Fieldmouse
Would you eat a deer with a bad infection? He must have been really bad if the shaft was there all year long. I shot one with a slug in the hind quarter from the year before. I couldn't do it. I got rid of the whole deer.
After a year with the deer still alive I wouln't worry at all about infection. Especially not in the hind-endsince hisintial shot was in the thorax. Also the body has good defense mechanism's that will wall-off a foreign object. I would eat the deer.With you situation I maycut out the coupleinches around the slug ineach direction and discard that.
I was cleaninga deer this year and he had either been shot with a weak bow or had gotten in a fight and you could see the recent wound in the Chest wall at his 10-11 rib. But it didn't get into the chest cavity. He taste great.