How Many Antler-Only, Archery-Less Deer Can I Take With These Tags Anyway?

If you’ve been staring at your big game tags trying to make sense of what’s printed on the tags and what’s written in the state regs about the season bag limit, what you see isn’t exactly what it appears to be. Those tags that are marked “Archery Only, Antlerless Deer Only,” aren’t.

What happened is that about a year ago the state had to make a commitment to print the big-game tags and the decision had to be made several months before the Board of Natural Resources had checked off on the 1991-92 deer regs.

The new regs allow an increase in the firearms deer bag limit from three to five deer, all five of which may be taken with a firearm.

Last year, you also received five deer tags, but you could shoot only three deer with a firearm. The other two tags were “bonus” tags for antlerless, archery-only deer.

Last year, the state took the conservative route and went ahead and ordered 695,000 big-game tags (resident, honorary and non-resident) that were set up just like last year’s tags. Had they waited until they were able to receive Board approval in March, there wouldn’t have been time to have the more accurate tags printed.

You can ignore the “archery only” that’s printed on two of the tags. You may not ignore the “antlerless only” part. You may tag five deer with your 30-06 or your bow or any other legal deer hunting weapon, but only two may be bucks. The remaining three are still reserved for antlerless only—and that’s the thrust behind the change anyway—to encourage hunters to take more does.