• Leased Land permits for individual WMAs have been consolidated into a single $75 WMA Leased Land Permit valid for all of them.
• The early buck-only archery hunt returns after its first year, in which hunters checked 1,231 deer.

Archery

AGFC, Deer-specific Hunting Regulations

• Long, recurve and compound bows of at least 35 pounds pull; scopes, string locks and mechanical releases allowed.
• Crossbows of at least 125 pounds pull with a mechanical safety; scopes allowed.
• Arrowheads at least 7/8 inch wide, mechanicals included.
• Spears, during archery seasons.

• Arrows or arrowheads containing firearm ammunition or poison.
• Arrows propelled by a compressed air system or by an explosive or combustible propellant.

Alternative firearms

AGFC, Deer-specific Hunting Regulations

• Muzzleloading rifles with an 18-inch barrel, .40 calibre or larger; magnifying sights allowed; buckshot size 4 or larger may be used.
• Muzzleloading handguns with a 9-inch barrel, .45 calibre or larger for conical bullets of 200 grains or more, .530 or larger for round balls.
• Non-semiautomatic centrefire firearms, handguns with 4-inch barrels included, firing a straight-wall cartridge of .30 calibre or larger.
• Large-bore air rifles of at least .40 calibre firing a single expandable slug at 400 foot-pounds or more, charged from an external tank.

• Shotguns with slugs, during the alternative firearms season.
• Large-bore air rifles for bear or elk.

Modern gun

AGFC, Deer-specific Hunting Regulations

• Modern guns and large-bore air rifles.
• Alternative firearms and archery equipment are also legal during the modern gun season.
• A handgun smaller than .45 calibre with a barrel no longer than 6 inches may be used to dispatch game wounded with any legal weapon.

• Buckshot in a .410 shotgun.
• Shot smaller than No. 4 buckshot in any shotgun.
• Rimfire cartridges.
• Centrefire rifles or handguns smaller than .22 calibre, and handguns with barrels shorter than four inches.

Legal Shooting Hours

Guidebook, printed p. 46

Thirty minutes before sunrise to thirty minutes after sunset. The guidebook states it inside out, as a thing you may not do: "hunt 30 minutes after sunset to 30 minutes before sunrise, unless legally hunting furbearers".

Fluorescent Orange

AGFC, Deer-specific Hunting Regulations, and the Guidebook

At least 400 square inches of hunter orange, chartreuse or blaze camouflage above the waist, and a head garment in one of those same safety colours. Required of hunters and of anyone accompanying them, anywhere a modern gun or alternative firearms deer, bear or elk season is open — so an archer out on one of those days wears it too. Migratory bird hunters are exempt. A portable pop-up blind on a WMA must show 144 square inches of blaze orange or chartreuse from every side during firearms deer, bear and elk seasons.

Sundays

AGFC regulations, which print no Sunday exception for deer

Arkansas sets no Sunday restriction on deer hunting: every season runs each day it is open.

Bag limits

AGFC, Deer Seasons and Limits by Zone

• Four deer in any one zone, of which no more than two may be antlered bucks. The statewide seasonal limit is six deer, taken in any combination of zones or methods so long as no zone's own limit is exceeded — and still no more than two antlered bucks. Guidebook, printed p. 12.
• The two bucks may be taken with archery, alternative firearms or modern gun.
• How many of the four may be antlerless, and with which weapon, is set zone by zone — four with archery in most zones, two in zone 2; and two, three or four with the firearm seasons combined.
• A button buck counts against the antlerless side of the bag, but must still be checked as a button buck, in every county and zone.

What is a legal buck

AGFC, Deer-specific Hunting Regulations

• Hunters aged 6 to 15 may take any buck, regardless of antler size or points.
• On private land inside the CWD Management Zone, any buck.
• On private land in zones 16, 16A (excluding Ashley County) and 17 (excluding Mississippi County): both antlers under two inches, an inside spread of at least 15 inches, or a main beam 18 inches or longer.
• On all other private land: both antlers under two inches, or at least three points on one side counting the main beam, each point at least an inch long.

Baiting

AGFC, Deer-specific Hunting Regulations

It is legal to feed wildlife in Arkansas, but not to hunt over bait — with one exception. Deer and elk may be hunted over bait inside the CWD Management Zone from 1 September to 31 December, during an open season, on private land only.

Stands and blinds on WMAs

Guidebook, printed p. 58

• Portable stands and blinds must carry the owner's name and address or customer ID, and must be moved at least 200 yards after 14 consecutive days.
• They may not go up more than 14 days before the archery deer season and must be gone within 14 days after it closes.
• A pop-up blind must show 144 square inches of blaze orange or chartreuse from every side during firearms deer, bear and elk seasons.
• Screw-in tree hooks no larger than three-eighths of an inch may be used but may not be left in the tree at the end of the day's hunt.

AGFC, Deer-specific Hunting Regulations

Every deer must be reported within 12 hours of harvest — and the deer must be tagged before it is moved.

• Either check the deer immediately on the internet, in the AGFC app or by phone on 833-289-2469 before moving it
• Or fill out the deer tag from your licence in ink, fasten it to the ear or antler, and check the deer within 12 hours
• Record the check number on the tag afterwards; the original tag stays with the deer to its point of final storage
• Entrails may be removed, but evidence of sex must stay until the deer is checked; a quartered deer's head must stay within arm's reach of all four quarters
• For private land use the current deer zone map for the zone number; for public land use the zone number listed for that area in the Hunting Guidebook

• Arkansas deer zones follow highways and rivers, not counties, so this state is resolved against a shipped boundary layer — AGFC's own deerZones, generalised to about 200 metres. If it will not load, the pin falls back to its county and finds no zone: AGFC publishes no county-to-zone crosswalk.
• The antlerless side of the bag is set zone by zone and weapon by weapon, and this app carries it as wording on each season rather than as a number it can count down. Read the zone's own line before you fill a doe tag.
• AGFC's zone page prints no antler restriction for zones 6, 15 and 17, so zones 6 and 15 carry a flag pointing at the statewide rule instead. Zone 17 is named in the deer-specific regulations as a fifteen-inch-spread zone, excluding Mississippi County, and the Guidebook's own zone 17 entry (printed p. 20) prints the spread-or-beam rule and a CWD note for Mississippi County, so it is flagged both ways here.
• The CWD Management Zone is a separate boundary from the deer zones and is not carried here. Inside it any buck may be taken, bait is legal on private land from 1 September to 31 December, and carcass movement is restricted. See AGFC's CWD pages.
• Wildlife management areas often carry their own deer zone number, their own dates and their own permits, and private land completely surrounded by a WMA takes the WMA's rules. None of that is in the season table.
• Arkansas's rut runs west to east, not north to south: AGFC puts peak conception between 28 October and 21 November across most western counties and between 22 November and 14 December in the east, latest along the Mississippi. The rut meter carries 20 November flat across the state, which is the seam between the two and describes neither end of it well. The two halves are not carried as separate zones because AGFC names no boundary between them — it says "most" western counties and the "east side of the state", and drawing the line ourselves would put whole counties on the wrong side of it.
• Arkansas publishes no open statewide parcel service, so there are no property lines on the map here.

Game check

833-289-2469, agfc.com or the AGFC mobile app

Regulations hotline

833-345-0398

Deer zones and limits

agfc.com/hunting/deer/deer-seasons-and-limits-by-zone