Bill Clinton

You can. You can buy combined; you can buy separate. You can buy licenses--in the hunting season you can buy a hunting license, or you can buy a license to hunt separate things by season if you want. And also, you can buy different fishing…

Unbelievable. I told Bobby, when I come over to see her I don't--it doesn't matter to me what happens, as long as she feeds me. [Laughter]

It's been a while. I had a good time. And the people I was hunting with today, they've been my friends for 20 years. That makes a difference. They're good people, farmers, people I've known for a long, long time.

I have a lifetime license. After I served as Governor for 10 years--you still have to buy the stamps every year, which we did. We're legal today. You still have to buy the stamps every year. But I've got a--they gave me a lifetime hunting…

No, I know that--my role in all this when I was Governor was to stay up--[inaudible]--fish commission. In a State like ours, it's an enormously important thing. Over half the adults in the State have a hunting or a fishing license.

Because it's not fair and because you can't just stop on the road and shoot them. And of course, there's a limit. You can only shoot two mallards a day.

Wonderful, wonderful. Bass, trout. I don't know if you guys saw the--when we were coming up, there were hundreds of ducks just like that. That's illegal to stop along the side of the road and shoot them.

Yeah. I usually go hunting--when I was living here-- my ears are bad so I don't hunt very much. But I'd usually go hunting-- I'd usually go duck hunting once a year and usually do something else once a year.

All of our counties here have big sportsmen, like Tom's sponsor of Ducks Unlimited. With all these ducks, the sky is full of ducks and geese, and they come down from Canada down what's called the Mississippi Flyway, right down the river…

And cotton was a big crop here, but closer to the river, going back before the Civil War, but back here all the way up to the point. But that land, most of that land we saw today, we drove across was hardwood forest until the twenties. The…

Yes. Good topsoil, and it's also a lot of high-tech stuff. They literally flood those rice fields. They have a little laser beam that they go down and throw that laser beam across that rice field to make sure the water level is just right…

Arkansas is the number one rice-producing State in the country, more than California or anyplace. And you can see why, because of all the little--you see all the little rivers and creeks and everything.

They've even got a little museum here that I helped them put together, Plantation Museum. You saw that land coming back, all that farm land you saw, this is the heart of our rice country. We grow about 40 percent of America's rice on the…

We have a lot of people who come in who still use it as a country store, but as you can see, a lot of people come in and eat every day. We have people drive every day from Little Rock. But it's a regular pharmacy.

Yes. I really started feeling like a person when I was about 5 minutes out on the water today. Note. The President spoke at approximately 9 a.m. at the Robinson farm. A tape was not available for verification of the content of this…

We didn't see many today, but we got two shots. There were a couple more that came in close, but they came in so fast that we weren't ready. But these were really the only two we could shoot at. And I had the charity--this crew over there…

Actually, Bob went out and--no, you didn't go. They went out--we had a boat and got them today. Sometimes you have dogs get them but today we--people retrieved them in a flat-bottom boat. But it was a wonderful morning. [At this point, the…

One of them was--how far were they, Bob? Bob Robinson. Oh, anywhere from 70 to 80 yards. The President made two great shots.

Oh, yes. Yes, we're just trying to figure--I'm sitting here trying to figure out how I can get them back to the White House.

Well, the guys I was here with, the ones I was here with today, we bonded a long time ago. They may be interested in unbonding. [Laughter]

Yes--well, I wish I had a little more time to spend. But it was wonderful. We had a great time out there, and I'm here with some old friends.

The duck call? No. I got this--this duck call is made in Stuttgart, Arkansas, which is close to here, where they have the international duck calling championship every year. And the man that made this call is now the mayor of the city.

We all had our different shotguns. But I just want to make that point to all the sports men and women who are watching this. Contrary to what some of them were told in the last election, we're all still hunting and nobody has lost their…

Well, the most fun part is just being out there when the light comes up and seeing the ducks come across. We had a lot of geese, too. You know, the geese fly in these huge V formations; they're really beautiful. And we all shot them with…

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