I agree he should, but the ear could easily hide a 3 inch spike so I'll cut him some slack on that if all he had was a scope. He didn't mention what he was using so it is entirely possible all he had was a 4x. I've shot a lot of game at 200 yards with nothing more than 4x. And remember he did say it was at 0645 so he didn't have proper light. At best this was probably only a little after legal shooting light and that is never the best light for picking out details at a couple hundred yards.

But with a good spotting scope, he would have seen it. Personally, I'd rather hunt without shoes than leave my optics behind. But then, that's me and my viewpoint and others don't have to agree if they don't want to.