When one trips the trigger on a buck, there is a responsibility to ensure a humane harvest. Accordingly, I can't abide buckshot out of a scatter gun that is set up for waterfowl. Mainly because it is an inherent crap shoot with limited range and terminal effects. Sure, when the CNS is poked full of holes at close range as in Todd's case, the desired outcome is obvious. Conversely, if you were only 1/27 true on your pass shooting, consider that deer punched in the paunch don't leave an easily discerned blood trail and will put a hell of a lot of distance between where they were stung and where they expire. Downhill without fail and especially if pushed from the get-go.

That said, consider a retube to a slug barrel or going for a dedicated slug gun with a sight system that will steer said slug with reasonable precision. Your effective range will go from 30 yards or so to more than a football field or 2. Have a retired .mil pard that can handily snap shoot clay birds at 100+ paces with his Mossberg 590A1 mounted with a ghost ring aperture rear sight (doubles the sight radius of typical irons) and another that has taken a goodly number of fine bucks with his old 870 20-bore slug gun with a fixed 4X optic.

Best of luck over the next 4 days....