• One to five Farmland antlerless harvest authorisations are included with each deer hunting licence in 2026, depending on the unit chosen.
• Bonus antlerless harvest authorisations went on sale on 17 August, one per person per day, at $12 resident and $20 non-resident.
• Without further detections, the baiting and feeding ban in Washburn County expires on 9 November 2026; no other county's ban is scheduled to lift during the 2026 seasons.

Bow and crossbow

DNR, Licensing Requirements (Deer) and Deer Hunting Regulations

• A bow on an archery licence, a crossbow on a crossbow licence — and both on either, with the three-dollar upgrade.
• A crossbow may be used by any licensed hunter throughout the gun deer season and the antlerless-only hunts, whatever licence they hold.

• Filling a bow buck authorisation with a firearm, even during the gun season.
• Killing a deer for another member of a hunting party with a bow or crossbow — group hunting is a firearm-season rule.

Firearms

DNR, Deer Season Dates and Bag Limits

• Any legal weapon during the gun deer season, the antlerless-only hunt and the Holiday Hunt — firearm, airgun, bow or crossbow.

Muzzleloader

DNR, Deer Season Dates and Bag Limits

• A muzzle-loading firearm, on a gun deer licence, during the ten-day muzzleloader season.

Legal Shooting Hours

DNR, 2026 Northern and Southern Deer, Bear, Small Game and Fall Turkey Shooting Hours tables, which state the rule they render

Thirty minutes before sunrise to twenty minutes after sunset — the twenty-minute close is Wisconsin's own and is shorter than most states'. The DNR prints this as two tables, Northern and Southern, drawn for Zone A with a correction in minutes for every other zone on its map; this app computes from the sun at your pin instead, which needs no correction.

Fluorescent Orange

DNR, Highly Visible Clothing

At least half of your outer clothing above the waist in blaze orange or fluorescent pink, and a hat or head covering, if worn, at least half the same. Camo-blaze counts if half or more of the material is blaze orange or fluorescent pink; the DNR recommends solid. Required whenever and wherever a firearm deer season is in progress, of anyone hunting any game but waterfowl — so an archer out during the gun, muzzleloader, antlerless-only or Holiday hunts wears it too. Faded or stained clothing may not meet the requirement.

Sundays

DNR hunting regulations, which print no Sunday exception for deer

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

Bag limits and harvest authorisations

DNR, Deer Season Dates and Bag Limits, and Licensing Requirements (Deer)

• One buck per unused buck harvest authorisation, valid statewide; one antlerless deer per unused antlerless authorisation, valid only in the zone, unit and land type it names.
• A gun buck authorisation comes with a gun deer licence; a bow buck authorisation with an archery or crossbow licence, and may only be filled by that weapon.
• No buck authorisation is valid in a unit while an antlerless-only hunt is running there.
• Junior antlerless authorisations go to hunters 17 and under with each gun or archery licence, are valid statewide, and may be filled only by the hunter they were issued to.
• A hunter whose deer tests positive for CWD is issued a replacement authorisation through Go Wild, good for the rest of this season and all of next.

Baiting and feeding

DNR, Deer Hunting Regulations and the Baiting and Feeding Regulations page

• Where baiting is allowed: two gallons per contiguous parcel under 40 acres, or two gallons per 40 acres above that, spread out or in more than one pile.
• Scents used only to attract by odour are legal statewide if they cannot be eaten; more than two ounces must be picked up at the end of each day.
• Standing crops, normal agricultural or gardening residue and standing food plots are not bait. Food plots may not be established on DNR land.
• Hunting over an unlawful bait site is legal only after the area has been clear of bait for ten consecutive days — and removing it does not undo the citation for placing it.

• Baiting and feeding deer is banned outright in many counties, and the banned list changes through the season with each new CWD or TB detection — check the DNR's baiting and feeding map before every hunt.
• Bait containing any animal part or by-product, deposited by an automatic or gravity feeder, or contained in metal, paper, plastic, glass or wood.
• A baiting site within 100 yards of another, within 50 yards of a public trail, road or campsite, or within 100 yards of a road posted at 45 mph or more.
• Hunting within 100 yards of more than two gallons of bait on the same parcel.
• Baiting during the closed season, except from midnight the day before the archery opener; it must stop when the deer seasons close.

Group hunting

DNR, Deer Hunting Regulations

During a firearm deer season, a member of a group deer hunting party may kill a deer for another member. A party is two or more licensed hunters within sight or voice contact at all times, each carrying a firearm or airgun; drivers need neither. Junior antlerless authorisations may only be filled by their holder, a mentor may not fill a mentee's, and phones or radios may not be used to make the contact the law requires. Group hunting is not legal with a bow or a crossbow.

Possession and sale

DNR, Deer Hunting Regulations

• A deer in velvet or in spotted coat may be taken in an open season, but the velvet antlers and spotted hide may not be sold or transferred.

• Possessing a deer whose antlers have been removed, broken or altered so the legality of the deer cannot be judged.
• Possessing a deer carcass without proof of the harvest authorisation it was taken on.
• Selling or bartering any deer or deer part, except a head, an unspotted skin or antlers not in velvet, separated from the carcass.
• Taking an albino or all-white deer, or possessing one without written authorisation from the department.

DNR, Registration (Deer)

Every deer must be reported by 5 p.m. the day after the deer is recovered.

• Register online at gamereg.wi.gov — the fastest way
• Or by phone on 1-844-426-3734 (1-844-GAMEREG), any hour
• Or in person at a registration station with a phone or computer
• Have the harvest authorisation number ready; you get a ten-character confirmation number back, beginning with W

DNR, Licensing Requirements (Deer), Baiting and Feeding Regulations and Health Advisories

Chronic wasting disease has been in Wisconsin's wild deer since 2002 and drives much of the regulation here — the baiting and feeding bans, the carcass rules, and the antlerless seasons themselves. A hunter whose deer tests positive is issued a replacement harvest authorisation through Go Wild.

• Baiting and feeding bans renew with every new wild or captive CWD or TB positive, so the banned-county map changes through the season. Check the DNR's baiting and feeding page before each hunt.
• Carcass movement and disposal are governed by the DNR's Carcass Movement, Processing and Disposal page rather than by a single statewide rule.
• A CWD-positive deer earns a replacement authorisation valid for the rest of this season and all of next — a statewide buck authorisation if the deer was antlered, an either-sex authorisation for the same unit and land type if it was not.
• Hunters in the Town of Stella in Oneida County and near the city of Marinette should also read the DNR's PFAS consumption advisories for deer taken there.

• Deer management units are only counties in the Central and Southern Farmland zones. In the Northern and Central Forest zones they are habitat-drawn and numbered, so this state is resolved against a shipped boundary layer. If that layer will not load, the pin falls back to its county: the farmland half of the state still answers, the forest half does not.
• The boundary layer is the DNR's own Deer Management Units from dnrmaps.wi.gov, generalised to about 200 metres to keep it small. Close to a unit line, trust the DNR's own map.
• Metro sub-units are smaller than a deer management unit and are not resolved here. Their gun season runs to 9 December rather than the 29th and their archery season to 31 January; the seventeen units that contain one are flagged, and the dates shown are the unit's own, which are the shorter ones.
• Which counties run the Holiday Hunt and the extended archery season was read off the DNR's 2026 Farmland Zone Season Structure map, which prints them as colours rather than as a list — blue for the Holiday Hunt, salmon for both, white for neither. Six counties are blue, forty are salmon and sixteen are white, and the three add up to the sixty-two Farmland Zone units the DNR's own GIS names, which is the check that was done on the reading.
• How many Farmland antlerless authorisations come with a licence is set unit by unit, from one to five, and the DNR publishes it only as a five-shade colour map. It is not carried here: see the 2026 Farmland Zone Antlerless Harvest Authorizations map on the DNR's Deer Season Structure page.
• Baiting and feeding bans change through the season with each new CWD or TB detection, so no list of banned counties is carried here. The DNR's baiting and feeding page is the live one.
• Special hunts — state park hunts, the disabled hunt's sponsoring properties, the Sandhill research hunts — are not in the season table and have their own dates and permits.
• Wisconsin's peak breeding date is the midpoint of the DNR's own conception window: fawn births back-dated 200 days put breeding at 23 October to 12 November, and the rut meter uses 2 November. Collared bucks peaked for movement at about 1-7 November, and the DNR found movement and range size closely matched when most fawns were conceived.
• Wisconsin publishes its statewide parcel map for download rather than as an open service, so there are no property lines on the map here.

GameReg registration

1-844-426-3734 (1-844-GAMEREG), or gamereg.wi.gov

Licences

gowild.wi.gov

Baiting and feeding bans

dnr.wisconsin.gov/topic/hunt/bait — changes through the season