• Red and grey fox season reduced to 7 November - 31 December.
• Coyote shooting hours on private land extended to half an hour before sunrise until midnight.
• Harrington Preserve now allows all hunting.

Archery

Guide, printed p. 8

• Long bow, recurve or compound at not less than 40 pounds with fixed blade broadheads, or 50 pounds with mechanical broadheads
• Crossbow at not less than 125 pounds
• Broadheads with at least two metal cutting edges, 7/8 inch or more at the widest point, mechanical heads measured open

• More than one firearm or bow in the field per hunter

Muzzleloader

Guide, printed p. 8

• .45 calibre or larger, percussion caplock, flintlock or in-line ignition using percussion caps, rifle or shotshell primers
• Single or double barrel only, loaded from the muzzle
• A single projectile — round ball, maxi ball or sabot
• Telescopic sights

• Possessing modern shotgun shells while hunting with a muzzleloader

Shotgun

Guide, printed p. 8

• Shotgun of 10, 12, 16 or 20 gauge, holding no more than five shells or plugged with an unremovable one-piece filler
• A single lead or alloy projectile — rifled slug or sabot
• A muzzleloader, if the hunter holds a current shotgun deer permit and complies with the muzzleloader rules

• Buckshot, at all times
• Any rifle

Legal Shooting Hours

Guide, printed p. 32

The guide's own Legal Shooting Hours table gives deer as "½ hour before Sunrise until ½ hour after Sunset" — and it is worth noting that small game and pheasant in Rhode Island are sunrise to sunset, a narrower window than deer. State management areas are closed from half an hour after sunset to half an hour before sunrise except for hunting and fishing, so the light and the gate agree.

Fluorescent Orange

Guide, printed pp. 9 and 22

Two hundred square inches of solid daylight fluorescent orange, worn above the waist and visible in all directions — a hat covers 200 square inches. Five hundred square inches during all portions of a shotgun deer season, which needs a hat and a vest together. The 200-square-inch rule binds all users of state management areas, designated undeveloped state parks and co-op units — not just hunters — from the second Saturday in September to the last day of February, and again from the third Saturday in April to the last day of May. The 500-square-inch shotgun-season rule binds all hunters and users likewise. Fluorescent camouflage does not count. Orange is not required in areas limited by regulation to archery-only hunting. Note two other 500-square-inch rules: everyone involved in tracking a wounded deer with a dog wears it, and so does anybody carrying a deer decoy.

Sundays

Guide, printed p. 10

Sunday hunting is legal in Rhode Island, with a local exception: Portsmouth, Little Compton, Middletown and Barrington are closed to Sunday hunting on private land. Some towns also require written permission from the landowner and/or the local police department, and local municipalities may not prevent hunting on state-owned land. Check with the town police department or town clerk.

Season bag limits

Guide, printed p. 8

• Statewide, all zones and methods combined: 2 antlered deer — and no more than 1 antlered deer from Zone 3.
• Zone 1: 3 antlerless deer. Zone 2: 2 antlerless deer. Zone 3: 2 antlerless deer. Zone 4: unlimited antlerless deer.
• Antlerless limits are per zone, and a hunter may take each zone's limit in the same hunting year, cumulative across all weapons and seasons.
• Deer permits are antler, weapon and zone specific.

Prohibited deer hunting activities

Guide, printed p. 9

• Any deer scent or lure containing natural cervid urine, gland oil, faeces, tissue, blood or other bodily fluid — deer, moose or elk.
• Electronic calls.
• Permanent tree stands, and nails, spikes, bolts or climbing devices that may damage trees on state or co-op property.
• Hunting deer on private property without the landowner's permission.
• Hunting, pursuing or molesting deer in tidal waters or while they are swimming.
• Feeding or baiting — placing, exposing, depositing, distributing or scattering any material that attracts deer to feed, or maintaining its availability.
• Driving deer by parties of more than five people.
• Possessing more than one firearm or bow in the field per hunter while deer hunting.

Tree stands

Guide, printed p. 9

• No tree stand may be set on state-owned property before 15 August, and all must be removed before 31 March.
• Every stand on public land or a co-op unit must be legibly marked with the hunter's Customer ID or Sportsman's Equipment ID number, both of which are on rio.ri.gov.

Tracking a wounded deer with a dog

Guide, printed p. 9

• A licensed hunter with a current deer permit may use one dog, or engage a second party to use one dog, to recover a wounded or unrecovered deer within 72 hours of the shot.
• No firearm or archery device may be carried by the hunter, the handler or anybody else present at the time of tracking.
• The dog stays under physical control on a lead no longer than 50 feet, and the hunter must be present at all times.
• Everybody involved wears 500 square inches of fluorescent orange.
• If the deer turns out to be alive, everyone backs away immediately and the dog comes out of the area; the hunter may then return with a legal weapon.

Landowner permission and liability

Guide, printed p. 10

Written landowner permission is required to hunt deer on private property, and it is required annually. RI General Law 32-6-3 limits the liability of a landowner who allows recreational use without charge: doing so does not warrant that the premises are safe, does not make the user an invitee or licensee owed a duty of care, and does not create responsibility for injury. On Prudence Island permission must be countersigned by the Portsmouth police chief; on Block Island by the Block Island Chief of Police.

Guide, printed pp. 8 and 11

Every deer must be reported notch the tag before you move the deer; report within 24 hours.

• Notch the tag with the day, hour and month of harvest before moving the deer for photos, field dressing or leaving the woods
• The notched tag must be affixed to and remain with the carcass until the deer is prepared for taxidermy or consumption
• Report the harvest within 24 hours at rio.ri.gov, or call the Division of Fish and Wildlife on 401-789-0281 between 8:30 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. Monday to Friday
• Write the harvest report confirmation number on the tag
• Deer taken on the first two days of the muzzleloader season (7-8 November) and of the shotgun season (5-6 December) must be physically checked at a state biological check station instead — archery deer included, and those hunters need not report online first
• Deer from Patience, Prudence and Block Islands are always reported online rather than checked
• A deer wounded but not recovered must also be reported to DEM within 24 hours

• Zones 1 and 2 are shown here as one unit. They share every season date, so the calendar is right either way — but the antlerless limit is three in Zone 1 and two in Zone 2, and the boundary between them runs on roads rather than town lines. The guide's own public lands table lists Burlingame WMA as lying in "1, 2", which is proof that a town cannot tell you which side you are on, and DEM publishes no boundary layer. Read the zone map on printed pp. 16-17 before taking a third doe.
• Antlerless limits are per zone and cumulative — a hunter may take Zone 1's three, Zone 2's two, Zone 3's two and Block Island's unlimited allowance in the same year. The app cannot count for you.
• Deer permits are antler, weapon and zone specific. One permit is not four.
• Block Island's season is a list of thirty-nine named days, not a range, and it skips Sundays, most Mondays and every holiday. Every one of them is transcribed here; check the printed table if a date looks wrong.
• Patience and Prudence Islands are archery only except for the four-day disabled hunters' season, and archery proficiency certification is required on all three islands.
• Written landowner permission is required annually to hunt deer on private land — countersigned by the Portsmouth police chief on Prudence Island and by the Block Island Chief of Police on Block Island.
• Portsmouth, Little Compton, Middletown and Barrington are closed to Sunday hunting on private land, and some towns require written permission from the local police department. The app shows Sundays as open because most of the state is.
• Rhode Island's peak breeding date is the middle of DEM's own window, the first two weeks of November; the rut meter uses 7 November. Connecticut's DEEP names the last two weeks of November for deer across the line, so the meter steps by a fortnight at the border.
• RIGIS publishes parcels as town-by-town downloads rather than a queryable service, so there are no property lines on the map here.

Division of Fish and Wildlife

401-789-0281

Licensing

401-222-3576

Report a harvest

rio.ri.gov

Great Swamp Field Headquarters

[email protected]