About this almanac
A yearly reference for US hunting seasons, licences and public land — compiled from the agencies that set the rules, with the date of every check on the page.
01 — What this is
The Hunter Almanac answers the questions a hunter actually asks before a season: when does it open, what may I take, where can I go, and what does the licence cost. One page per species and state, built from the state wildlife agency's own regulations.
Today that covers:
- 288 season pages across 9 species and 39 states
- 37 licence pages with resident and nonresident fees side by side
- 39 hunter-safety pages with each state's birth-year cutoff and course costs
- 37 public-land pages and 36 detailed WMA guides
Every one of those pages carries a Last verified date and a link to the document we read.
02 — Why it exists
State agencies publish this information well, and they own the truth of it. What they do not do is make it comparable. Season dates live in a 90-page PDF, licence fees on a portal, hunter-education rules on a third page — and none of it lines up with the neighbouring state, which is exactly what you need when you plan a trip across a state line.
Our contribution is arrangement, not authority: the same facts, laid out so they can be read side by side and checked against the source. Where the agency is silent, we say so rather than fill the gap.
03 — Who publishes it
The Hunter Almanac is published by Honeygoat GmbH, Kägenstrasse 21, 4153 Reinach, Switzerland, with editorial responsibility held by Christoph Ballmer. Full company details are in the legal notice.
We should be equally clear about what we are not. We are a publisher based in Switzerland, not a US outfitter, not a guide service and not affiliated with any wildlife agency. Our competence is in reading regulations carefully, structuring them and re-checking them — not in telling you where the deer are. Where the almanac gives an opinion on a place, it is drawn from the agency's own published assessments, and it says so.
04 — How the data is checked
Each page is read from the responsible agency's own regulations, not from another website. A page is published only once its dates have been confirmed against that source, and the date of the check is shown on the page. The most recent verification across the season pages was 2026-09-07.
The full process — including what we do when two agency documents disagree, and why some fields are deliberately left blank — is on the verification page.
05 — What it cannot do
Regulations change after we check them. Emergency closures, mid-season amendments and late federal waterfowl frameworks all move dates that were correct when read. The agency's current regulations always govern, and the disclaimer sets out where that matters most.
06 — Corrections and contact
A reference work improves through reported errors. If a date here disagrees with your agency, tell us — info@hunteralmanac.com — and see Contact for what makes a correction quick to act on.