This record does not carry a regulation the state has. kind: cross-references — description: **Which Wildlife Management District a hunter is in is not carried.** Rows are scoped to WMDs — "Designated areas only", and the bag rule names WMDs 21-25 and 29 specifically — and the map defining them is published separately by MDIFW.
This record does not carry a regulation the state has. kind: cross-references — description: **Antlerless deer permits are named and not carried.** The block's own limits say additional deer may be taken only by hunters holding antlerless deer permits or expanded-archery permits; the allocation, the lottery and the per-WMD quotas are elsewhere. **A season date here is when a hunter may hunt, not how many deer they may take.**
This record does not carry a regulation the state has. kind: cross-references — description: This is the SUMMARY of laws and rules, published by MDIFW as a two-page season table. The full hunting law book carries methods, hunter-orange requirements, tagging and registration, none of which is in these rows.
huntregs is not the law and is not an official edition of any state’s regulations: no state agency writes, reviews, publishes or approves it, and where a page here differs from the agency document it cites, the agency document is the regulation and this page is wrong.
It is an editorial compilation of state agency regulation documents: every row is carried verbatim out of one named document, cited by title, identified by the sha256 of the exact bytes we read, and printed beside the source lines it was read from.
What we do carry
rows verbatim — no row is summarised, and every field the source row carried is rendered, including the ones we have no column for;
each record’s own declaration of what it does not contain, printed in full and unedited, above the rows rather than under them;
our own withdrawals — dated, with the reason as written, and the state’s rows gone from every route while the withdrawal stands.
What we do not carry
the law itself. Every state page links the agency’s own document; that is the thing to read.
declared gaps. Where a record says regulation exists that it does not carry, that regulation is not here — it is named, in the record’s words, and it is still missing.
zone, unit or boundary geometry. The compilation holds no maps and this app draws none; several records declare that as a gap themselves.
shooting hours. Clock, sunrise and sunset text is shown exactly as written — nothing here computes a sunrise, a sunset or a timezone.
legal advice, or any judgement about whether a particular hunt is lawful for you.
every state. Some have no record in this compilation at all and some are withheld by the verification ledger today; which is which is measured on the index page each time it is loaded, not listed here.
Error direction — If this record is wrong, it is most likely wrong toward saying you MAY do something you may not.
That is the direction that ends in a citation, or in a hunter on ground the state has closed. Read the signals below before you use any row on this page.
Derived by rule from this record's own declared gaps, its own integrity fields and its own rows. It is not a score and there is no confidence number: the counts below count signals, nothing more.
2 over-permissive · 2 undeterminable · 0 under-permissive · 3 declared gap(s), 3 of which the record says carry regulation · 10 row(s) scanned
4 signal(s), most dangerous first. The evidence lines below are the rule's own excerpts, cut at 220 characters; every gap is printed in full and verbatim under what this record does not carry.
overOVER: a restriction/requirement this record does not carry [limit_or_quota='quota']; the gap ALSO names an opportunity it does not carry [extra_allowance='additional deer may be taken'], so it errs both ways and the dangerous direction is reported
known_gaps[1]: **Antlerless deer permits are named and not carried.** The block's own limits say additional deer may be taken only by hunters holding antlerless deer permits or expanded-archery permits; the allocation, the lottery and…
overOVER: the gap names a restriction, requirement, closure or supersession the record does not carry [obligation='requirement', visibility='hunter-orange', tag_check_report='tagging']; a row read without it is broader than the regulation
known_gaps[2]: This is the SUMMARY of laws and rules, published by MDIFW as a two-page season table. The full hunting law book carries methods, hunter-orange requirements, tagging and registration, none of which is in these rows.
unknowncannot be determined: the gap carries regulation but its description names neither a restriction nor an opportunity in terms this rule can read (kind='cross-references'). Boundary, map and definition gaps land here and belong here — not knowing which unit you are in cuts both ways
known_gaps[0]: **Which Wildlife Management District a hunter is in is not carried.** Rows are scoped to WMDs — "Designated areas only", and the bag rule names WMDs 21-25 and 29 specifically — and the map defining them is published sep…
unknown1 page boundary/boundaries beside the cited range were never inspected. A table that continues past a citation loses whole rows — the missing rows could be further seasons (under) or the restrictions on the ones published (over), and this is the check five states went OFFLINE for skipping.
p3 (beside cited p2) — THERE IS NO SUCH PAGE; the document ends at p2. The cited range reaches a document boundary, which is the …
what this rule cannot see
It reads this record's OWN prose. A restriction nobody declared is invisible to it — and an undeclared restriction is what takes a state offline.
It takes each gap's carries_regulation flag at face value. A gap mis-declared as non-regulatory is a silent miss.
It cannot weigh. One missing county list and fourteen missing pages of special-permit hunts each score once. There is no severity here, and that is why no score is shown.
It classifies a whole gap, never a row. A gap that qualifies four rows and a gap that qualifies all of them read identically.
Across the published records the record-level answer is almost always over. That is a statement about how regulation is written — what is missing from a compilation is usually a restriction — not a ranking of states.
Record integrity
Current through — the document this record was read from, and nothing later than it:
Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, 2026-27 Maine Hunting Seasons (Summary of Laws & Rules), the DEER block
The document is those bytes. A URL is a name; if the publisher replaces the file behind it, this hash stops matching and the mismatch is the finding.
We fetched it on 2026-08-08. That is our retrieval date, not a publication date. This record carries no date on which its publisher issued, adopted, amended or last revised that document, so this page states none. Any effective, issue or adoption date the document states of itself is inside the citation above, in the publisher’s own words — nothing here lifts it out or restates it as a fact of ours.
The publisher is named inside that citation, in the publisher’s own words. This record carries no publisher field of its own, so nothing here names one separately.
The record states its own regulation year as 2026. That is the record’s field, not a currency claim: a record may state a year older than the day we fetched it, and where it does, it says so here.
Do not take our word for it. The document every row on this page was read out of is one tap away, and checking us against it is exactly what the citation, the sha256 and the source lines under each row are for.
If that document says something this page does not, the document is the regulation and this page is wrong. The copy we read is the one whose sha256 is above; if the publisher has replaced the file since 2026-08-08, yours will not match ours, and that difference is the thing worth knowing.
What this record does not carry
derived Maine declares 3 gaps, of which 3 are regulation this compilation does not carry.
3 gap(s) the record says carry regulation
These are regulation that exists and is not in here. They are printed in full, in the record's own words.
cross-references
**Which Wildlife Management District a hunter is in is not carried.** Rows are scoped to WMDs — "Designated areas only", and the bag rule names WMDs 21-25 and 29 specifically — and the map defining them is published separately by MDIFW.
derived family: cross-reference
Who does have it
Not us. Maine’s agency publishes the document this record was read from, and that document — not this page — is where the material above has to be chased:
Where the description above names some other document, register, office or telephone number, that naming is the record’s own and is printed in full above. Nothing here has followed it up for you, and nothing here has re-typed it.
cross-references
**Antlerless deer permits are named and not carried.** The block's own limits say additional deer may be taken only by hunters holding antlerless deer permits or expanded-archery permits; the allocation, the lottery and the per-WMD quotas are elsewhere. **A season date here is when a hunter may hunt, not how many deer they may take.**
derived family: cross-reference
Who does have it
Not us. Maine’s agency publishes the document this record was read from, and that document — not this page — is where the material above has to be chased:
Where the description above names some other document, register, office or telephone number, that naming is the record’s own and is printed in full above. Nothing here has followed it up for you, and nothing here has re-typed it.
cross-references
This is the SUMMARY of laws and rules, published by MDIFW as a two-page season table. The full hunting law book carries methods, hunter-orange requirements, tagging and registration, none of which is in these rows.
derived family: cross-reference
Who does have it
Not us. Maine’s agency publishes the document this record was read from, and that document — not this page — is where the material above has to be chased:
Where the description above names some other document, register, office or telephone number, that naming is the record’s own and is printed in full above. Nothing here has followed it up for you, and nothing here has re-typed it.
Coverage
100.0% of visual lines across the season summary — the DATA rows of this table are not drawn, only its headings are
derived: this percentage is over the units named above, on the pages this record cites. It is not a percentage of the state's regulation. The gaps above are what a full percentage would have to count and cannot.
2 page(s) cited
1
2
1 page boundary/boundaries never inspected
p3 (beside cited p2) — THERE IS NO SUCH PAGE; the document ends at p2. The cited range reaches a document boundary, which is the one honest reason a neighbour cannot be inspected.
4 library repair(s)
line: -1; was: A dditional; now: Additional; basis: pdfplumber splits this token; pypdf reads it whole and the whole reading is kept
line: -1; was: Additional; now: dditional; basis: pypdf runs this token into its neighbour; the coordinate reading separates them
line: -1; was: * A; now: *A; basis: pypdf splits this token; the coordinate reading keeps it whole
line: -1; was: 8Season; now: Season; basis: pypdf runs this token into its neighbour; the coordinate reading separates them
36 swept source line(s) in 2 reason group(s) — NOT declared gaps
These are not gaps.
ruled_out entries are source lines the extractor accounted for and did NOT publish, each with the reason it gave. They are not declared gaps: a declared gap is regulation the record says exists and it does not carry.
28 × — below the DEER block on page 1 — the BEAR and MOOSE season blocks, their column headings and the page footer. Not deer regulation.
SEASONS LIMITS
BEAR WMDs
FIRST DAY LAST DAY ANNUAL BAG & POSSESSION
Youth Bear Hunting with Bait All August 28, 2026 August 29, 2026
General Hunting Season All August 31, 2026 November 28, 2026
Hunting with Bait
All August 31, 2026 September 26, 2026
Bait can be placed Aug 1, 2026
2 Bears Per Year
Bear Trapping All September 1, 2026 October 31, 2026 1 by hunting, 1 by trapping
Youth Bear Hunting with Dogs All September 12, 2026
Hunting with Dogs
Bear dog training season is All September 14, 2026 October 30, 2026
July 1-August 27, 2026
MOOSE SEASONS LIMITS
WMDs
BY PERMIT ONLY FIRST DAY LAST DAY ANNUAL BAG & POSSESSION
Bull-Only 1-7, 10-13, 15, 18, 19, 27 and 28 September 28, 2026 October 3, 2026 1 Moose Per Year
A person may only harvest one
Bull-Only 1-15, 17-19, 27, 28 October 12, 2026 October 17, 2026 moose per year, regardless of
how many permits they may
be listed on.
In order to harvest a moose
Antlerless-Only 1-6, 8 October 26, 2026 October 31, 2026
a person must be either the
permittee or sub-permittee.
Permit application period: April - May of each year.
2026-27 STATE OF MAINE SUMMARY OF LAWS & RULES HUNTING QUESTIONS? CALL 207 287-8000
8 × — page 2 carries no deer block — another species' seasons, or the page's own notes
Youth Fall Wild Turkey Day September 12, 2026
*May harvest up to 5 turkeys for the fall season, but an individual WMD bag limit cannot be exceeded. The order in which they are harvested from a WMD does not matter.
from WMDs that have a 2 bird limit.
**May harvest up to 2 turkeys for the spring season, but an individual WMD bag limit cannot be exceeded. The order in which they are harvested from a WMD does not matter.
this record carries no per-row page and none of this row's source lines is unique to a single page, so the row cannot be narrowed; these are the 2 page(s) the record says the adapter read for the whole state
These are the pages the adapter read for the whole state. This row was not narrowed to a page of its own.
2 candidate page(s). Nothing here chooses between them:
this record carries no per-row page and none of this row's source lines is unique to a single page, so the row cannot be narrowed; these are the 2 page(s) the record says the adapter read for the whole state
These are the pages the adapter read for the whole state. This row was not narrowed to a page of its own.
2 candidate page(s). Nothing here chooses between them:
All dates are inclusive except that hunting is prohibited on Sunday.
footnote
*A non-resident who owns 25 or more acres of land in Maine and leaves land open to hunting, holds a valid hunting license, and is not otherwise prohibited by law, may hunt deer on the Resident only day, anywhere in the state. A verification form must be completed and can be located on our website.
this record carries no per-row page and none of this row's source lines is unique to a single page, so the row cannot be narrowed; these are the 2 page(s) the record says the adapter read for the whole state
These are the pages the adapter read for the whole state. This row was not narrowed to a page of its own.
2 candidate page(s). Nothing here chooses between them:
this record carries no per-row page and none of this row's source lines is unique to a single page, so the row cannot be narrowed; these are the 2 page(s) the record says the adapter read for the whole state
These are the pages the adapter read for the whole state. This row was not narrowed to a page of its own.
2 candidate page(s). Nothing here chooses between them:
this record carries no per-row page and none of this row's source lines is unique to a single page, so the row cannot be narrowed; these are the 2 page(s) the record says the adapter read for the whole state
These are the pages the adapter read for the whole state. This row was not narrowed to a page of its own.
2 candidate page(s). Nothing here chooses between them:
this record carries no per-row page and none of this row's source lines is unique to a single page, so the row cannot be narrowed; these are the 2 page(s) the record says the adapter read for the whole state
These are the pages the adapter read for the whole state. This row was not narrowed to a page of its own.
2 candidate page(s). Nothing here chooses between them:
Note: Except for migratory game birds, there is no hunting season on any species of bird or animal which is not listed above. All dates are inclusive except
that hunting is prohibited on Sunday.
Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, 2026-27 Maine Hunting Seasons (Summary of Laws & Rules), the DEER block
Only 1 antlered deer may be harvested annually Exceptions: • For 2026, in WMDs 21-25 and 29 during the firearms and muzzleloader seasons, or statewide during the regular archery and youth hunt seasons, hunters may harvest one deer, either antlered or antlerless, under the author- ity of their big game hunting license. This deer counts as the hunter's one deer for the year. If a hunter wants to take additional deer, an antlerless deer permit is required. • A dditional deer may be harvested by hunters possessing antlerless deer permit(s) or during the expanded archery season with appropriate permits.
*A non-resident who owns 25 or more acres of land in Maine and leaves land open to hunting, holds a valid hunting license, and is not otherwise prohibited by law, may hunt deer on the Resident only day, anywhere in the state. A verification form must be completed and can be located on our website.
*A non-resident who owns 25 or more acres of land in Maine and leaves land open to hunting, holds a valid hunting license, and is not otherwise prohibited
by law, may hunt deer on the Resident only day, anywhere in the state. A verification form must be completed and can be located on our website.
Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, 2026-27 Maine Hunting Seasons (Summary of Laws & Rules), the DEER block
