, I explained to her my love for hunting and fishing, which often causes me to be gone for several days and sometimes weeks at a time. I figured my admission would rule out a third date, but I was surprised when she replied, "Okay." I knew right then that Missy was a keeper, and she has become my spiritual soul mate and a wonderful mother to our three beautiful children.

I'll never forget walking through airport security when I was flying to give a speech to a Christian men's group in Montana. The Department of Homeland Security screeners obviously didn't recognize me as "Jase the Duckman" from Duck Dynasty, and I felt like I was one wrong answer away from being led to an interrogation room in a pair of handcuffs!

I arrived one night at her dad's house and asked if I could talk with him. I told him about the potted plant and the proposal to his daughter, and he pretty much had the same bewildered look on his face that she'd had. He answered quite politely by saying no. "I think you should wait a bit, like maybe a couple of years," he said. I wasn't prepared for that response. I didn't handle it well. I don't remember all the details of what was said next because I was uncomfortable and angry. I do remember saying, "Well, you are a preacher so I am going to give you some scripture." I quoted 1 Corinthians 7:9, which says: "It is better to marry than to burn with passion." That didn't go over very well.

You can see the true heart of a man when you're out in the woods with a weapon

When in doubt, figure it out. That's the redneck way.

Going to a bar or pool hall doesn't mean you're a drunk, just like sitting in a henhouse doesn't make you a chicken. It's the same in the opposite setting. Sitting in a church building doesn't make you a follower of Christ.

One of our most dangerous missions before hunting season is de-snaking our blinds. Because of the location of most of our blinds, they're a hot spot for cottonmouth moccasins and other venomous snakes. During one cleaning we killed a couple of cottonmouths and a black widow spider. Phil walked out onto the shooting porch and said, "I think we got it." As I looked at Phil, I saw a cottonmouth hanging from a button willow only inches from his head. After prompting my dad to duck, I shot the snake over his head.

I'm going to use whatever God blesses me with as a platform to tell the world that God is for you. He proved it through sending Jesus down here to die for us and be resurrected. And for us that gives us second chances and it gives us hope, and so we spread that message everywhere.

After my dad started making duck calls, he'd leave town for a few days, driving all over Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Texas trying to sell them. He left me in charge of the fishing operation. I was only a teenager, but it was my responsibility to check almost eighty hoop nets three times a week. Looking back now, it was pretty dangerous work for a teenager on the river, especially since I'd never done it alone. If you fell out of the boat and into the river, chances were you might drown if something went wrong and you were alone. But I was determined to prove to my father that I could do it, so I left the house one morning and spent all day on the river. I checked every one of our hoop nets and brought a mound of fish back to Kay to take to market. I was so proud of myself for pulling it off without anyone's help!
When Dad came home a couple of days later, Mom told him about the fish I'd caught and how much money we'd made. I could see the smile on his face. But then he went outside to check his boat and noticed that a paddle was missing. Instead of saying, "Good job, son," he yelled at me for losing a paddle! I couldn't believe he was scolding me over a stupid oar! I'd worked from daylight to dusk and earned enough money for my family to buy a dozen paddles! Where was the gratitude?
I was so mad that I jumped in the boat and headed to the nets to see if I could find the missing paddle. After checking about seventy nets, I was resigned to the fact that it w

We only call at ducks when their rear ends are towards us. If I'm looking at you and you call my name, then I know where the sound came from. But if you had your back to me and I holler and you turn around, you would assume somebody hollered. You want your decoys to represent the sound that you're making.

The biggest problem we faced was people stealing our nets and fish. Sometimes the thieves would ruin the nets by cutting the fish out. The first time it happened, I asked my dad if we should call the police, but he said, "Son, where we live, I am 911." He policed the river and would awaken many times during the night to check out boats he heard motoring by. I was with him during a few confrontations after we caught people in the act of stealing our nets. They were the most intense moments of my childhood. How my dad handled these situations was in a way a reflection of his growth as a Christian. He started out with a shotgun and a threat to use it if he ever caught them stealing again. But then one day when we caught two guys red-handed, Dad raised his shotgun and gave one of the best sermons from the Bible I've ever heard. Toward the end of our commercial-fishing career, he would have the gun but not raise it, give the sermon, and then give them the fish. He would tell them, "If you wanted some fish, all you had to do was ask." I actually saw grown men shed tears over this approach, and a couple of them came to the Lord.

Frog catching is the most fun a human being can have while on this earth.

I'm of the opinion that a duck does not change styles every time it crosses a state line. I think they sound the same way from Canada all the way to the coast. As far as championship calling ... I realize that a duck could not win a world championship, and that's why I don't do that. When it comes to duck calling, our judges have wings.

I've always said the key to killing a lot of mallards if you live on the East Coast is to move west. The No. 1 rule in duck hunting is to go where the ducks are.

Much like his birth, Cole's first hunting experience was a little more traumatic. He was give years old and we were getting ready to have our Christmas party at Phil's house in 2002. Because we hunt on private land, we're allowed to shoot deer from our vehicles. Cole and I climbed into my truck right before dark, and I drove next to the woods. As I was explaining safety and other things about hunting to him, a deer walked right into the middle of a trail. We hadn't been there for five minutes before the deer showed up! I looked at Cole and pointed toward the front of the truck.
Without saying anything, I leaned my gun out the driver's-side window of my truck and shot the deer. The deer did a double backflip and hit the ground. I looked at Cole and his mouth was wide open. I could have picked his jaw up from the floorboard.
"That's how you do it, son," I told him.
Cole didn't say anything. I figured his ears were still ringing, and I instantly regretted not telling him to cover them. It ended up being a pretty traumatic experience for him, and I feared he'd never want to go hunting again. In hindsight, he might have been a little too young to witness something like that.

Where I'm from, there's two things you don't mess with. You don't mess with a man's woman, or his hat DON'T TOUCH A MAN'S HAT!

If people want to simulate a godly lifestyle - great. If they don't - good luck with that.

A lot of people just think that that's unreasonable or preposterous. But you know, if everybody chose to do it God's way, the world would be a lot better off.

It seems a fine line between being a matador and being a rodeo clown

However, I eventually learned the hard way that women are not like fish at all. For one, fish do not have the ability to slap your face because you're trying to land two at once.

While I do not want anyone to miss out on possibly living forever with God, I have come to realize that the Christian life is a marathon. People grow in their faith at different paces depending on their own circumstances in life. The key is to share, love, and encourage people to put their faith in Christ, and when they don't respond, we simply offer a place of forgiveness to come back to if or when their heart changes. We do not judge or police those who choose not to accept Christ, but we wish them the best of luck. They're going to need it.

The previous year, I had really taken an interest in the opposite sex, but it all seemed pretty natural. It all changed one night when I was in the ninth grade. I went with a buddy to a swimming party, where we met two girls whom we were both interested in. As the night went on, we found ourselves alone in a room with the girls. The girl I liked asked me to help her undress. I was very attracted to her, and she was pretty healthy for a ninth grader. As I looked back at my buddy cheering me on, the only thing I could think of was my dad's admonition--and three letters, R-U-N! I ran out of the room, and the abuse I took from my buddies over the next few days was probably the worst I ever experienced. From then on, I decided to shy away from girls with questionable reputations and focus on those who could possibly help me spiritually and help get me to heaven. I didn't feel I was strong enough to stay pure unless both parties had the same goal.

What in the world happened?" Phil asked me. "Did you flip your truck?"
"It's a long story," I said. "Let's go duck-hunting."
We ended up having one of our best duck hunts of the season. When we returned to Phil's house, I filled up about twenty bottles of water. My busted radiator leaked the entire way home, and I had to stop every couple of miles to fill it up with water. There was a body shop close to our house, so I pulled in there before going home.
"Well, whatcha think?" I asked the mechanic.
"Well, we can fix it," he said. "I can get you a radiator."
"What's it going to cost me?" I asked.
"Well, what are you going to do with the deer?" he said. "I can get you a radiator for the deer."
About that time, the mechanic's assistant walked up to my truck.
"What are you going to do with the rack of horns?" the assistant asked me.
"Hey, if you can fix my door so it will close, you can have the horns," I told him.
There's nothing quite like good, old-fashioned redneck bartering. Unfortunately, I didn't get off so easy with the damage to Missy's car. In all the excitement of the day, I'd completely forgotten to tell her that I'd wrecked her car. When I got home, she told me somebody pulled in the driveway and sideswiped it. I couldn't tell a lie.
"You remember how you scolded me about forgetting to turn out the carport light?" I said.
"Yeah," she said.
"Well, this is what happens when you start worrying about sma

It's not about me. The power is in God, it's in the message and I now realize I need to be vocal about it ... God uses flawed people to spread the message of His Son; if He can use me, He can use anybody. Whatever you do in life becomes the platform for your faith.

When Tommy asked me to speak to the students, I immediately told him no. I was finally comfortable talking to people individually about my faith, but I still didn't want anything to do with public speaking. But then I thought about the idea for three or four days and it was really nagging at me. I called Tommy back and told him to line it up.
When I arrived at the classroom a few days later, there were about fifty kids there. I stood in the front of the class and told them I was a hunter and fisherman, but I loved the Lord, and I told them why. I went through my entire testimony and shared the Gospel with them. I was so nervous talking to them that every time I tried to turn a page in my Bible, I ripped about three pages! My hand was shaking so badly that I couldn't stop ripping pages! I kept looking up to see if anyone had noticed how nervous I was. I couldn't wait for my talk to end.
But after I was finished talking, a young boy came up to me. He had tears in his eyes.
"Thanks, mister," he said. "I really needed to hear that."
I couldn't believe God had used a simple guy like me to have this kind of impact on a kid.

Like most things in life, there's also a spiritual side to my beard. Look at John the Baptist, one of the most important people in the New Testament. According to Matthew 3:4, "John's clothes were made of camel's hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey." He baptized Jesus, who was God in human body, despite his appearance being that of a deranged vagrant. When I try to visualize John the Baptist, I see a bearded hunter who had to have some sort of weaponry to function in the wild. I would also assume he dipped the locusts in wild honey before he ate them. Based on what I read in the Bible about John the Baptist, I actually tried to eat a locust once, but it tasted terrible, which gave me the idea that John the Baptist probably dipped them in honey first. Then again, almost everything tastes good with honey.

Mia has already persevered through so much. One of our biggest fears when she was born was that she wouldn't be able to talk or sing. My wife loves to sing, and she's a world-class singer. Through speech therapy, Mia talks well and can hold a normal conversation with anyone. There isn't an ounce of shyness in her bones! When Mia was four years old, she sang "God Bless America" on one of our Duckmen hunting DVDs. I'm sure most people who watched it thought, Hey, isn't that cute? They've got a little girl singing on the DVD. But when she did it, there wasn't a dry eye in my family. We knew that Mia was born without the ability to sing, and we realized the pain and suffering she endured to be able to sing. It was a huge moment for our family.

I'll never forget the time I went duck-hunting with my buddy Mike Williams; you'll read a lot about our adventures and shenanigans in this book. Mike and I were hunting blue-winged teal ducks, which tend to move en masse, so typically you'll either shoot your limit or not see a duck. In other words, there is a lot of idle time involved with teal hunting, so we usually bring along our fishing poles. After a hunt with Mike one morning, in which we had not seen a single teal, I hooked a four-pound bass. Almost simultaneously, one lone blue-winged teal flew over our heads. As I was reeling in the bass, I reached for my shotgun, raised it with only my left hand, and shot the duck. Now, I'm right-handed but left-eye dominant. It was the first duck I ever shot left-handed, but it would be the first of many. I eventually made the switch to shooting left-handed permanently. It was the hardest obstacle I've ever had to overcome in hunting, but it made me a better shot because I'm left-eye dominant.
When Mike and I went back to my dad's house and told him what happened, Phil didn't believe us, even though we had the teal and bass as evidence. He'd told us about a similar feat many times before, when his friend Hookin' Bull Thompson pulled in a fish with one hand and shot a duck with the other. I had heard the story many time, but only then did I realize it had now been duplicated. No matter how many times we told Phil about what I did, he didn't believe us. He thought we made the e

I've taken Mia hunting twice and she was like most little girls--she was afraid of the spiders and whatever else was crawling in the blind! The first time, it was only Mia and I, and it was a special day. I gave her a BB gun, and she shot the ducks after I'd already knocked them into the water. I think it took her about fifty BBs before she finally connected, but she had a blast. I didn't know some friends of mine were hunting close by. Later, they told me they heard us shooting and kept hearing a strange sound like a BB gun. They said when she finally connected, they heard us screaming and hollering.

Shortly after I returned home from the Ukraine, I became severely ill with what doctors believed was a parasite. I couldn't hold my food down and lost a lot of weight. Different doctors kept prescribing me antibiotics, but none of them seemed to help. For a couple of months, I was poked and tested in a variety of ways, only to have more questions surface than answers. Then I was sent to an ear, nose, and throat doctor for an evaluation. I was sitting in a waiting room with a bunch of toddlers, when my name was called. By the time I got into the examination room I knew I'd had enough.
"Hey, I'm outta here," I told the doctor. "I'll take my chance with the resurrection."
Well, a couple of weeks later, my insurance agent called me. He was one of my lifelong friends and sounded concerned.
"Hey, Jase," he said. "Your insurance company wants you to see a psychiatrist."
Apparently, the ear, nose, and throat doctor recommended I undergo a full psychiatric evaluation based on my refusal to be examined, along with my speech on the resurrection! Apparently, he thought I was crazy. I convinced my buddy that I didn't need a psychiatrist and eventually got over my illness. I would later read a passage of scripture in the Bible that caused me to smile in reflection on the entire ordeal. Second Corinthians 5:13 says: "If we are out of our mind, as some say, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you.

I remember thinking that when it came to dating there was a thin line between becoming a trophy buck hanging out in a woman's living room for life and being just another dead deer carcass in a ditch run over by a woman driver. Trophy bucks do not come easily, and my pride, which some girls viewed as arrogance, actually helped me stay pure.

By midmorning, my excitement and anticipation had turned into complete misery because of the cold. But all of a sudden two mallard ducks flew by me at eye level. I grabbed my duck call and blew on it about three times. The ducks stopped, turned, floated down, and sat in the decoy spread in front of me. I grabbed my gun, but my body was so cold that I couldn't raise it to my shoulder. Actually, I was even colder than before, because when nature called, I was forced to unzip my coveralls. When I was finished doing my business, my fingers were too numb to zip the coveralls back up!
Despite not being able to shoot, I felt a great sense of pride and accomplishment as I reflected on calling in wild ducks for the first time. It was amazing to me that the ducks were swimming around painted decoys because of the sounds I made with a call. I was instantly hooked and it really didn't matter to me that I was too cold to shoot. Unfortunately, my dad pulled up to my blind in his boat about the same time. He watched the ducks fly away from my decoys. He pointed at them in amazement.
"Why didn't you shoot?" he asked me.
Due to my pride, I decided to tell him, "I didn't want to mess y'all up with my gunfire."
My dad shook his head in disbelief.
"But I called them in with these duck calls I made," I proudly told him.

In 2008, an Australian company commissioned a study to find out exactly how much people fear public speaking. The survey of more than one thousand people found that 23 percent feared public speaking more than death itself! As Jerry Seinfeld once said, most people attending a funeral would rather be in the casket than delivering the eulogy!
I can relate to those people because I feared speaking in front of a class or group of people more than anything else when I was a kid. In fact, I dropped speech in high school because when I signed up for it I thought it was a grammar class for an English credit. When I found out it actually required giving an oral presentation, I didn't want any part of it! After hearing the overview of the class on the first day, I got out of my seat and walked toward the door; the teacher asked me where I was going. We had a brief meeting in the hall, in which she informed me that nobody ever dropped her class. After a meeting with the principal, I dropped the class, but on the condition that I might be called upon in the near future to use my hunting and fishing skills. I thought the principal was joking--until I was called upon later that year during duck season to pick ducks during recess! I looked at it as a fair trade.

Missy cried during our first week of marriage because I was so sick, and I couldn't blame her because my illness wrecked our honeymoon. But after we went home to West Monroe, I woke up on the twenty-eight day of our marriage, and she was crying again! I realized then that I had a few things to learn about marriage. You're living in a different environment, you're away from your parents for the first time in your life, and you're sharing a bed and home with someone new. It's a different life than what you had when you were single, when you could get up and leave if things got tough. More than anything else, women are generally more emotional than men. When I give newlyweds in our church advice, I tell them, "Look, when you wake up on day thirty of your marriage and she's crying for no reason, don't panic. It's normal. It's going to happen. Most women are going to cry from time to time. It's the way God made them.

In all my years in the wild, I've never met Mother Nature or Mr. Photosynthesis. Humans tend to try to make sense of things and are always searching for scientific reasons to explain the world's riddles. But if you do not believe in a Creator, your options are limited in trying to explain the functions of Earth, let alone the universe. Who built this place? Where did I come from? Where did you come from? As Hebrews 3:4 says, "For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything." The Hebrews writer was actually comparing Moses and Jesus, but he delivered principles that I have come to believe are fundamental to life's questions. To me it would be silly to claim someone's physical home might not have been built just because you didn't see it being built. We know someone built our homes, neighborhoods, and skyscrapers because of their design, even though they may have been constructed before we were even born.

Group texts are the worst. They're like a terrible, technological snowball, coming down a mountain, and you can't stop it.

On our second date, I picked up Missy at her house and told her we had to make a pit stop to pick up crawfish bait at the fish market. We'd figured out a way to speed up the process by using the fish market's gutbuckets instead of running nets ourselves. Through trial and error, we determined that the best crawfish bait was buffalo-fish heads. Unfortunately, when I pulled up to the market to get the garbage cans full of fish heads, I realized they had been outside for a couple of days. It was a warm day, and I could tell from the buzzing of hundreds of flies it was going to be nasty! I knew it was going to be the ultimate test of our relationship. The tubs were too heavy for one man to carry, so I told Missy, "I'm going to need your help on this." She crawled out the window, and I led her to the trash cans filled with buffalo heads waiting for us. Like an idiot, the first thing she did was open the lid of a trash can. Immediately, she started gagging and dry-heaving in the parking lot.
"Rule number two," I said. "Never pop the lid on a trash can."
Much to my surprise, Missy regained her composure and helped me load the trash cans into the back of my truck. Right then, I realized our relationship might work out. She was climbing through windows and hauling fish heads.

We were looking for opportunities to share the message with people who wouldn't be caught in a church - unless they were wheeled in via a casket! Matthew 11: 19 says this of Jesus: "The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and "sinners."'  " Jesus didn't get that kind of reputation from hanging out only in temples and church buildings. Going to a bar or pool hall doesn't mean you're a drunk, just like sitting in a henhouse doesn't make you a chicken. It's the same in the opposite setting. Sitting in a church building doesn't make you a follower of Christ. In fact, Acts 17: 24 says: "The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands." God lives in heaven and in the hearts of men and women on earth. Misunderstanding this principle is one of the reasons so many people act one way in a church building and the total opposite everywhere else.

Sitting in a church building doesn't make you a Christian, just like sitting in a duck blind doesn't make you a duck hunter.

When Reed was old enough to go dove-hunting, I figured out that he was more into shooting shells than actually hunting. He wanted to fire his gun as much as possible. Whenever a dove flew by, I heard boom! Boom! Boom! I tried to tell him that shotguns weren't heat-seeking missiles and that he had to aim at the bird. But when the next dove flew overhead, I heard boom! Boom! Boom! The first time we went dove-hunting, I think he went through two boxes of shells before he finally connected.

At the end of the day, I love eating duck. It's the best thing you can eat on this earth, especially grilled with jalapenos and cream cheese.

At the time, I was driving a 1970 Ford truck that I'd bought for a thousand bucks. In my world, if a vehicle runs and has air in its tires, then it's worth a thousand dollars! The price never changes. I abused that truck for several years, only to sell it for a thousand bucks for an upgrade. It had a rebuilt hot rod engine and was fast! When we cut firewood in the rain, my truck would slide all over dirt roads and occasionally bounce off trees, so both of the truck's sides were badly dented. After a while, I couldn't open either door. It was real-life Dukes of Hazzard!
I remember the first time Missy approached the door and tried to open it. I told her the door wouldn't open, and she started to go around to the other side. I informed her that the other door didn't open, either. As she looked at me with a blank stare, I said, "Rule number one: if you want to go with me, you've got to crawl through the window.

What he didn't know was that Kevin is quite the player and that I don't make bets with eternal consequences on the line unless I know we're going to win!

Work without fun is like peanut butter without jelly.

Most people named Willie are either in prison or on the armwrestling circuit.

Recently, I was in New York with most of the Robertson family promoting the season-four premiere of Duck Dynasty. We were staying at the Trump International Hotel, which is a really nice place near Central Park. I was already uncomfortable being in the big city. I don't like traffic or concrete, and there are a lot of both in New York. After we checked in, we gathered downstairs to go to a Broadway musical show. I know it might seem bizarre for me to be going to a musical, but my very attractive wife can be mightily persuasive, especially when I have nothing else to do.
As we were waiting or the others in the lobby, I asked a doorman if there was a nearby bathroom. He gave me directions to the nearest restroom, which included a walk through the hotel restaurant. As I entered the restaurant, a well-dressed staffer offered his assistance. I informed him I was only going to the restroom. But he very nicely continued to offer assistance and took the role of my escort, which I thought was quite courteous and professional. At his direction, we took a quick left turn and walked out of the hotel. Befuddled, I asked him, "Where is the bathroom?" He painted down the street or maybe toward Central Park and said, "Good luck to you, sir. Have a nice day." I circled back around to the main entrance of the hotel, where I found Missy, who had witnessed the entire episode.
"I thought you had to go to the bathroom," she said.
I laughed and told her I had been escorted out of the

A few months into our relationship, we had a campout down at my dad's place. There were a lot of people from church, and we played games and fished into the night. We all gathered around a huge campfire, ate dinner, and sang songs together. Missy was clinging all over me, mainly because she was scared of everything flying in the air or crawling on the ground. It was one of those nights when you feel closer to God and everyone else because of the setting and the ambience--despite the bug activity. That was the first time we said "I love you" to each other. Now, there is still an ongoing debate as to who said it first. I remember clearly that she whispered, "I love you," and then I responded. She is convinced that I said it first, but she was under the influence of bug paranoia. I believe her condition affected her memory.

We caught seventy-five frogs that night! We left our ice chest in the truck, so I was putting frogs in my socks and the pockets of my pants and shirt.
When we couldn't carry any more frogs, we made our way back to my truck. As soon as we arrived, police cars came from every direction. A homeowner in the neighborhood must have seen my truck and feared we were burglars. As the police questioned us, they must have thought Mike was drunk, because he couldn't stop laughing. They kept asking me what we'd been drinking and smoking and where it was. When a policeman shined a light on my shirt, I figured out what Mike was giggling about. I forgot I'd stuffed a frog into the front pocket of my shirt and buttoned it. Its legs were sticking out of my pocket and it looked like it was wearing a diaper! The police let us go but warned us to never sneak back onto the golf course because it was trespassing. We probably went back three or four times by a different route and never were caught.

Remember: a beard grown is a lot of pennies saved.

My dad has always viewed manhood as a big deal; he likes to say the most endangered species on the planet is manly men.

Duck calls remind me of how God uses people to make Himself known. Like duck calls, people are all a bit different and are dependent on their maker and designer for their individualism in life. Duck calls and their unique individual sounds breathe life into decoys that are essentially dead. Likewise, God uses different people with unique perspectives to illustrate His existence and shout out the message of eternal life through Jesus Christ. The audible sound that each mallard hen makes is virtually the same; however, the tone and cadence are unique. Similarly, the Gospel message is the same yesterday, today, and forever, yet the perspective and life experience are different and unique for each person relaying it.

My wife hates the beard. When we dated, I would grow it out during duck season. She said she could handle anything for three months - but now I have it all the time.

For whatever reason, Missy is the only Robertson wife who doesn't like beards. Willie's wife, Korie; Jep's wife, Jessica; and Alan's wife, Lisa, all love my brothers' beards, and I'm pretty sure my mom, Kay, couldn't imagine Phil without a beard because he has worn one for so long. But Missy is consistent in her distaste for facial hair. I hoped that one day my beard would, ahem, grow on her, but it hasn't. Missy once tried to get me to shave by threatening not to shave her legs or under her arms. It actually worked once, but the next time I decided to call her bluff, and, well, she was bluffing.

The first time I took Reed hunting was when he was six years old. I took him on the last day of duck season, and we pulled right up to the water. I gave him a BB gun, and I had my shotgun. Our property was a haven for wood ducks, so that's what I wanted to shoot so he could see what made this spot so special. Wouldn't you know it? The first two ducks that flew in our sights were a mallard drake and hen. We were on a bank instead of in a blind, which was unusual, but the ducks floated down and lit about ten feet in front of us. More than anything, I showed Reed the power of a duck call, because the water in front of us was only about two inches deep. I couldn't believe the ducks were sitting there.
"I'm going to count to three," I whispered to Reed. "Get your BB gun. When I get to three, you fire.
"One, two, three!" I said.
Reed shot his BB gun, and I fired my shotgun at the same time. The drake never knew what hit him, and Reed immediately looked down at his BB gun. It was like he was thinking, What is this thing? I don't think he even realized I killed the duck with my shotgun. Reed was so excited that I don't believe he realized that I had shot, despite the fact of the booming sound. He looked back at me, and I told him, "Boy, you put a good shot on him, son.

Shortly after we returned from the Platte River in Nebraska, I scouted a few of our duck holes on my dad's property. I wanted to see what kind of ducks had gathered on our land while we were gone. On this particular day, it was cool and crisp as it got close to sunset. As I sat in a deer stand waiting for nightfall, I was counting mallard ducks that flew over my head. Meanwhile, there were fox squirrels scurrying in the trees around me looking for acorns, while groups of wood ducks waited in the water for the squirrels to drop acorns. A few minutes later, fifteen wild turkeys walked in front of me. I thought to myself, Man, this is paradise. As I soaked in my surroundings, I heard the sounds of footsteps in shallow water. A majestic eight-point buck walked right in front of me. I raised my rifle and fired. The buck hit the ground. My dad was in the woods with me and heard me shoot. As we loaded up the deer, I shared the details of what I had seen with my dad. We both agreed that there is nothing better than the beauty of the outdoors. It was about as perfect a day as I've ever had in the woods.

My parents have always been vocal about "the birds and the bees." People who watched the Duck Dynasty episode in which my dad gave Willie's son John Luke and his girlfriend the sex talk while motoring down the river in a boat might not be surprised that I heard this exact speech countless times in my childhood. I remember coming home one day after hearing my buddies talking about sexually transmitted diseases and asking my dad about it. I don't remember the specifics of his speech, but I would never forget the last thing he said. "Son, you keep that thing in your pocket until you get married and you'll never have to worry about it," he told me.

You can talk any redneck into a challenge. That's why so many rednecks die in strange ways.