In most of the United States, legal shooting hours for deer run from 30 minutes before sunrise to 30 minutes after sunset. Five states differ: Connecticut ends at sunset, South Carolina allows an hour on either side, Wisconsin ends 20 minutes after sunset, and Alaska and Arizona do not define the hours in minutes at all. Six states publish official tables or zone times that take precedence over a sunrise you calculate yourself. Whatever your state, its current regulations are the final word.
What do legal shooting hours mean?
Legal shooting hours are the part of the day when a state allows game to be taken. For deer they are almost always written relative to sunrise and sunset, so the clock time moves every day and from place to place. Iowa's deer page puts the most common version plainly: "Shooting hours for all deer seasons are half-hour before sunrise to half-hour after sunset" (Iowa DNR).
Where you stand matters as much as the date. The Pennsylvania Game Commission's hunting digest states the rule of thumb behind it: hunting hours begin and end four minutes later for each meridian west of the 75th. A ridge a hundred miles west of your house opens several minutes after your backyard does.
When we checked every state's current regulations in November 2026, 45 of the 50 set their general deer-season hours at 30 minutes before sunrise to 30 minutes after sunset. Rules do change: New York moved deer and bear hunting from sunrise-to-sunset to the 30-minute rule in 2021 (NYSDEC).
Which states use different hours?
These are the five states whose general deer-season hours are not 30 minutes on either side of the sun:
| State | General deer-season hours | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Connecticut | 30 minutes before sunrise to sunset | CT DEEP deer hunting guide |
| South Carolina | 1 hour before official sunrise to 1 hour after official sunset | SCDNR deer regulations |
| Wisconsin | 30 minutes before sunrise to 20 minutes after sunset, in effect since April 1, 2024 | Wisconsin DNR hours table |
| Alaska | No set hunting hours for deer | ADF&G hunting regulations |
| Arizona | Daylight hours, not defined in minutes | AZGFD 2026-27 regulations |
Alaska's regulations set no hunting hours for deer or any other big game. Arizona allows hunting during daylight hours and prints sunrise and sunset for Phoenix as a reference.
Why can a time you work out differ from the state's table?
In six states, the legal time comes from an official table or zone system rather than from the sun over your own spot:
- Maine uses sunrise and sunset in Bangor for the whole state (MDIFW legal hunting hours).
- Washington publishes weekly tables with separate Western and Eastern Washington columns (WAC 220-416-020).
- Wisconsin prints zone tables: Zone A is figured for Sheboygan and for Powers, Michigan, and Zones B through F add 4 to 20 minutes.
- Michigan prints a Zone A table and adds 6, 12 or 18 minutes for Zones B through D (Michigan DNR).
- Montana uses the sunrise and sunset tables adopted by its Fish and Wildlife Commission (Montana FWP).
- Pennsylvania prints its table for the 75th meridian and adds four minutes per meridian to the west (Game Commission pocket guide).
A time worked out for your exact spot follows the sun smoothly, while a table steps by zone, column or week, so the two can be many minutes apart in either direction. We compared them for every day from September 2026 through January 2027. Across Maine, times worked out from local sunrise and sunset differed from the Bangor table by up to 14 minutes: in Washington County in early September, the local morning start came as much as 8 minutes before the table's, and in York County in late November, the local evening end came as much as 14 minutes after it. In the other five states, the worst case we found, depending on the state, was a local start 5 to 21 minutes before the table's and a local end 6 to 21 minutes after it. At those spots and dates, going by the local time would put you outside the legal window.
In these states, use the table or zone time for the date and place you hunt, not a sunrise you calculated.
Sundays, opening days and other limits on the clock
Legal hours only apply while a season is open, and several states add limits by day or place:
- No Sunday hunting in Massachusetts (MassWildlife) or Maine.
- Connecticut allows Sunday deer hunting on private land only.
- North Carolina restricts Sunday hunting between 9:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m., except on controlled hunting preserves.
- Maryland ends certain Sundays early in some counties, for example at 10:30 a.m. (Maryland Sunday deer hunting).
- New Jersey allows Sunday deer hunting only in a limited form, and not in state parks or forests.
- Virginia allows Sunday hunting, but not within 200 yards of a place of worship.
- North Dakota starts its season openers at 12:00 noon Central time on opening day.
- Wildlife management areas can set their own hours in Florida, and Louisiana's management areas and federal lands publish their own schedules.
None of these show up in a sunrise calculation. Neither does whether your season, zone or tag is open on a given day.
How to check your hours before a hunt
- Read this season's regulations from your state wildlife agency or its official digest. Hours, Sunday rules and zone boundaries change between seasons.
- Find out what the time is based on: sunrise at your own spot, a reference city, or a table by zone, column or meridian.
- Read the right row and column: the date, and the zone, column or meridian band your spot falls in.
- Look up the rules for the land you are on. State parks, management areas and federal land can differ from the statewide rule.
- Leave yourself a margin when you are working from a time you calculated, especially in a table state.
How Buckmoon shows legal light
Buckmoon computes sunrise and sunset on your phone for the exact spot you hunt and applies your state's rule to them, then shows the rule under the legal light time. It rounds the start up and the end down to the whole minute, so rounding never widens the window. In Maine it computes the times at Bangor, as the state's table does. In Washington, Wisconsin, Michigan, Montana and Pennsylvania it pulls the window in by the largest gap we measured against each state's table, so the times it shows stay inside the official ones and can start later or end earlier than the table; a note says to use the table for exact times. Settings shows the agency each rule comes from and when it was last checked. If Buckmoon doesn't know which state a spot is in, it shows no legal light at all, and in Alaska and Arizona it shows sunrise and sunset with a note instead.
The best window Buckmoon suggests for the morning and evening sit always sits inside legal light, and while you sit, the Lock Screen counts down to the end of it. Legal light in Buckmoon doesn't know season dates, zones, equipment-specific rules or Sunday rules, and it isn't legal advice: your state's regulations are the final word.