California · Bear · 2026 Edition
California Bear Season 2026: Dates, Zones & Bag Limits
01 — Seasons
| Season | Zone | Dates |
|---|---|---|
| Archery | All bear zones statewide (Northern California, Central California, Southern Sierra, Southern California, Southeastern Sierra) | Aug 15 – Sep 6 |
| General | Deer Zone A | Aug 8 – Dec 27 |
| General | Deer Zone B-4 | Aug 22 – Dec 27 |
| General | Deer Zones B-1, B-2, B-3, B-5, B-6, C-1, C-2, C-3, C-4, D-6, D-7, X-9A, X-9B, X-12 | Sep 19 – Dec 27 |
| General | Deer Zones D-3, D-4, D-5, D-8, D-9, D-10, X-8, X-10 | Sep 26 – Dec 27 |
| General | Deer Zones D-11, D-13, D-14, D-15 and the remaining deer X-zones (X-1, X-2, X-3a, X-3b, X-4, X-5a, X-5b, X-6a, X-6b, X-7a, X-7b, X-9c) | Oct 10 – Dec 27 |
02 — Bag limits & check-in
| Statewide | 1 bear per day; possession limit is twice the daily bag limit. A legal bear excludes cubs (under 1 year old or under 50 lbs) and females accompanied by cubs |
|---|---|
| Statewide harvest quota | CDFW closes the ENTIRE season statewide (archery and all general zones together, not a per-zone sub-quota) once 1,700 bears are reported taken; check real-time status at wildlife.ca.gov/Hunting/Bear or (888) 277-6398 |
| Legal methods | Use of dogs to pursue or take bear is prohibited statewide (since Jan 1, 2013); baiting a bear, or taking one within 400 yards of bait or a garbage dump, is prohibited |
| Tag validation & reporting | Tag must be validated (countersigned) by CDFW before the bear is transported, with a narrow en-route exception; every tag holder, successful or not, must report the tag by February 1, 2027 |
| Biological sample | The skull (even if damaged) must be presented to a CDFW office within 10 days of taking; a premolar tooth must be extracted from every harvested bear for age data |
03 — Shooting hours
Legal light on opening day (August 8, 2026) 05:39 — 20:26
Rule: One-half hour before sunrise to one-half hour after sunset — California Code of Regulations Title 14 § 352 names bear explicitly in its big-game shooting-hours rule. CDFW notes the times run off sunrise/sunset AT THE HUNTER'S LOCATION, so published times from elsewhere in the state do not apply. Sunrise/sunset shift daily — the times above are computed for opening day; use your local California sun times for any other date.
04 — License
Bear hunters in California need a California hunting license — a bear tag in addition to the general hunting license (resident $62.90 / nonresident $397.60, hunters 12+); nonlead ammunition is required statewide for any firearm take Check-in or reporting a harvest is typically mandatory; see the row above for California's specific rule.
California hunting license cost →
Where to hunt public land in California — WMAs by county & access rules →
05 — Scouting gear
Patterning bear activity before California's opener usually means glassing feeding areas and running a trail camera through summer — check the state's own rules on baiting before you set one over bait.
- Hunting binoculars on Amazon →
- Trail cameras on Amazon →
- Trail camera SD cards — class, capacity & format explained →
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. These are category links, not a single named pick — we run no product tests of our own.
06 — FAQ
When does bear season open in California?
The earliest 2026 opener is August 8, 2026. See the table above for each method and zone.
When does bear season end in California?
The latest 2026 closing date is December 27, 2026. Individual segments and zones can close earlier — see the table above.
Do I need a separate bear license or tag in California?
a bear tag in addition to the general hunting license (resident $62.90 / nonresident $397.60, hunters 12+); nonlead ammunition is required statewide for any firearm take
How many bears can you shoot in California?
2026 bag limits: Statewide — 1 bear per day; possession limit is twice the daily bag limit. A legal bear excludes cubs (under 1 year old or under 50 lbs) and females accompanied by cubs. Statewide harvest quota — CDFW closes the ENTIRE season statewide (archery and all general zones together, not a per-zone sub-quota) once 1,700 bears are reported taken; check real-time status at wildlife.ca.gov/Hunting/Bear or (888) 277-6398. Legal methods — Use of dogs to pursue or take bear is prohibited statewide (since Jan 1, 2013); baiting a bear, or taking one within 400 yards of bait or a garbage dump, is prohibited. Tag validation & reporting — Tag must be validated (countersigned) by CDFW before the bear is transported, with a narrow en-route exception; every tag holder, successful or not, must report the tag by February 1, 2027. Biological sample — The skull (even if damaged) must be presented to a CDFW office within 10 days of taking; a premolar tooth must be extracted from every harvested bear for age data. Limits are set per zone and per permit — check the agency's own regulations before you hunt.
What time can you start shooting bear in California?
On opening day (August 8, 2026) legal light runs 05:39 to 20:26. The rule is: One-half hour before sunrise to one-half hour after sunset — California Code of Regulations Title 14 § 352 names bear explicitly in its big-game shooting-hours rule. CDFW notes the times run off sunrise/sunset AT THE HUNTER'S LOCATION, so published times from elsewhere in the state do not apply. Sunrise and sunset shift daily, so work the offset against your local California sun times for any other date.
Can I hunt bear on my own land in California without a license?
No — California requires a hunting license regardless of land ownership. The one landowner-specific carve-out is a narrow depredation-permit process for wild pigs causing damage, which is not a general hunting license.
Verified · California Department of Fish and Wildlife · Last verified 2026-08-14
Publisher's note. Official '2026-2027 California Mammal Hunting Regulations' PDF (same document family as the rabbit/squirrel regs), read via pdftotext, cross-checked against CDFW's standalone wildlife.ca.gov/Hunting/Bear summary page which agrees on all dates, the 1,700-bear quota, and license fees. Archery season (Aug 15 - Sep 6, 2026, all bear zones) and the Dec 27, 2026 close ('last Sunday in December') come directly from 14 CCR §365/§366. General-season openers are NOT a single date: CDFW's bear-specific text only says the general season 'opens with the general deer hunting seasons in deer zones A, B, C, D, X8, X9A, X9B, X10 and X12' (extending to Dec 27) and 'in the remaining deer X zones, the season opens October 10, 2026' (also extending to Dec 27) — it does not tabulate actual per-subzone dates for bear. I cross-referenced this against the parallel deer general-season subsections (14 CCR §360) to recover the real opening date for every A/B/C/D/X8-X12 subzone and grouped identical dates into rows below. For the 'Zone D' subzones specifically, CDFW's bear-zone county descriptions in §365(a)(1)-(5) do not list Imperial, San Diego, or the low-desert portions of Riverside/San Bernardino covered by D-12, D-16, D-17 and D-19, so those four desert subzones are omitted from the general-season table as a documented editorial judgment (no black bear population/season is described there), not an official CDFW exclusion list — verify a specific D-zone tag against the official Bear Hunting Area Map (a graphic, not text-extractable) before relying on it. CDFW currently states a SINGLE statewide harvest quota of 1,700 bears (archery + all general zones combined) with no BMU-level sub-quotas in this document — the season/tag validity does not close zone-by-zone the way some other Western states operate; CDFW posts real-time harvest totals toward that 1,700 figure. One unresolved discrepancy: the document's front-matter 'What's New' section says hunters may now buy two bear tags to use in any order (still 1 bear/day), but the detailed 'Bear Tags' section elsewhere in the same document still reads 'Hunters may purchase only one bear tag per hunting license year' — confirm directly with CDFW before assuming a second tag is available. Hound-hunting has been banned statewide since Jan 1, 2013; baiting a bear (or taking one within 400 yards of bait or a garbage dump) is prohibited year-round. Nonlead ammunition is required statewide for taking any wildlife with a firearm, including bear. YEAR LABEL SETTLED 2026-09-01: this file carried 2026-27 although the season ends on Dec. 27, 2026. The open question was whether CDFW names its regulations by a July-June licence year. It does not — the agency page heads its sections literally '2026 Season', '2026 General Season' and '2026 Archery Season'. Label set to 2026, in line with the seasonYear convention written into SESSION-ANLEITUNG the same day. Confirmed at the same time, fetched directly (wildlife.ca.gov answers without a block): 'Archery bear season in all bear zones opens August 15, 2026, and runs through September 6, 2026' and 'General bear season closes on December 27, 2026, or earlier, if the Department determines that 1,700 bears have been reported taken. This includes bears harvested during the archery season.' The quota is therefore statewide across methods and counts the archery harvest — exactly as this file's bagLimits row describes. The page also shows a running harvest counter; that figure changes daily and is deliberately not mirrored here.