YouTuber Poaching Bust Was a Case of ‘Wildlife Commercialization with a Modern Twist,’ Says Investigating Warden

Two YouTube personalities behind the Creek Kings Outdoors channel were convicted and sentenced this spring after a years-long poaching spree of bucks in the Columbus, Ohio, metropolitan area. The Ohio Division of Wildlife Resources released details of the investigation in late July, revealing insights into how the poachers exploited Ohio’s deer for commercial gain, and how they were ultimately apprehended. 

Columbus residents William Bethel, 28, and Justin A. Booth, 23, were charged in September with dozens of wildlife violations documented from 2019 through 2025. Many of those were published to their YouTube channel, Creek Kings Outdoors, which has since been removed. The Ohio DWR investigation, which lasted more than a year, uncovered illegal hunting activities in the Three Creeks Metro Park and other properties where the men didn’t have permission. They also claimed to have tagged deer in Kentucky, which were actually taken in Ohio.

The motivation for these wildlife crimes was financial gain from their YouTube channel, said investigating warden Mark Williams, the wildlife officer for Franklin County.

“The most viewed videos on a deer hunting channel are generally going to be the ones where you kill a trophy buck,” Williams said in an episode of the Wild Ohio Podcast detailing the case. “More views, more subscriptions means that they have a lot more bargaining power when it comes to talking to a sponsor in the future. Even when they killed these ‘Kentucky’ deer, they had a sponsorship saying, ‘Hey, we’re going to pay you for deer of a certain score and higher.’ And so with that in mind, they went and poached these animals.”

Williams was first alerted to the possibility of poaching activity in Three Creeks Metro Park in February 2024, when the park supervisor informed Williams a visitor had discovered bait, tree stands, and trail cameras inside park boundaries. Hunting is not allowed in the park.

Officials confiscated the equipment and decided to monitor the area through the following hunting season.

“We keep an eye on it … and see if whoever did this is silly enough after having their stuff taken to come right back to this same spot and do it again,” Williams explained of the investigation. “…They did it again.”

Officials began to capture photos of the men entering the park, and an employee recognized them as the personalities on Creek Kings Outdoors. Booth, it turned out, lived adjacent to the park, which is how they were entering and exiting the property. 

“They pretty much treated it like it was their private hunting preserve,” Williams said.

The two men, who were cousins, were repeatedly documented in the park and were eventually confronted by staff. Booth had a tree stand harness with him at the time, and was dressed in full camo. He pretended he’d been calling for his dog, though his story eventually broke down. Bethel, who had also been in the woods destroying digital evidence and hiding cameras, was eventually confronted.

Ultimately Williams would discover that deer they’d reportedly killed in Kentucky were actually taken illegally in Ohio.

“I’ll put it this way,” Williams said. “Every deer that they killed on their channel was killed or possessed illegally in some way, shape, or form.”

One witness in Ohio told officials that they’d seen Bethel and Booth with a deer that they said was shot in Kentucky. The witness observed that the deer hadn’t been gutted yet — something most hunters would do before transporting a deer long distances. This detail is just one of the many mistakes Bethel and Booth made during years of wildlife violations, and is something other hunters should keep in mind to help report suspicious wildlife activity.

“A lot of people who hunt without permission places, or who are trying to put together a story, will not gut something where it was killed because that’s leaving behind a bunch of evidence,” says Williams.

While many YouTubers and other hunters in outdoor media follow a personal code of ethics and observe wildlife laws, others will exploit wildlife resources for personal gain. This was the case with Bethel and Booth, according to Williams.

“Deer hunting is exciting. It’s exciting to watch a big buck being taken down on YouTube. A lot of channels have made great names with that. And these guys were chasing that fame,” said Williams. “So in a sense, this is the modern commercialization and wildlife laws are being broken. Plenty of other laws are being broken. Our resources were being poached, but it wasn’t for the whole, ‘I’m going to take these deer to market and sell them.’ [Instead, it was,] ‘I’m going to sell this experience of poaching this deer and dress it up like I’m an honest hunter. And that I did this all through my own skill and persistence and force of will,’ which of course was not the case.”

In May, Bethel and Booth each pled guilty to 20 counts. Those included hunting deer without a permit, hunting deer without permissions, hunting deer in the closed season, failing to check deer, criminal trespass, and more. After fines, fees, and court costs, their combined financial penalties totaled a little over $37,000. Each has been ordered to serve nine days in jail and have their hunting, fishing, and trapping privileges revoked for five years. They’re also barred from Columbus and Franklin County Metro Parks for five years.