After several hunts sitting over a feeder in Kerr county I decided to go to a blind that sits overlooking a well. As I'm walking up to the blind with my dad I spotted a long horn spike as I'm looking through the binos my dad says let's see what comes in after the feeder goes off. So we continue to walk to the blind and I look up and see a big bodied Sika buck. I am using a muzzleloader so I decided to try and stalk up closer to get a better shot. It took about 5 minutes and I got with in 60 yards and went prone. Once he turned broadside I gave him one through the shoulder and he ran right through a small pond then went about 8 yards and laid down and died. Which I thought was strange but gave him some time and walked back and got the hunting truck. We drove back down and I walked up to him and saw a huge hole in its back above his right shoulder and I thought this was the exit wound. When I got closer I started smelling a dead animal like been dead for a while kind of smell. I looked at the hole and it was full of flies and maggots. After further examination the Sika also had maggots that had been eating through the skin on its face. We decided not to try and eat the meat because of what we saw. I got my knife to cut the head off and began to do so. After the first cut hundreds of maggots started falling out of the hole I cut. I then lost my lunch and finished cutting it off. All I can say is man those things are tough and have a crazy amount of will power to live! I'm glad I could end what was probably a ton of pain for the animal but I'm also bummed that we couldn't use the meat or hide. Thanks for reading!
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