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Prairie County, Ark., home to the small towns of Hazen and DeValls Bluff, is one of our nation's duck hunting capitals. Greenbriar Lodge, a storied duck camp there, sets a standard for habitat conversation and hospitality. Hospitality is also the work of Stanley Young and his wife Becky, the first couple of Hazen. Along with their children, they run Murry's Restaurant, famous for fried catfish and bread pudding with whiskey sauce. Down the road, Big K Catfish Barn, set in a big metal shed on a working farm, welcomes hundreds of customers each Saturday night during their December to March season. In DeValls Bluff, the legacy of sliced pork sandwiches and big welcomes endures at Craig's Bar-B-Q, founded in 1947 by brothers Lawrence Craig and Leslie Craig.

Season 9 kicks off in the Shoals, a cluster of towns in north Alabama, defined by their relationship to the Tennessee River: Florence, Tuscumbia, Sheffield and Muscle Shoals. Native people said that river sang. That's one of the stories locals tell about how the Shoals became the music recording capital of the US. Power generated by Wilson Dam, which now spans that river, drove the rise of tee-shirt manufacturing in the Shoals. Trowbridge's Ice Cream and Sandwich Shop, founded in 1918, the same year construction on that dam began, is Florence's flagship. Over in Sheffield, at George's Steak Pit, Elaine Goodlowe has stood tall by that hickory-fueled pit for more than 40 years. In the Shoals, those story threads knit people and places together.