Hunting Licenses
There are options for nonresident lifetime hunting, trapping, and fishing licenses in lieu of the equivalent annual license.
A Lifetime Senior/Hunting/Trapping/Fishing License (Class XS) is required of all resident hunters, trappers and anglers who reach 65 years of age on or after Jan. 1, 2012 (with the exception of landowners and lifetime license holders).
Resident and Non-resident Apprentice Hunting/Trapping/Fishing licenses are available as of Jan. 1, 2013. These licenses will allow a person who wants to try hunting without taking a hunter education course to do so. However, stipulations apply, including that an individual must be accompanied by a licensed adult hunter and must not have purchased a base hunting license in previous years. See hunting and trapping regulation summary for additional details.
General Regulations
Law relating to the discharging of firearms in the vicinity of dwellings was modified in 2013 – It is illegal to shoot a firearm within 500 feet of a school, church or dwelling or on or near a park or other place where persons are gathered for pleasure; provided, a resident or guest of a dwelling may shoot a firearm within 500 feet of the dwelling where the person lives, if all residents of the dwelling consent and no other dwellings are within 500 feet.
It is illegal to shoot, hunt or trap upon the fenced, enclosed, purple paint marked or posted lands of another person without having on possession written permission from the landowner. For the purposes of the purple paint posting law: boundaries must be marked with a clearly visible purple paint marking, consisting of 1 vertical line no less than 8 inches in length and 2 inches in width, and the bottom of the mark not less than 3 nor more than 6 feet from the ground or normal water surface. Such marks must be affixed to immovable, permanent objects that are no more than 100 feet apart and readily visible to any person approaching the property. Signs shall be posted at all roads, driveways or gates of entry onto the posted land so as to be clearly noticeable from outside the boundary line.
For more information, consult the Hunting and Trapping Regulations Summary.
Air Rifle Hunting
Any person lawfully entitled to hunt may hunt with an air rifle during small game and big game firearms season. Air rifles may only be used for deer hunting in counties open to firearm deer hunting. Any person hunting with an air rifle is subject to all other rifle and firearm hunting regulations (see page 3 of the Hunting and Trapping Regulations Summary). For more information about individual seasons, go to the sections for deer, bear, turkey, and wild boar. Air rifles may be discharged within 500 feet of a dwelling.