Archery Season’s Been Crazy Good, Now Youth Gun And Primitive-Weapons Start

With cooler than normal temperatures and hunters apparently getting serious about putting some venison in the freezer, it’s been a productive four weeks of archery season for Georgia deer hunters. In GON’s Truck-Buck contest, hunters started out the season by recording the best first week of bow season in 32 years of the contest. Then they smashed the Week 2 record—more than double the all-time previous high. And the third week is 140% above the 32-year historical average for entries in Week 3. Those are crazy high numbers.

Now, the folks working at deer processing locations need to re-sharpen the skinning knives—the sounds of rifles and muzzleloaders are about to echo through the Georgia deer woods beginning at daylight tomorrow, Saturday, Oct. 10. The regular firearms deer season in Georgia opens a week from Saturday on Oct. 17.

Kids 15 years old and younger can hunt with modern firearms beginning tomorrow morning, Oct. 10 as the 2020 Special Opportunity and primitive-weapons week opens in Georgia. Last season, Michael Hendrix took advantage of the youth opportunity and got his best buck to date while hunting with his dad in Elbert County.

The Georgia primitive-weapons deer season opens Oct. 10, and the week of Oct. 10-16 is also the special week for youth deer hunters when kids 15 and younger can hunt deer with modern firearms. The exception is for the archery-only counties of Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb and Fulton (north of GA Highway 92), where firearms and muzzleloaders are not allowed for deer hunting. Also, GON confirmed last year with DNR that air bows are not legal in the archery-only counties.

Georgia has long had a primitive-weapons season, a week where muzzleloader hunters could get in the deer woods before the general firearms season opens. Several years ago, the youth season was added that runs in conjunction with the primitive-weapons season. Now, youth 15 years old and younger can hunt deer with regular firearms the week before the general gun season opens.

There has been some confusion in the past that mobility-impaired deer hunters could also hunt with modern firearms during this week. That is not the case, according to DNR. The confusion over a season for mobility-impaired hunters comes from the Special Opportunity season for turkey hunters, when both youth and mobility-impaired hunters can turkey hunt the weekend before the regular season opens for everyone else. That’s not the case for deer hunters—only youth 15 and younger can deer hunt with modern firearms beginning Oct. 10, not mobility-impaired deer hunters.

There are other regulations hunters should be aware of during the primitive-weapons week. Hunter orange is required for all deer hunters, including archery hunters, beginning Oct. 10. Scopes are legal on muzzleloaders for Georgia deer hunting. Air rifles of .30 caliber or larger and air bows are also now legal during primitive-weapons, except in the archery-only urban and suburban counties.

Of course, archery hunting is still allowed during the primitive-weapons and throughout the firearms seasons (don’t forget your hunter orange), and archery hunters can kill either sex, both bucks and does, throughout the seasons, except as otherwise specified on WMAs and on the Chattahoochee National Forest east of I-75, which is buck-only through all seasons, including archery.