Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Deer Hunting Season

How long does your deer hunting season last? I assume it changes from state to state. Ours runs from March 1 until October 31 for reds, fallow and Wapiti, in the state of New South Wales. I think yours is a bit shorter.

5 weeks in the state of Montana...for rifles, another five or so for archery.....


Ingwe

Plus another 6 weeks in the weapons restricted areas around here so about 16 weeks in and around Boze

Dober

Here in South Carolina, we have One of the longest, and the MOST LIBERAL seasons in the country. It almost makes no sense to even have a deer season.

Aug 15th- Jan 1st.
NO weapons restrictions. No special seasons for bows, black powder, etc. You can pretty much hunt with anyhing you want.
EVEN poison arrows were legal up to a few years ago!!!
.17 rimfire, legal. .410 bore with slugs or buckshot, legal.

As for limits, well there ARE NO LIMITS except on does!!!
Want to kill 10 bucks in one day, legal.
Want to kill 500 bucks a season, fine, go ahead. It's legal.
As for does, you can kill somewhere around 24- 30 a year, depending on the number of doe days, and how many tags you purchase.

Want to hunt the wariest, best educated whitetails in the country? Come to South Carolina.
If you simply want to kill deer, there's NO better place than South Carolina. But for some reason, there's not many 125"+ bucks here....

General mule deer season in Washington is nine days...

There are earlier and later hunts, and special draw stuff, but the general deer season in October is a mere nine days. Unless they miss school, the kids get two whole weekends. Not enough.

In Maryland it's 2 weeks of firearm.... Then I think Bow season starts in September and ends in January, I am not a bow hunter..We have a few days of Black Powder.. Some years we get a day in January with a rifle...

Here in Texas it depends on the region and wether or not you have a management plan. Basically archery season starts around Oct 1 or end of Sept depending on how the calender falls and then gun season opens first weekend of Nov. It starts wrapping up in different parts of the state right after the first of the year.

I also hunt nearby Arkansas just for bow season and it runs from Oct. 1 to Feb 28th. Yeah it closed just last week. So 5 months.

Not to take away from what Nathan said but in a nut shell. Deer can legaly be taken by some means or other from Oct 3 to Jan 17. That was last year. This year will vary by a couple of days due to the calendar changing.

BCR

Alabama starts mid OCtober through Jan 31 and yo are allowed 2 deer a day.

So how do you spend your time outside deer season? What do you hunt when the deer season is closed?

Thanks for the responses. I was just curious to see how you fellas spend your hunting year.

from the start of oct grouse, duck, phesant hunt before and after deer season, then as soon as the lakes freeze around xmas give or take its on to icefishing untill you cant walk out end of march usual this year might be earlier been really warm here lately....

In Northern NY our bow season starts a month before rifle season, which starts, I think, the third Saturday in October (ML a week prior to that). Rifle season lasts until sometime the first week of December, with late ML running another week.

Here are the Michigan deer seasons in general: Archery season starts October 1. Regular firearm goes November 15-30, during which archery season is suspended. Then the 10-day muzzleloader season is about the first 10 days of December, and archery opens back up Dec 1 as well. Archery lasts through December. On top of all that, there is a special 2-day youth season toward the end of September, and a late doe season on private property only toward the end of December. There are other bits and pieces and rules that apply, but that is the general idea.

Speaking of seasons..... Have of you Idahoans who are IN THE KNOW
more so than myself heard of anything weird Idaho FG will be doing to our general seasons and controlled hunts? I just checked the website again and regs/etc won't be out until after the 1st of April.

In Mississippi It's Oct. 1 to Feb 1. Twelve weeks.

Some areas get an additional 2 weeks.

JM

Elvis:

We have many big game species in Colorado. It's easy to get a hunting license for the most common ones; mule deer, whitetail deer, elk (wapiti), and pronghorns. A few licenses for moose, mountain goats, Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep, desert bighorn sheep and desert mule deer are issued but it takes many years to get one. We can also hunt cougars and black bears.

Our hunting season structure is pretty complicated. There are six big game seasons. We can hunt with archery starting in early September. Muzzle loaders can hunt for a couple of weeks in late September. Then there are four rifle seasons and the last one ends in late November.

Although hunting season in Colorado lasts about three months you can only big game hunt for a small part of that time, one rifle season plus the archery season. I have over-simplified it. There are lots of exceptions like plains deer season, and other late season hunts for special purposes. Learning to understand the system is useful so you can do more hunting.

Hunting seasons for migratory birds and upland game birds overlap big game seasons. We can hunt varmints and some small game throughout the year including coyotes, prairie dogs, squirrels and rabbits. There are hunting seasons for turkeys in Spring and Fall.

Some years back, I heard that all firearms were confiscated in Australia. Was that report wrong? Can an individual own a firearm in Australia? Please excuse my ignorance, but is New South Whales in Australia or New Zealand?

KC

KC

New South Wales is in Australia.

After the Port Arthur Incident, where a madman killed 35 people with an AR15, all semi auto rifles were banned to the public (ar15,SKK, SKS even semi auto sporting rifles as well as semi auto and pump action shotties). Farmers and pest control workers can still get a special licence to get a semi auto though. To tell the truth, I wasn't too upset as I didn't own any semi auto rifles.

Elvis:

So it was only semi-autos that were banned?

KC

Yep, as well as pump action shotguns, though pump action rifles are still OK. Handguns are for target shooting on a range. So we hunt with bolt actions and single shots, which is fine by me. Never did see a nice piece of walnut on an AR15.

All firearms are registered with the Firearms Registry and must be stored in an approved gunsafe, not under the bed or in the closet. Every few years the police come out to our houses and check off our guns and inspect our storage to make sure we comply. They have started again so I'll have my second inspection soon I guess. Seems a bit of an imposition but the last policeman was pretty good about it. I guess you do the right thing then you have nothing to fear.

The only thing we have to fear is fear its self.
How did your deer hunt go last weekend Elvis? Got some venison in the freezer for me yet?