Maryland Opens Two-Week Deer Firearms Season November 28 Through December 12

Maryland’s two-week firearms season for sika and white-tailed deer opens Saturday, November 28, and runs through Saturday, December 12, the Department of Natural Resources said in a release dated November 4.

The season includes certain Sundays in all but three counties. The department’s Sunday deer hunting calendar lists Baltimore, Howard and Prince George’s counties as closed to Sunday deer hunting. Elsewhere the firearms-season Sundays are November 29, December 6 and January 10, on private land in most counties and on designated public lands in eight of them.

Licenses and stamps are sold through the MD Outdoors licensing system or its free mobile app, at a licensing agent, or by phone at 866-344-8889 through the department’s Licensing and Registration Service. Sika hunters also need a sika hunting stamp. An antlered sika is one with at least one antler visible above the hairline.

Bag limits are set in the 2026-2027 Maryland Guide to Hunting and Trapping. In Region B, the state outside Allegany, Garrett and western Washington County, the antlerless white-tailed limit for the firearms season is 10 deer, and a second firearms segment runs January 8 through Sunday, January 10. In Region A, the antlerless firearms dates are December 5 through December 12, and a hunter may take only two antlerless deer across the archery, muzzleloader and firearms seasons combined. The sika firearms limit is three deer, no more than one of them antlered.

Hunters and their companions must wear daylight fluorescent orange or pink during firearms season. That can be a solid cap, a vest or jacket with back and front panels of at least 250 square inches, or a camouflage outer garment worn above the waist that is at least 50 percent fluorescent.

The antler-point restriction remains in effect. A hunter may take one antlered white-tailed deer within the yearly bag limit that has fewer than three points on one antler. Any additional antlered deer must meet the three-point minimum. Licensed junior hunters and apprentice license holders 16 or younger are exempt.

The Chronic Wasting Disease Management Area covers seven counties.

• Allegany
• Baltimore
• Carroll
• Frederick
• Howard
• Montgomery
• Washington

Hunters cannot move whole carcasses or certain parts of deer taken inside the area to locations outside it unless an exception applies. Research suggests the disease is not naturally transmitted to humans, but the department recommends avoiding meat from sick animals and the brain, lymph nodes or spinal column of any deer.

New this year, the department has regulations for drones. Using one to locate and recover wounded or expired game is legal, but using one to hunt, trap or pursue wildlife is illegal. Hunters must call Natural Resources Police at 800-628-9944 before and after searching for a wounded or expired animal.

The department also says hunters should wear a full-body safety harness in a tree stand and while climbing in or out. It strongly recommends a prusik knot, a sliding knot on a line secured above the stand, so the hunter is tethered as soon as they leave the ground.

Hunters who pay to process a deer and donate the venison to a food bank may claim a state tax credit. The season opens Saturday, November 28, 2026.