Arkansas Deer Season 2026-27: Dates, Zones & What's Changing

Straight answer first: the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission has published the 2026-27 deer season dates. Archery opens Sept. 26, modern gun opens Nov. 14 statewide, and the restructured early buck-only archery season runs Aug. 29-31 — the late-August velvet hunt the Commission approved back in April.

012026-27 Arkansas Deer Season Dates

Archery and the early buck-only season are uniform statewide. Modern gun opens the same day everywhere but closes on wildly different dates depending on your zone — anywhere from Nov. 22 to Dec. 28.

Alternative firearms is not uniform either. Every open zone gets Oct. 17-25, but the December segment splits three ways: Zones 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 10 and 11 get Dec. 12-14; Zones 4A, 5A, 14 and 15 get Dec. 19-21; and Zones 9, 12, 13, 16, 16A and 17 get no December segment at all. In Zones 4 and 5 the alternative firearms season is closed outright.

Read that closing column carefully. Zones 4 and 5 run Nov. 14-22 — a nine-day main gun season, not the four to six weeks other zones get — and then, like most zones, reopen for the Dec. 26-28 holiday segment. If you hunt Zone 4 or 5 and were planning a gun hunt in early or mid-December, that window does not exist for you. Your options are the November block or the three days after Christmas.

Zones 16, 16A and 17 skip the split entirely and run straight through to Dec. 28.

Arkansas runs roughly twenty deer zones, and modern gun closing dates, alternative-firearms segments, dog-hunting allowances and antler restrictions all vary by zone. Confirm your specific zone on the AGFC zone page before you hunt — hunting on a wrong date is a citation, not a mistake.

02Bag limits

The statewide limit is six deer, no more than two antlered bucks. Within any single zone, the limit is four deer, no more than two antlered bucks.

AGFC then caps how you may fill that four-deer zone limit by method — and those caps themselves vary by zone. The pattern below is the most common one, applying in 11 of the 20 zones; Zones 2, 4, 5, 9, 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17 differ, so confirm yours on the zone page. These are ceilings within the four, not additions to it:

• Two antlered bucks, taken with archery, alternative firearms or modern gun
• Up to four antlerless deer with archery
• Up to three antlerless deer with alternative firearms and modern gun combined

So you cannot take four antlerless with a bow and three more with a rifle in the same zone — four deer is the zone ceiling either way. Once you hit it, you can move to another zone or a WMA to finish out your statewide six. WMAs carry their own deer regulations on top of this, so check your specific area rather than assuming the zone table applies.

All deer count as either "antlered buck" or "antlerless," statewide. Button bucks check as button bucks but count against the antlerless limit, not your two-buck limit — regardless of CWD zone.

03What Changed for 2026-27

• The three-day early archery buck-only season moved earlier, now beginning the last Saturday in August — Aug. 29 this year — giving hunters a better shot at a velvet buck and clearing the conflict with dove season. It expands to nearly every WMA that allows deer hunting.
• Bag limits were standardized into the zone structure described above.
• Modern centerfire rifles are now legal in private-land Deer Zones 4 and 5, which previously carried special modern gun restrictions.
• Grant and Sevier counties join the CWD Management Zone, with carcass-transport rules applying to deer taken there.
• WMA-specific deer regulations were heavily consolidated — if you hunt public land, this is the year to re-read your area's rules rather than assume.

04Licenses and the Basics

Arkansas requires a hunting license plus free Game Check reporting for every deer within 12 hours (online, by app or by phone). The consolidated $75 Leased Lands Permit now covers all leased-land WMAs. If you hunt inside the CWD Management Zone, carcass transport and testing rules apply. Licensing runs through the AGFC licensing system.

05Check the official source

The Commission reworks deer regulations every year, and this year is a good example: zone boundaries moved for some counties, the CWD Management Zone picked up new counties, and WMA rules were consolidated. Confirm your zone and the dates attached to it before you hunt:

• Deer seasons and limits by zone — AGFC
• AGFC regulations hub

Check which zone you are actually in rather than assuming it is the one you hunted last season, and remember that WMA rules can differ from the statewide table. Those AGFC pages are the governing text — where they disagree with anything written here, follow AGFC. Hunting on a wrong date is a citation, not a mistake.

Season dates and bag limits verified against AGFC's published 2026-27 zone table, August 16, 2026. The regulation changes listed above are sourced from AGFC's own announcements rather than the zone table itself — confirm anything you plan to act on against the regulations hub.

06Plan the Season

The dates are set. Now the strategy work:

• Arkansas Rut Prediction 2026 — when we expect peak rut across the Ozarks, Ouachitas and Delta, so you can line up vacation against the modern gun opener.
• Arkansas Solunar Calendar — feeding-window forecasts for the five-month archery season.
• Best Time to Hunt Today in Arkansas — free, live conditions read for any day you're in the woods.
• Hunt Forecast — Trail Pro Intel's free Hunt Forecast scores your exact stand daily on wind, pressure, temperature and solunar overlap, so you know which of these days are worth burning leave on.

The velvet opener is August 29. Get your zone confirmed, your stands hung, and — if you are in Zone 4 or 5 — your gun week planned for November.