Don’t Poach, Especially on TV

Video may have killed the radio star, but hubris and television helped put two Kentucky men under the investigative eye of the Wyoming Game and Fish Division.

Ricky J. Mills and Jimmy G. Duncan, both of Bedford, Ky., pled no contest to charges of poaching and other wildlife violations following an extensive investigation by Wyoming GFD officials. The two filmed themselves in 2014 hunting elk for their outdoors television show, “Hunting in the Sticks.” Officials with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources also contributed with the investigation.

Jimmy Duncan, left, and Ricky Mills
Jimmy Duncan, left, and Ricky Mills

Here is the press release from the Wyoming GFD:

The Wyoming Game and Fish Department recently closed a poaching case in Converse County Circuit Court. On March 13, 2017, Ricky J. Mills, 37, and Jimmy G. Duncan, 25 pled no contest to numerous wildlife violations totaling more than $30,000 in fines. Mills and Duncan are from Bedford, Kentucky.

The case started with a tip from a concerned Wyoming citizen who watched the two defendants on a hunting show called “Hunting in the Sticks” that aired on national television. In the episode “Western Redemption,” Mills and Duncan are seen harvesting two bull elk in Wyoming. The concerned citizen noticed that the area they claimed to have killed their elk, did not match the area of their licenses.

An investigator from the Wyoming Game and Fish Department’s Investigative Unit and Douglas Game Warden Rod Lebert opened the case and began an exhaustive search for…

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