Bow hunting WMAs when rifle season is closed?

[jthomae]

Hi all, I’m a little confused here…
can we bow hunt on public land when that land is closed for rifles (but it’s still general season obviously). Aka, if a WMA has rifle hunting windows that open and close, can we bow hunt there during the times it’s closed for rifles?

the regs book for the WMAs say “state season” for archery, which by definition ends in october so I’m confused..

thanks for your responses

 

[1eyefishing]

I think you bring up a good point.
I always considered that they were closed unless specifically listed as open dates between the gun hunts.
I can think of a few specifically, such as dawson forest, at least a few years back.
But I also believe State season is actually concurrent with gun season all the way through the end... in that you can hunt with a bow.

Leave it to this year's regulation booklet to be the most ambiguous ever.

That last statement is starting to sound like a broken record.

 

[jthomae]

To further muddy the waters, the archery only WMAs also say “state season” which means they could only be hunted until October 13th which makes no sense…

 

[Pig Predator]

You can hunt with archery equipment from sept 9th- jan 14th unless you have property with extended archery, then it runs through jan 31st. You can use archery equipment during a wma rifle hunt but not a rifle during archery.

 

[jthomae]

So to clarify, I can archery hunt Camp Thunder VPA now even though it says “state season” which is sept 9 - oct 13?

 

[hunter84]

You can only hunt on a WMA if it states that's its open for example sept.9 - Nov-1 archery oct.9-14 rifle etc. And also should say if it's open for small game or big game make sure before you hunt because you do not want to get hunting illegally, DNR doesn't care that you didn't know and it's a hefty fine if they catch you.

 

[jthomae]

Gotcha, thank you

 

[kayaksteve]

I just looked at camp thunder regs. I might still give them a call just to double check if I was you but, it’s looks like your good til the end of season to me.

 

[hunter84]

VPA'S are different from WMA 's the regulations sometimes differ from each other. when it's says sate season the you go by what the season and dates that it is in the area you are hunting wether its northern zone or southern zone and also by county, so if your in a QDM County you go by their rules and so forth.