Sharing the Woods in Hunting Season: What Hikers and Runners Should Know

Open Maine’s legal hunting hours chart for 2026 and 2027 and the first thing that stands out is a column of blank cells. Sunrise and sunset are printed to the minute for six days a week, straight through December. Every Sunday square is empty. That white space is the biggest single difference between walking the woods here and walking them almost anywhere else.

The woods are in season long before rifle season

Most trail users picture hunting season as two or three weeks in November. Maine’s calendar runs much longer. General bear hunting opened August 31 and runs to November 28. Fall turkey runs September 14 to November 7, with dates that vary by Wildlife Management District. The first bull-only moose period falls September 28 to October 3. Expanded archery on deer opens September 12 and stays open through December 12.

Deer alone accounts for five seasons: regular archery October 3 to 30, the youth hunt October 23 and 24, a resident-only day October 31, firearms November 2 to 28, statewide muzzleloader November 30 to December 5, and a second muzzleloader season December 7 to 12 in Wildlife Management Districts 12 to 18 and 20 to 29. The state counts 79 days of deer opportunity, and hunters took 55,876 deer statewide in 2025. So if you are mapping out peak foliage hikes across New England for the second week of October, you are planning them inside archery season.

Sunday is statute, not custom

Title 12, section 11205 of the Maine Revised Statutes is short. A person may not hunt wild animals or wild birds on Sunday, and may not possess anything taken in violation of that. Breaking it is a Class E crime. The Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife puts it on its general hunting laws page under a header that reads, without softening, “Sunday Hunting is Illegal in Maine.”

The rule has grip. Carrying the gear counts against you on its own: possession of hunting equipment in the fields, forests, waters or ice of the state on a Sunday is prima facie evidence of a violation, unless it is covered, cased, or carried in pieces that cannot be fired without being joined together.

A 2022 study the department commissioned found Maine is one of only two states with a blanket prohibition and no exceptions. Massachusetts is the other. It also asked residents how important it is that there be one weekend day during hunting season when people can be in the woods without worrying about hunters. Sixty-nine percent called that very or somewhat important, and strong majorities of every group surveyed said Sunday is the only day they feel safe in the woods without having to worry about hunters. Awareness of the ban runs to 98% among hunters and 78% among residents generally.

What hunter orange requires, and of whom

This is the part that gets garbled at trailheads. Maine’s rule is written for people who are hunting. During the firearms or muzzleloader seasons on deer, a hunter using a firearm, muzzleloader or crossbow for any species wears two articles: a solid-colored hunter orange hat, plus a jacket, vest, coat or poncho that covers a major portion of the torso and is at least 50% hunter orange.

The state does not leave the color to the eye. Hunter orange is defined in law as a daylight fluorescent orange with a dominant wavelength between 595 and 605 nanometers, an excitation purity of at least 85%, and a luminance factor of at least 40%. Articles have to be visible from all sides.

Two things follow for everyone else. Bowhunters are exempt, since hunter orange is not required when hunting with bow and arrow, though the department recommends it anyway, and that exemption covers September through mid-December in the expanded archery areas. And hikers, runners and dog walkers are not required to wear anything at all. Nothing in either state’s published orange rules reaches non-hunters. Our own suggestion, offered as practical advice rather than state guidance: borrow the hunter’s specification anyway. A solid orange hat with something orange over the torso is the standard Maine trusts to make a person visible in the woods. Put a strip on the dog too.

Timing, setbacks, and the suburban part of this

Legal hunting hours in Maine run from a half hour before sunrise to a half hour after sunset. On opening day of the 2026 firearms season, Monday November 2, that runs 5:45 a.m. to 4:52 p.m. The translation for anyone who runs before work or walks the dog after: the dark shoulders of a November day sit inside legal hunting hours, not outside them. By December the early sunset closes that window on the afternoon, which makes the cold weather trail habits people adopt in January useful about six weeks sooner.

Distance rules are measured from buildings, not property lines. In Maine it is unlawful to discharge a firearm or muzzleloader, or to cause a projectile to pass as a result, within 100 yards (300 feet) of a building without permission from the owner or an adult occupant. The same limit applies to arrows and bolts on another person’s land. A hundred yards is not much ground on a greenbelt path behind a subdivision.

Which brings up the piece southern Maine misses. Expanded archery is aimed at populated places by design, established to provide additional deer hunting opportunities where deer populations can withstand additional hunting pressure. Its listed areas include the Augusta, Bangor, Lewiston and Waterville areas by named town, plus a South Coastal Area, new for 2026, that folds together the former Bucksport, Camden, Eliot and Portland Metro zones along with Wildlife Management District 24. That is the exact ground where a lot of us walk, run and take the dog out.

Cross the river and the rulebook changes

New Hampshire’s structure reads differently. Archery on deer runs September 15 to December 15, closing December 8 in Wildlife Management Unit A. Muzzleloader runs October 31 to November 10 statewide, regular firearms November 11 to December 6 (November 29 in WMU A), and youth deer weekend is October 24 and 25. No Sunday closure appears anywhere in that published structure.

Access rests on a different premise too. New Hampshire Fish and Game states that all state, federal, municipal, county and private land is open to hunting unless it is posted against hunting, and that 80% of the state’s forestland is privately owned. The department frames it carefully: hunting is a privilege granted by the landowner, not a right granted to the hunter. Its setback is written from the dwelling rather than from any building, and under RSA 207:3-a no one may discharge a firearm or bow and arrow within 300 feet of a permanently occupied dwelling without the landowner’s permission. On orange, the state’s public material reads as safety advice rather than a general mandate, telling hunters to wear it on the head, back and chest.

Fish and Game also publishes the closest thing to reassurance either state offers, though the figures are dated and are New Hampshire’s alone: fewer than eight shooting injuries involving hunting in each year since 1994, among roughly 78,000 hunters. The line worth carrying is the department’s own. “Very seldom do any incidents involve non-hunters.”

A workable fall routine

None of this argues for staying home. It argues for knowing the calendar. Check the season dates for whichever state you are in before committing to a big day. In Maine, Sunday is genuinely yours, which is why so many trail regulars quietly schedule the long run and the family hike for it. Midday sits inside legal hours but away from the dawn and dusk edges. Wear the orange, keep the dog close, and make the kind of noise you would normally be embarrassed to make.

It helps to remember who else is out there. Anyone buying a Maine hunting, archery or trapping license has to complete the matching education course first, so the people you are sharing October with have all sat through the same lessons. And since you are dressing for the season anyway, these same warm autumn weeks are peak adult deer tick season, so the tick check comes home with you whichever day you go.

Sources

• Maine Legislature. Maine Revised Statutes Title 12, section 11205, Hunting on Sunday. https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/12/title12sec11205.html
• Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. General Hunting Laws. https://www.maine.gov/ifw/hunting-trapping/hunting/laws-rules/general-laws.html
• Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. Season Dates and Bag Limits. https://www.maine.gov/ifw/hunting-trapping/hunting/laws-rules/season-dates-bag-limits.html
• Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. Laws Pertaining to Hunting Equipment (Hunter Orange Clothing Requirements). https://www.maine.gov/ifw/hunting-trapping/hunting/laws-rules/hunting-equipment.html
• Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. 2026-27 Legal Hunting Hours (PDF). https://www.maine.gov/ifw/docs/26-MDIFW-30-Legal-Shooting-Hours-2026-27.pdf
• Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. Expanded Archery Season on Deer. https://www.maine.gov/ifw/hunting-trapping/hunting/species/deer/expanded-archery/index.html
• Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. Deer Harvest 2025 (PDF). https://www.maine.gov/ifw/docs/DeerHarvest2025.pdf
• Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. Safety Courses. https://www.maine.gov/ifw/programs-resources/educational-programs/safety-courses/index.html
• Responsive Management for the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. Maine Residents, Hunters, and Landowners Attitudes Toward Sunday Hunting (2022). https://www.maine.gov/ifw/docs/ME%20Sunday%20Hunting%20Survey%20Rep%202022_Resp%20Mgt.pdf
• New Hampshire Fish and Game Department. Deer Hunting in New Hampshire. https://www.wildlife.nh.gov/hunting-nh/deer-hunting-new-hampshire
• New Hampshire Fish and Game Department. Where to Hunt. https://www.wildlife.nh.gov/hunting-nh/where-hunt
• New Hampshire Fish and Game Department. Landowner and Hunter FAQs. https://www.wildlife.nh.gov/hunting-nh/landowner-relations-program/landowner-and-hunter-faqs
• New Hampshire Fish and Game Department. Hunting Safety. https://www.wildlife.nh.gov/hunting-nh/hunting-safety

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Consult a qualified healthcare provider before making any health decisions.