A Georgia man who admitted to illegally killing deer in Kansas and featuring the kills on his YouTube hunting show will pay $25,000 in fines and restitution, and is forever banned from hunting in Kansas.

Matt Jennings, 35, reached a plea agreement this week on two charges of violating the federal Lacey Act, which prohibits interstate commerce for wildlife taken in violation of state regulations. He is the host of “The Game,” which streams on YouTube and CarbonTV.

​“HUNTING is all I’ve ever known, to kill to eat… it’s what makes my heart pound and my soul fulfilled,” Jennings says on the show’s website.

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According to court documents, Jennings primarily lives in Bowdon, Georgia, and sometimes resides in Woodland, Alabama. He traveled to Kansas in November 2022 with a tag that allowed him to take an antlered deer within a hunting area near WaKeeney in northwest Kansas.

November 11, 2022, Jennings killed an antlered deer near Florence in the central part of the state, which wasn’t covered by his tag. He drove to Oklahoma the following day to register the kill there, then returned to Kansas.

A week later, he killed another deer near WaKeeney. Although it was in the area allowed under his tag, the second kill violated state law by exceeding the bag limit of one antlered deer per season.

A joint investigation between the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service confirmed Jennings’ movements through phone data and social media posts.

Jennings featured the kills on “The Game,” which the show’s website describes as “a dark, in your face, more serious look at what makes a hunter tick.”

“It’s about pushing one’s self to the breaking point, and then looking back on the experience to learn from it,” the website says. “Matt Jennings takes you to the frontlines weekly to destinations in your backyard or worlds away. Either way, the intensity and drive this man has for the hunt will draw you to him and to what crazy things he will do next.”

Episodes feature him as a skilled bow hunter dressed in camouflage, with black grease around his eyes and cheeks. More than 62,000 users subscribe to the show’s YouTube channel. The most recent episode is from 11 months ago.

Recent comments on the videos berate Jennings.

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“Hey Kansan here, stay in Georgia with that Poaching s***,” someone with the username “@Jimmy2toes4u” wrote in a comment on one of the shows. “Bad enough to see all the out of town plates much less guys who think their … ‘hunting show’ gives em the right to do whatever they want.”

The most recent post to the show’s YouTube account, from July 11, is a short promotional clip titled: “One day your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it’s worth watching.”

Someone with the username “@lifesshort69” commented: “One day your show will flash before your eyes. Make sure your not a poacher and its worth watching.”

Under federal charges, Jennings faced up to a year in prison and as much as a $100,000 fine. Under the plea deal, he will serve five years of unsupervised probation and pay a $10,000 fine. He also will pay $15,000 in restitution to the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks Law Enforcement Fund in Pratt. He has to surrender the two illegally taken deer mounts, and he must retake an Alabama Hunter Education Course.

Jennings is prohibited while on probation from hunting, trapping, fishing or being with anyone engaged in those activities in Nebraska, Missouri, Oklahoma, Colorado, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois and Minnesota. He agreed to a lifetime hunting and fishing ban in Kansas.

In exchange for the plea, the federal government dismissed a charge from the original complaint and agreed not to file additional charges — unless Jennings denies his illegal activity or engages in additional criminal conduct.

Jennings didn’t immediately respond to Kansas Reflector requests for comment by phone and email.