Greenhead presents the 2020 Executive Q&A featuring a slate of executives sharing the moments, tips, guns and gadgets that have made their time in the field special.
David E. Snowden Jr.
Vice Chairman, Tarco Specialty Products Inc. and related companies
Number of days you hunt a season? Forty-five
Where do you hunt? Arkansas County
Club name? Kingdom Come
What kind of gun do you use? My go-to is a Beretta SO10 20-bore O/U and a Holland .410 O/U, although I shoot 20 or more guns a year, including many vintage hammer double guns.
Favorite duck call? An Olt D-2 I’ve used for 47 years
Fields, reservoir or timber? Timber
Rainy, nasty or bluebird sky? Bluebird
Favorite hunting story/memory? Last year, my second bird was a greenhead, treetop high, in which I fired one shot with an 1890 English SxS hammer gun. A little off balance, I thought I missed, but watched as the bird flew to the edge of sight seeming to waggle just a bit. After marking the line, I shot my second and third greenhead, then lined my black Lab, Bomber, and sent him on the blind retrieve for the bird I believed may have fallen before taking another bird. … After minutes of waiting, I couldn’t believe he was sprinting back through the timber in ankle deep water with the mallard; the retrieve of the year. But the retrieve became one for the books as he got close enough [for me] to see a band on the drake’s leg.
What got you into hunting? My father is an avid waterfowler and conservationist and took me at a very young age. Duck hunting runs deep in our family, hunting at Wapanocca at the turn of the century with the likes of Nash Buckingham and others. As a teenager, Wallace Claypool took my father to the now well-known Claypool’s Reservoir to hunt. Later, Mr. Claypool sold his property to some relatives and friends from Memphis and I have been lucky to hunt there over the years. But my love of ducks definitely comes from my father, who never left me at home when entertaining his friends at Kingdom Come. The satisfaction of working for waterfowl, year around, is the greatest gift my father gave me and the time we have spent together managing the land means more to me than anything.
What is your most unusual “must have” in the duck blind? Nearly every day I walk into the woods, I have a camera in my bag. My ideal morning is shoot the ducks, put the gun away, and then take photos of ducks coming into the timber. … After a quick shoot, I might spend two or three hours photographing ducks coming to the call. My greatest thrills today are a great photo.
Where is your go-to spot for breakfast/meals on a hunting weekend? We have a big breakfast after every hunt which often is referred to as the best part of the hunt. Something about rising early, standing in water, and walking out of the woods with a strap of ducks makes a hot breakfast of eggs, bacon, biscuits, cheese grits and potato hash the best meal ever. For dinner, we eat a lot of duck among other things. … The best cook in the family is my son, David III, who, when manning the smoker, knocks the socks off of everything. My mother created “Kingdom Come Duck” 50 years ago, which can be found in many cookbooks and still is hard to beat!
If you have children do you take them duck hunting? If so, what are some of the highlights from these youth hunts? My son, David, and daughter, Anne Elizabeth, and her husband, Grant Wynne, are grown and shoot at Kingdom Come, along with my wife, Terri, and my niece and nephew. There are many good memories of taking them. We built a blind in the woods, especially for them, where all of them killed their first ducks. I have pictures of three generations of us holding ducks when the kids were young. Those were special times.
