Looks like he dropped his antlers. Never seen this before. Hole in the head disease? The fur was bad too. Coming out in clumps. Either got frost bite or February shedding its coat in 5 degree weather. I never have seen fur slipping in this bad. But the temperatures have been brutal.

Looks like a healing injury of some kind. An old bullet wound? Can't speak to the fur without seeing it. Winter can be rough on some animals.

.22 air rifle, good shot, no penetration?

I agree it looks like a bullet hole, and could be. Hound guys in your area? Could have had the wrong angle easily shooting up in a tree and after the first hit it could have gotten into a hole or elsewhere, where they couldn't get another shot. But probably more likely, it is around breeding season and that is probably a healing wound from fighting with other coons, infection from fighting could also be the cause of the fur slipping. I have seen this several times on breeding bobcats.

Wolve worm/bot fly larvae?

This is in a very residential area. No guns, no trappers, no predators, just nuisance coons. It was a youngin too. Very small. He went to the burial ground.

Residential areas can have folks with guns......

Bet it was a pellet gun wound...

Seen a few along side of back roads rummaging around for a road kill during the day. Not good.

Funny you should mention that Mike, I was on a back road last week to pick up a vehicle and saw 2 smaller coon running across the road. We still had quite a bit of snow on the ground. It was early afternoon as I recall.

This^^^^^ We see this type of wound around the face, Bot Fly, many times in our squirrels.

Im not disagreeing with you guys, but have you ever found a bot larvae this time of year? I haven't, but I've not seen many here at any time of year.

Did not consider that Big Sam and you are probably correct as OP is from NY.

More possible down here in TX but would also be unlikely given the time.

It has the appearance of a bot fly though

I kind of doubt bot flies this time of year. I’ve had .22 shorts bounce off hard headed coon. Plenty of .22 short have dropped out of the skin when skinning out coon heads. My bet is a bad angled pellet. As a residential home owner, I’ve taken plenty of pellet gun shots at rabbits, squirrels and crows from my bath- and dining room.