On April 12, the Pennsylvania Board of Game Commissioners gave final approval to the 2025-26 hunting seasons and bag limits.

With a few exceptions, the new seasons and bag limits are fundamentally the same as last year. The statewide archery bear season will be shortened from three weeks to one week and will run from October 18-25.

WMUs 2B, 5B, 5C and 5D will continue to have their longer archery bear seasons. Those WMUs comprise the cities of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia and their suburbs.

Of interest to hunters in our region, the extended firearms season for antlerless deer will be held again from Jan. 2-19, 2026, in WMUs 4A, 4C, 4D and 5A. WMU 4A was added to the extended season for 2025-26 after CWD was recently detected in that unit.

An extended antlerless deer season will be open statewide on all Deer Management Assistance Program properties from Dec. 26-Jan. 24, 2026, To participate, hunters will need a valid DMAP permit for the property they’re hunting.

At its recent meeting, the Game Commission also set the antlerless deer license allocations for 2025-26, which will total 1,312,000. That number is 126,000 more than the allocation for 2024-25.

Of the 22 WMUs around the state, five received a smaller allocation than last year; five received the same allocation as last year; and 12 received a larger allocation than last year. Here in our region, both WMU 4A and WMU 4D will see increased allocations, with 4A at 64,000, up from 61,000 and 4D at 83,000, up from 77,000.

The process of applying for antlerless deer licenses will see a few tweaks again this year. Doe licenses will go on sale Monday, June 23, and all Pennsylvania residents can apply for the WMU of their choice at that time either online or over the counter.

Antlerless licenses for all WMUs will be guaranteed to Pennsylvania residents, if they buy their first antlerless license before 7 a.m. on Monday, July 7 when the first round of antlerless license sales opens to nonresidents.

Last year, only hunters seeking a license for WMU 1B, 2G or 3A could apply during the first three days of the first round on a first-come, first-served basis. From the fourth day of the first round until the start of nonresident sales, residents were guaranteed a doe license for any other WMU desired. WMU 2G was the only unit to sell out before the start of nonresident sales. The 2025-26 allocation for WMU 2G is 57,000, which is 20,000 more than 37,000 last year.

A total of 140 elk licenses comprising 65 antlered licenses and 65 antlerless licenses were allocated for the three elk seasons in 2025-26. The archery elk season will run from Sept. 13-27 and will have 16 antlered and 11 antlerless licenses available. The general elk season will run Nov. 3-8 and will have 30 antlered and 38 antlerless tags available. The late elk season will be Dec. 27-Jan. 3 and will have 19 antlered and 26 antlerless licenses available.

Two additional Special Conservation Elk Licenses are available. One of them is auctioned off by the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and the other is raffled off by the Keystone Elk Country Alliance. All other elk licenses are awarded by special drawings.

Hunters can apply separately for any or all three of the Pennsylvania elk seasons for a fee of $11.97 per application, but an individual can only be drawn for one elk license per license year. The deadline to apply for an elk license is July 13.

Some changes to the elk license application process for next year were approved at the recent Board of Game Commissioners meeting.

All hunters will be required to buy a hunting license before they can apply for an elk license. Currently, anyone can apply for an elk license, but only those who actually are drawn for an elk license would have to buy a hunting license. Being drawn for an elk license, however, doesn’t automatically convey an elk license to the lucky applicant. It merely grants the them the privilege of purchasing an elk license, which costs $25 for residents and $250 for nonresidents.

The hunting license requirement will eliminate the need for an elk license applicant to provide a Social Security number or hunter ID number because that information will already be in the electronic licensing system.

The number of nonresident elk licenses that can be awarded each year will be limited to no more than 10 percent of the total licenses available. There is currently no restriction on the number of nonresidents that can receive an elk license each year. Most of the time, nonresidents draw about 10 percent of the yearly quota of elk tags, but that number has sometime been as much as 13 percent.

After Jan. 1, 2026, any hunter who draws a bull elk tag will be ineligible to apply for another bull tag. Currently, a hunter who is awarded a bull tag can reapply for a bull tag again after five years and possibly be drawn again. Anyone who was drawn for a bull tag prior to Jan. 1, 2026, will still be eligible to draw a second bull tag using the bonus points they’ve already accumulated but won’t be able to enter any new bull elk license applications after that date.