Two hunting YouTube stars have been nicked for poaching. Ricky Mills, aged 37, and Jimmy Duncan, 25, make the Hunting in the Sticks show, that also goes out on the Pursuit Channel in the USA. One of their viewers noticed that the area they were hunting elk did not match the area on their hunting licences. With the help of the US Fish & Wildlife Service and Kentucky Department of Fish & Wildlife Resources, a Wyoming Game and Fish Department investigator found where they had been hunting and built the case against them, as well as other poaching cases going back years.
Jimmy Duncan (left) and Ricky Mills (right) in the “Western Redemption” episode of Hunting In The Sticks
The pair pleaded ‘no contest’ to numerous wildlife violations, totalling more than US$30,000 in fines. Both of them lost their hunting privileges for 15 years, and their names are entered into the Wildlife Violator Compact which will prevent them from hunting and trapping in 43 participating states.
“I believe the two defendants were driven to get kill shot footage for the television show and that resulted in their making bad decisions,” said the Wyoming investigator Mike Ehlebracht.
Mills and Duncan are from Bedford, Kentucky. This Ricky Mills is not the same as the Ricky Mills from New Jersey who runs the excellent Wild Jaeger channel on YouTube.