Greenhead presents the 2023 Executive Q&A featuring a panel of executives sharing their must-haves, top tips and favorite memories in the field.

Thomas Shurgar

Oak Crest Wealth Management

Number of days you hunt a season? 20-ish, depending on kids

Where do you hunt? Typically where the ducks aren’t

Club name? Do We Shoot’em and How?

What kind of gun do you use? The leftover my kids don’t claim

Favorite duck call? Yentzen from my godfather

Fields, reservoir or timber? Timber, but I’d take a parking lot if it had ducks.

Rainy, nasty or bluebird sky? Friends that don’t know me best would say sunny and 75.

Favorite hunting story/memory? My last hunt with my dad on our family farm. The last shot, on the last day of duck season, on the last hunt ever on that property, I harvested a double-banded greenhead. My dad and I both saw the bands just as the shot hit the duck. It was my first banded duck. Fast forward 20 years, and my son’s first shot of the first hunt on our new farm harvested a banded Canada goose. Nothing better than family hunts.

 

What got you into hunting? I grew up on a farm North of Snake Island Flat. There was literally nothing to do but hunt and fish. I don’t have a single memory before I either had a 22 or a fishing pole in my hand. I think I was 8 when my dad gave me a well-used Model 11 Remington 12 gauge with cut-down stock and a reloader. I think I could still take it apart and put it back together, blindfolded, in the rain, standing in leaky waders.

What is your most unusual “must have” in the duck blind? My father-in-law makes a soup he calls “Yellow Creek Red.” It is a mixture of beef bouillon, tomato soup and spices from heaven. There is nothing better on a cold day to warm you up. He swears he has never cleaned the pot or finished the last drop from the season prior. He guesses we are drinking some soup that’s over 40 years old.

Where is your go-to spot for breakfast/meals on a hunting weekend? Craig’s BBQ — pure heaven.

If you have children, do you take them duck hunting? If so, what are some of the highlights from these youth hunts? Hunting with my kids is the best. I have two boys and a girl that all hunt. The two best memories of taking a kid hunting are them killing their first duck and the first time water goes over the top of their waders. You let them claim every duck. You know they go to school bragging to their buddies. You remember doing the same. It’s the best.

Which Arkansas executive calls ducks the best? The father and son duo, Doug and Jordan Beard. They are the Brooks and Dunn of duck calling.

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