A clean-shaven Phil from the mid-1970s, right after our family moved to the river. Phil made that old wooden boat himself.

Since I come from a family that doesn’t take a lot of pictures, this is the earliest photo of me (1972) that I know of. Showing Alan, me, Miss Kay, and Phil.

Me around first or second grade. I had just learned how to use a comb and was so proud of my hair.

At my birthday party. That’s my granny in the background and me looking at the camera as I stuff my face with cake—though Willie is the champion cake eater now. He’s the other one stuffing his face.

A flood hit West Monroe around 1979, so naturally we took the opportunity to go fishing right up under my grandmother’s house. Of course, we had no adult supervision. That’s me standing up; Willie’s in the middle next to one of our neighborhood friends.

My football picture from the fifth or sixth grade. I was on the community team and never showed up for practice because I never could catch a ride, but they let me play in the games because I was the fastest.

Me in about the seventh grade at Pinecrest Middle School. I was the shortest kid on the basketball team, so I worked to excel at the long-range shots—hey, it worked!

Here I am with my cousin playing dominoes. Well, I wasn’t actually playing, but my cousin was placing the dominoes down too gently. I had to jump in and show him the proper domino-slamming technique.

Taking a ride in the cool green Jeep. That’s me in the back with a random couple. Phil was driving, and Miss Kay held Jep in her lap, with Willie beside her.

Jep and I with our dog Gabe—my best buddy. When Gabe was older, he saved Jep’s life when Jep wandered out too deep in the river. I was about eleven years old when I caught this giant catfish.

Me out by the cook shack in front of Phil’s place. We actually cooked things out there—we had a fish fryer, a grill, and a smoker. Out in front you see a bunch of decoys, and I’m picking a duck.

Me as an intern at White’s Ferry Road Church right after high school. This was one of those self-discovery times in my life, and I quickly discovered I didn’t want to be cooped up in an office.

The guys out on an air boat in the winter of 1987. That’s me in the middle with the Mickey Mouse ears. This is a rare photo of Alan (right) with a beard and me without one. I was still courting Missy, so I kept my face clean for her. But that soon changed.

I had proposed to Missy not too long before this photo was taken. She was a senior in high school and I was twenty. I had my best handsome-dude face on to impress my girl.

I walked up the aisle with a smirk on my face, dreaming about the honeymoon. Missy seems pretty happy about what was coming, too.

Me and my dapper-looking groomsmen. (Back row, left to right) My good friend W. E. Phillips; my frog-hunting partner in crime Mike Williams; me—the man of the hour; my good friend Rovance Lewis; the first guy I converted to Christ, Blake Gaston; Al on his knee, sporting a mullet. (Front row, left to right) A young Jep; Missy’s cousin Chris; and Willie, doing his best to look debonair.

This is Missy in our second year of marriage and the beginnings of our Robertson family tradition of annual vacations together. Missy had to learn early on that if she was going to be married to an outdoors guy like me, alligators would be a part of her life. I was in the pond hunting for frogs.

This was a typical scene in 1996 after we bought our first house on Swiss Street, as we shared together in Bible study.

I was actually Duck Commander’s first paid employee. Here I am looking less than happy, happy, happy because I was overworked and underpaid. I needed more help!

In the early days (around 2004), the Duck Commander business and workshop was at Phil’s place. We’ve always tested every call we make—even from the start—and I always prided myself on my organizational skills. You can see the insulation on the wall next to me—we never did finish the place out. Years later, Miss Kay turned this building into a playhouse for the grandchildren—pretty cool.

Christmas morning, early 1990s, and fresh from the hunt. Phil and I are peeling shrimp in the kitchen and preparing to make crawfish pie.

At Gulf Shores, Alabama, the redneck beach, in 2005, with me looking kind of studly. We’d just finished hunting season, and it was a tradition back then to shave our beards every year once we got to the beach.

Here’s a first picture of me as a dad with Reed right after he was born. I must have been thinking, “Well, I’m a father now. I sure did enjoy the process, but I’m now learning the reality of what comes after.”

My little guy Reed, around age four or five, caught his first fish at a family outing at Camp Ch-Yo-Ca—a Christian camp outside West Monroe.

Reed with his first duck and the BB gun he used to shoot it. A proud little guy.

Reed and I were out scouting for ducks when I bagged this eight-point.

In Louisiana parents have to teach their children how to “read” alligators. Here Reed, age eleven, showed us what not to do.

Our Gulf Shores family photo, summer 2004. Holidays and Gulf Shores are the only times I cooperate with organized photos. The Robertsons have been going to this beach for more than twenty years now.

In 2007 down at Gulf Shores, Alabama, we learned to fish for red fish. When I asked four-year-old Mia what she was thinking in this photo, she said, “Oh brother! That fish is bigger than me!”

The next day I caught this near record-breaking red fish. He weighed around thirty-five to forty pounds.

This is what happens when the mother of your children is a yuppie—posed pictures. Mia, Reed, and Cole had to put up with it but not me. I had to apologize to the kids for the setup.

Here’s my Mia with her cute smile after one of her surgeries in the summer of 2009 at a school event.

Me motoring alone in a boat right in front of Phil’s house. It was freezing that day, but I still went hunting. That old, empty camp house in the background was often the target of our boyhood mischief. My brothers and I used to drive golf balls across the river and try to hit it.

Missy sang the national anthem at the 2011 Class A Championship game in the New Orleans Superdome, with Cole and Reed by her side.

Here’s our Duck Commander Little League Dream Team. We were the 2012 league champions. Cole was on the team (sixth from left in the back row). Four of us were coaches that year: Justin Martin standing next to Paul Stevens (in the back left) and I’m on the right end. Jay Stone, also a coach, is not pictured.

This year Reed made his first touchdown at the same game Mia sang the national anthem. I was one proud papa.