That particular ranch is a regular stop for the Realtree bunch, and that guy was obviously on a "management" deer hunt where he was supposed to kill a mature 8 or 9 point buck (it sounds like they had a particular deer in mind). He evidently saw this deer at last light, and didn't look at the antlers, just shot. Instead of taking a mature cull buck, he shot a "trophy" class animal (that hunt costs a heck of a lot more, possibly based on the score of the rack). The hunt probably took place in the pre-rut, and the idea behind cull hunts is to take lesser deer out of the herd before most of the breeding takes place. Woops.
gd