Well then, unless you have tags for every possibility, you should not be shooting! Taking shots at something you are not sure of is gambling. Except that when you walk up to your kill, and it's not what you hoped that it would be you can't take the bullet back! That's not too far removed from poaching!

Another peeve of mine is when someone starts a sentence with, "I normally wouldn't take a risky shot, but........"
If it's a "risky" shot that you'd "never" take on an average animal, why should you take it at a trophy!!!!!?????? Don't we owe the sport and the animal more respect than that!!!!!????

If it was a 2 inch spike, the topic wouldn't have gone 16+ pages. Per the regulations in MO, a spike less than 3 inches would make the deer a doe. But we're not talking about a 2 inch spike are we? What set so many off was that there were 2 deer involved, one with a 3 inch spike and one with a 6 inch spike and the OP says he thought both were does. In other words, he really didn't know what he was shooting at either time.

Per the aforementioned regulations a 3 inch spike means the deer had to be tagged with a buck tag and the annual bag limit for bucks in MO with a firearm is 1. So the OP had at least 1 illegal buck. That was the issue.

The OP has publicly admitted, albeit with some prompting and brow-beating, his error and his misunderstanding of the regulations which means he is on the right track. Water under the bridge as far as I'm concerned.