6 minute read
Daugherty
Passing the torch
Muskogee native pushes passion for outdoors toward education
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“I grew up here in Muskogee and am thankful I grew up in a country where we can hunt,” he said. “My dad (Jack) grew up in western Oklahoma where quail hunting was a really big thing. So as a kid, I’d watch my dad and older brother, who’s 12 years older than I am, they’d wake up and drive to western Oklahoma and I just couldn’t wait.”
And it was Dwayne’s older brother Lonnie who took him and their brother Darrell fishing and hunting until they were old enough to carry a gun. Dwayne said it was his older brother who got him and Darrell into hunting.
Story by ronn rowland
Dwayne Daugherty has been an outdoors person all his life. He hunts and fishes for more than just meal supplements, as shown by three of his trophy kills he has mounted on the wall of his office at his house. (Ronn Rowland)
Dwayne Daugherty hunts more than deer, as shown by a trophy bird on display at his home in Muskogee, (Ronn Rowland)
“Anytime (Lonnie) went somewhere, we were tagging along,” Dwayne said. “Dad made us wait until we were 12 years old before we could carry a gun, so once we turned 12, Lonnie would take us deer hunting. So, he was the one who got us into hunting, other than birds.
“Dad was an avid quail hunter and he loved to hunt pheasants, but Lonnie was the one that got us into everything — he got us into fishing and hunting.”
Daugherty said he got some of his hunting experience and outdoors training in his backyard.
“I grew up on 54th right behind Honor Heights Park,” he said. “We owned 40 acres out in the country and had a creek running through it. We did
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Hunting is a family affair with the Daugherty clan. Most of the time Dwayne, top far right, is on an excursion with his dad Jack, top far left, his younger brother Darrell, next to Jack, and older brother Lonnie, next to Dwayne. (Dwayne Daugherty/Submitted)
Dwayne is deciding which to keep and which to release… a 15-pound spoonbill or his cousin Denim Butler. (Dwayne Daugherty/Submitted)
everything from trapping to bird hunting to squirrel hunting — anything we could hunt.”
There was one incident that Daugherty remembers vividly that excites him to this day.
“We had moved into the home my dad had built on the 40 acres in 1978,” he said. “I remember the first time I was walking down the road and saw a deer track in the middle of the road and couldn’t believe that a deer had been on our place. So I literally ran home and and got Mom and Dad — the whole family had to go out and see where this deer track was.
“We hadn’t seen a deer, but just a track was so exciting to see.”
And being in the outdoors is something Daugherty wouldn’t trade for anything.
Dwayne takes his son Lonnie, right, along with the clan.
“We’ve grown up doing it our whole lives and loved it,” he said. “Love being in the outdoors in God’s creation, being able to hunt and fish and do a little bit of everything.”
And when Sept. 1 rolls around, that’s when Daugherty says is his time of year. “Sept. 1 was always the kickoff for hunting season,” he said. “That’s the start of fall and we would always go dove hunting. That’s a tradition that was started when I was a kid and we carry on to this day. This year, we were up on the Kansas line near Nowata on a dove hunt.
“My dad, my two brothers and I — there were seven of us total that went.”
But Daugherty doesn’t just kill for the sport of it.
The Daugherty hunting party takes a break from a morning hunt.
“Most of my animals I shoot I take to a butcher and it costs around $100,” he said. “You get it back packaged, ground up — however you want it. Usually for a 200-pound animal, 40% of it is what you’re going to get in meat.”
And he is quick to point out how it supplements his food budget.
“My wife and I went to college in western Oklahoma,” he said. The first few months we were married, we bought ground meat from the store. But she read an article in college about the health benefits from eating wild game, so she said, ‘go shoot a deer.’
“In 30 years of marriage, we have not purchased ground meat.”
And Daugherty passes along the knowledge he’s picked up to generations coming up behind him.
“I teach for the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife the hunter safety courses,” he said. “There was a gentleman in Wagoner, Rick Stafford, that was wanting to slow down and not teach as much. When I was younger, all I wanted to do was fish, hunt and enjoy the outdoors.
The family shows off its take of birds and other wild animals for the day.
Dwayne Daugherty shows off his prizes after a morning of duck hunting.
A much younger Dwayne Daugherty shows off one of his turkeys he bagged.
“As I got older, it became more about getting other people into it. I didn’t have that kill mentality.”
And it was his son Evan that helped turn Daugherty from a hunter to what he calls “a wildlife control specialist.”
“He’s a freshman at NSU this year,” he said. “He’s been going outdoors with me since he was a littlebitty kid. I’ve taken him hunting and fishing all his life, but getting kids into the outdoors is my passion — taking people that had never been before and letting them see what Oklahoma has to offer.”
Daugherty said his passion went from getting a deer to getting a trophy to doing more conservation.
“In the early ‘80s, there weren’t that many deer in the state, but Oklahoma has done a great job in bringing back the deer populations,” he said.
He also said wildlife management has become a priority.
“Doing more conservation, going out and planting food plots so the deer have something to eat year-round,” he said.
