SANDPOINT - A Bonner County man has pleaded guilty to reduced charges in a white-tailed deer poaching case that dates back to 2009.

Albert H. Nichols II pleaded guilty to one count of illegal possession of a buck without a tag and a count of poaching another buck out of season. He was originally charged at the felony level, although the offenses were downgraded to misdemeanors in exchange for the admissions of guilt, court records show.

Nichols, 41, is scheduled to be sentenced in the magistrate division of 1st District Court on July 27.

Charging papers alleged Nichols killed and possessed one white-tailed buck worth $400 in November 2009 and repeated the offense the following month by poaching a uniquely-horned buck worth as much as $2,000.

Both animals were taken in the Priest River area, according to an Idaho State Police investigation.

Nichols failed to tag the first buck because he was aware of the existence of the buck with a double main beam and forked brow tine and intended to affix his tag to that animal, according to the ISP investigation. But Nichols harvested the second buck more than two weeks after the season ended.

Investigators knew the buck was taken out of season because there was time-stamped footage of the animal alive on somebody's motion-activated trail camera immediately after the season ended, the police report said.

Nichols was confronted by investigators last year and ultimately admitted to failing to tag the first buck and poaching the second, which had an official Boone & Crockett gross typical score of 157 0/8.

Nichols entered pleas to the reduced charges during a preliminary hearing on May 18, court records show.

Judge Quentin Harden set sentencing before another judge because he admitted that he doesn't think there should be a season for white-tailed deer.

"They're like rats," Harden said during the hearing.