Hunters are poised to enjoy a number of changes this fall, including the major one – the opening of the firearms season on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. There are other changes hunters should know.

What About Sunday Hunting?

What is happening with Senate Bill 147? The bill remains in the Pennsylvania House Game and Fisheries Committee. Currently, the National Rifle Association and the National Shooting Sports Foundation – experts in legislative work - are handling the ongoing negotiations.

A key sticking point seems to be language requested by the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau regarding the trespass law. The PFB is requesting SB147 be amended to include written permission on the Sundays stipulated in the bill. No other days are being considered to include written permission.

So, are hunters going to have an opportunity to hunt on selected Sundays this fall? Due to the shrinking time frame, this appears unlikely. First the House Game and Fisheries Committee must vote. Then the bill would go to the entire Pa House for a vote, back to the Senate for a vote, and then to the governor’s desk.

Expanded Season for Bears

Pennsylvania in 2019 is doubling its number of statewide bear-hunting days, creating the state’s lengthiest bear-hunting opportunity since the 1930s.

The new statewide bear muzzleloader season runs from Oct. 19 to Oct. 26. There is also an early firearms season from Oct. 24-26 for junior and senior hunters, hunters who are on active military duty, and certain disabled persons. A two-week archery season from Oct. 28-Nov. 9 follows. The four-day general bear season from Nov. 23-27 is followed in some areas by extended seasons that in eight Wildlife Management Units have increased from four to seven days.

Fluorescent Orange

Regulations Change

I really like this change, which greatly simplifies things for archery hunters (uh, especially those of a certain age). I was constantly checking the Pennsylvania Hunting and Trapping Digest to see when I had to be wearing blaze orange during the archery season.

The new regulations eliminate the requirement to wear fluorescent orange at any time while archery hunting for deer, bear or elk. This eliminates all overlap periods when archery hunters were required to wear varying amounts of fluorescent orange while moving or post orange material while in a fixed position.

The regulations also eliminate the requirement for fall turkey hunters to wear fluorescent orange material. All other seasons would continue with their existing fluorescent orange requirements and the requirement to post orange while deer, bear or elk hunting from an enclosed blind also remains.

Hunters in deer, bear and elk firearms seasons, small game season, and those hunting coyotes during daylight hours within open deer, bear or elk firearms seasons, must continue to wear, at all times, 250 square inches of daylight fluorescent orange material on the head, chest and back combined, visible 360 degrees. Hunters in seasons for crows, doves, waterfowl, post-Christmas flintlock deer, spring turkeys and furbearers (with the exception of coyotes as noted above) continue without fluorescent orange requirements.