The Duck Commander Family (16 page)

Phil was always a dreamer and a visionary and was focused on the big picture. He knew he could make his dream come true by pulling his family together.

When I think of the journey it took for Duck Commander to get to where it is today, I think of it as a lot like Phil’s duck gumbo. You can’t go to the grocery store and buy all the ingredients.
Well, I guess you could, but it wouldn’t taste the same. There are no shortcuts for the kind of duck gumbo my family makes. It takes hard work, patience, and perseverance on the days when you sit in the blind and wait and the skies are clear. And you need strength of character on the days when it’s cold and rainy and you wish you had stayed in bed. It takes camaraderie and a willingness to work with the other hunters in your blind to set up the decoys and call in unison. And, most important, it takes a passion and a love for what you are doing to see it to the end. All of these traits were present in making Duck Commander what it is today and are still present in the way we work.

There have been tough times in the life of Duck Commander. Times when we’ve lost big accounts, years when the duck numbers were down because of the weather in Canada, and even times when we didn’t know where we would get the money to make it through another season. There have been times when we had to bring in extra help to get an order out on time and times when we had to let someone go because there was not enough work or money to pay them. There have been times when the money came at just the right moment to pay the light bill.

Phil tells about one such time in the early days of Duck Commander. The bank note was due and Kay informed him that they simply did not have the money to pay it. They were broke. Phil says that he tried everything he could think of to
get the money to pay the debt. He and Kay were at the end of their rope. Kay was in tears with worry over what was going to happen to all they had worked for. Phil remembers telling Kay, “Let’s go check the mailbox, maybe there will be a check in there.” Kay told him, “There is no reason to look because no one owes us anything.”

Phil knew it wasn’t likely, but for some reason, he felt like they needed to look. They walked to the mailbox together and pulled out an envelope postmarked from Japan. It was an order for duck calls with a check for eight hundred dollars to prepay for them. It was exactly the amount they needed to pay the bank note! Duck Commander had never sold a duck call to Japan before then and as far as I know has never sold one since. But somehow, at a time when Phil and Kay needed it, the Lord provided. That’s the only way to explain it.

Phil remembers another time that same eight-hundred-dollar bank note was due and once again there was no money to pay it. This time Phil went out to run the nets, hoping to catch enough fish to sell to at least take care of part of the payment. He took his boat out and began setting lines. The fish started biting before he even put any bait on the hooks! He says he pulled fish in hand over fist. He filled up his boat in no time and had more than enough to pay the bill with the sale of the fish he caught that day. Again, Phil says he never saw anything like what happened that day before or since.

The truth is, the Lord has always provided. Like He cares
for the birds in the air and clothes the lilies in the field, He has cared for us. We haven’t done everything right. We didn’t have all the right business plans, goals, or budgets. Sometimes, we didn’t know how a bill was getting paid until the very last minute, but we always had faith that He would provide. Miracles like the two described above didn’t happen every time. Sometimes, we had to hold our checks, and there were times when Kay had to borrow at high interest rates or make deals with one store to get money at a time she needed it. But there was always that faith that the Lord would provide.

I think that’s the only way you can ever be truly successful in this world. You have to acknowledge that it is from above. And you have to have the confidence that even if you lose it all, things will be okay. You have to be willing to fail, and all the while work your tail off to succeed. You have to continue doing the work, believing in what you are doing, and most important, keeping your faith in who you are. The faith of our family is not in the things we have. Our confidence is not in the monetary success we have gained. It is in the One who made us and who is there for us in good times and bad.

Phil’s duck gumbo is never finished until he knows it’s absolutely perfect. In many ways, Duck Commander is a lot like his gumbo. It took forty years to build Duck Commander into what it is today. Phil has always had a lot of perseverance and patience, which are valuable attributes to have in everything
from business to cooking to hunting. Let’s face it: most people today wouldn’t take a few days to make duck gumbo. They go out and buy a mix and throw it together. But if you wait and you’re truly patient, the end result is going to be something that is unbelievably spectacular and special.

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L
ET PERSEVERANCE FINISH ITS WORK SO THAT YOU MAY BE MATURE AND COMPLETE, NOT LACKING ANYTHING.

—J
AMES
1:4

M
any things in life—whether it’s food, business, or even someone’s personality—slowly evolve over time. They don’t necessarily get better overnight, but if you keep working at them and stay focused, chances are they’re going to end up being better than when you started. Take for instance my recipe for frog legs. When I was growing up, Kay’s frog legs were one of my favorite meals. But as I got older, I started experimenting with ways to cook frog legs and added my own personal touch to her recipe. Kay has probably never heard of garlic-infused grape-seed oil (she’s never used anything but butter or Crisco), but that’s what I like to use to fry my frog legs. And for the record there are many infused olive oils I like using nowadays. Kay still doesn’t understand how they “infuse” oil, but I tell her, “Don’t question, just enjoy.” It took me about three days to figure out the perfect recipe for garlic frog legs, and I made a lot of mistakes along the way.

Believe it or not, after I’d mastered the recipe, I pulled the meat off the legs and turned it into frog soup. I was just thinking, “I have those frog legs left over, they have a great flavor, what could I do now?” Pull all the meat off, make a great roux, and just throw them in. Plus, I never like any meat to go to waste. That’s the really crazy thing about life: you often start out intending to do one thing but end up doing something entirely different.

When Korie and I moved back to West Monroe, Louisiana, and I finished college at Northeast Louisiana University, I had no intention of going to work for Duck Commander. I liked to duck-hunt but wasn’t into it as much as Phil, Jase, or Uncle Si, and I wanted to go out and make a name for myself doing something on my own. I enjoyed working at Camp Ch-Yo-Ca and really liked being around kids, and I was also working at White’s Ferry Road Church as a youth minister. I loved the freedom working at the camp gave me to create and grow. And watching kids’ lives change for the better was pretty satisfying. But before too long, Korie and I had a house full of our own kids. After our oldest son, John Luke, was born in October 1995, our oldest daughter, Sadie, came along in June 1997. Then we adopted little Will in December 2001, and Bella, our baby girl, was born in September 2002.