A look at Pennsylvania's deer seasons and what hunters need to know
With a variety of deer seasons soon underway in Pennsylvania, hunters should be aware of several changes that are happening this year including with tagging deer and transporting deer through Chronic Wasting Disease areas.
The Pennsylvania Game Commission provides a variety of seasons and regulations that hunters need to keep in mind each fall. Here is a breakdown of the key things all deer hunters should know:
Hunting seasons for deer
The statewide archery season opens Sept. 30-Nov. 17. The late season is Jan. 26-Jan. 15. Hunters in Wildlife Management Units 2B around Pittsburgh, and 5C and 5D in southeastern Pennsylvania, have longer archery seasons that include Sept. 16-Nov. 24 and Dec. 26-Jan. 27.
Hunters can use long, recurve and compound bows and crossbows.
Muzzleloader and special firearms
From Oct. 14-21 hunters can harvest antlerless deer with a muzzleloading rifle. Various action styles are permitted including in-line, percussion and flint lock. Hunters need to have an antlerless deer license in addition to their muzzleloader stamp.
For part of that week, Oct. 19-21, junior and senior license holders, mentored license holders, active-duty military and hunter with a permit to use a vehicle as a blind are able to hunt antlerless deer with a rifle.
The late flintlock only muzzleloader season is Dec. 26-Jan. 15. The season extends to Jan. 27 in WMUs 2B, 5C and 5D where it’s also an extended firearms season for antlerless deer.
The regular firearms deer season for both buck and doe is Nov. 25 to Dec. 9.
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Hunters can hunt deer statewide on two Sundays, Nov. 12, during archery season, and Nov. 26 during the regular rifle season. Archers in WMUS 2B, 5C and 5D can also hunt on Sunday, Nov. 19, which is part of the statewide black bear season.
Tagging deer
Hunters who kill a deer are required to secure the tag from his or her license on the deer’s ear. It needs to be filled out with a pen. In the past two years, hunters were required to notch out the date on the back of the tag, but that requirement has ended. Deer should not be tagged on an antler because the Game Commission staff wants the tag to stay with the animal’s head for research possibilities. Sometimes antlers are removed from the deer at the butcher shop for the hunter to take with them.
Fluorescent orange
During the regular firearms deer season and October muzzleloader season, hunters must wear at least 250 square inches of fluorescent orange on the head, chest and back combined.
Those hunting during archery season and the late flintlock muzzleloader season are not required to wear orange clothing.
Hunting Licenses
Hunting licenses are available online at huntfish.pa.gov and hundreds of sports shops and county treasurers across the state. Resident adult hunting licenses cost $20.97, resident junior licenses are $6.97. For residents archery licenses are $16.97 and muzzleloader stamps are $11.97. For nonresidents, general licenses are 101.97, junior licenses are $41.97, archery is $26.97 and muzzleloader is $21.97.
The agency plans to issue a total of 1.095 million antlerless deer licenses, up from the 948,000 issued for 2022-23. The licenses went on sale June 26 wherever general hunting licenses are sold. They cost $6.97 for residents and $26.97 for nonresidents. The website, huntfish.pa.gov, provides live updates of where antlerless licenses remain available.
Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD)
The Game Commission is monitoring Chronic Wasting Disease in deer across the state. There are Disease Management Areas (DMA) and Established Areas (EA) where deer have tested positive for the fatal neurological disease.
The Game Commission is now allowing hunters who harvest a deer, elk or other cervid outside of Pennsylvania to take it directly to any Game Commission-approved processor or taxidermist anywhere in the state. Hunters who take a deer within any of Pennsylvania’s DMAs or its EA can do the same. The list of CWD partners is available at www.pgc.pa.gov/cwd.
In past years, hunters were prohibited from bringing “high-risk” carcass parts from such animals taken in other states back to Pennsylvania.
Hunters were also prohibited from moving those parts from any of the state’s Disease Management Areas (DMAs) or the Established Area (EA) to anywhere else in Pennsylvania.
Hunters who process their own deer have options, too. If a hunter harvests a deer within a DMA or the EA and is transporting it home to process within that same DMA or the EA, they can do so as long as the high-risk parts are disposed of through a trash service. Hunters who live outside a DMA or the EA can quarter the animal to take it home, free of high-risk parts.
High-risk parts include the head (including brain, tonsils, eyes, and any lymph nodes); spinal cord/backbone; spleen; and skull plate with attached antlers.
Also, although not recommended, high-risk parts can remain at the harvest location. But once they’re moved from the harvest location, high-risk parts cannot be placed back onto the landscape.
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All hunters within a DMA or the EA can continue to get their deer checked for CWD for free. The Game Commission is once again placing head collection bins at multiple locations around the state. They’re identified on the agency’s website. Hunters who drop a deer head in a bin can check test results on the CWD dashboard at https://pgcdatacollection.pa.gov/CWDResultsLookup.
Pennsylvania first detected CWD in 2012 at a captive deer facility in Adams County. The Game Commission has tested more than 131,000 wild, free-ranging whitetails for CWD since 1998, along with more than 1,900 elk.
CWD has been found in more than 1,400 deer, 243 of those taken by hunters last season. It has not been detected in Pennsylvania’s elk herd.
Brian Whipkey is the outdoors columnist for USA TODAY Network sites in Pennsylvania. Contact him at bwhipkey@gannett.com and sign up for our weekly Go Outdoors PA newsletter email on this website's homepage under your login name. Follow him on Facebook @whipkeyoutdoors , X @whipkeyoutdoors and Instagram at whipkeyoutdoors.
This article originally appeared on The Daily American: When is the 2023-24 deer hunting season in Pennsylvania?
