For Fred Hill, duck hunting wasn’t a family event. He didn’t grow up in a family of duck hunters and spent a lot of his younger years building the tools to be consistently successful on public land in Arkansas. His preacher gave him his first bag of decoys and he would walk 1.5 miles to a slough. On a trip to Bayou Meto, Fred got a true taste of the Arkansas green timber hunting, and while they didn’t get much, he reveled in the journey of the hunt. That trip is what Fred considers to be the beginning of a lifelong obsession with duck hunting, and what led him cross country to chase waterfowl. After a few grand slams, he now enjoys chasing wild turkeys in a new state each season. For Fred, hunting keeps him grounded, but it’s the opportunities, the people, and the conversations that surround the hunt that keep him going — especially when they occur over a glass of Kentucky bourbon.