• The statewide antlerless bag limit is six deer across all deer seasons.
• Centrefire rifles with a bullet diameter of at least .219 inches (5.56 mm) may now be used on both public and private land, not only private.
• Crossbows may now be used on an archery licence.

Archery

Guide, Deer Regulations

• Vertical bows with a minimum 35-pound draw weight.
• Crossbows with a minimum 125-pound draw weight.
• Metal broadheads.

Firearms

Guide, Deer Regulations

• Centrefire rifles with a bullet diameter of at least .219 inches (5.56 mm), on public and private land alike.
• Handguns with a four-inch minimum barrel and a bullet of at least .243 inches.
• Shotguns shooting slugs or saboted bullets only.

Muzzleloader

Guide, Deer Regulations

• Muzzle-loading rifles and shotguns with a barrel of at least .40 inches, firing a bullet of at least .357 inches.
• Muzzle-loading handguns with a 12-inch minimum barrel firing a bullet of at least .44 inches.

Any legal deer equipment

Guide, Deer Regulations

• Whatever is legal for deer — bow, crossbow, firearm or muzzleloader.

Legal Shooting Hours

Indiana 2026-2027 Hunting & Trapping Seasons, deer hunting hours

Half an hour before sunrise to half an hour after sunset.

Fluorescent Orange

Guide, General Information and Deer Regulations

One or more of a vest, coat, jacket, coveralls, hat or cap in solid — not camouflage-patterned — fluorescent orange, exposed as an outer garment at all times. Required during the firearms and muzzleloader seasons, during the youth season, and in a deer reduction zone from 14 November to 31 January. An archery hunter out on one of those days wears it too.

Sundays

Indiana 2026-2027 Hunting & Trapping Seasons, which prints no Sunday exception for deer

Indiana sets no Sunday restriction on deer hunting: the seasons run every day they are open.

Bag limits

Guide, Deer Regulations

• One antlered deer statewide for the licence year, whatever the season or licence.
• Six antlerless deer statewide — but the county's own antlerless limit is the binding number nearly everywhere.
• The lifetime comprehensive, youth hunt/trap, archery, firearms (antlered only), muzzleloader and multi-season antlerless licences all count against the same statewide limit.

Deer reduction zones

Guide, Deer Regulations

Deer reduction zones — previously called urban zones — are designated locations inside certain counties rather than whole counties. Their season runs from 15 September 2026 to 31 January 2027, the bag limit is ten deer of which only one may be antlered, and an antlerless deer must be taken before an antlered one. This app resolves a pin only as far as its county and so does not carry them; check the DNR's zone maps if you hunt one.

Guide, Deer Regulations

Every deer must be reported within 48 hours of the time of harvest.

• Check in online at GoOutdoorsIN.com or in the GoOutdoorsIN app
• Or by phone on (260) 368-5880, at no charge
• Or in person at an on-site check station or a licensed retailer

• Which deer a licence may take is not only a matter of the season. A deer firearms licence is antlered deer only; archery and muzzleloader licences take either sex; the bundle takes one antlered and two antlerless. This app shows the season's own dates and says which licence the antlerless side needs, but it cannot grey out a doe for the hunter holding the wrong licence.
• Deer reduction zones are designated locations inside counties, not whole counties. Their season runs 15 September to 31 January with a ten-deer limit and an earn-a-buck rule, and this app does not carry them because it resolves a pin only as far as its county.
• The county antlerless limits here were read off the DNR map, which prints the number inside each county — so the shades were not judged, the digits were read. Sixty counties are threes, seventeen twos, thirteen fours, and Jennings and Martin are ones.
• The licence year end shown is Indiana's standard 31 March. It was not confirmed against the printed 2026-27 guide, whose licence pages give prices without stating the year's dates.
• The rut meter uses Indiana DNR's own estimate for your county, from its Average Annual Peak Deer Rut layer — 21 October in Ohio County to 20 November in Pike, with the median county on 9 November. These are peak deer-vehicle collision dates, which the department says represent peak breeding dates rather than being conception dates measured off a fetus, and its own confidence interval is much wider in some counties than others: the median county's is under three days across, Ohio County's is nineteen and Switzerland County's is forty-eight. The app draws the date and not the interval.
• Indiana publishes no open statewide parcel service, so there are no property lines on the map here.

Harvest reporting

(260) 368-5880, or GoOutdoorsIN.com

Division of Fish & Wildlife

wildlife.IN.gov