Florida · Bear · 2025–26 Edition
Florida Bear Season 2025–26: Dates, Zones & Bag Limits
01 — Seasons
| Season | Zone | Dates |
|---|---|---|
| Any legal weapon (permit hunt) | East Panhandle BMU — 68 permits issued for 2025 | Dec 6 – Dec 28 |
| Any legal weapon (permit hunt) | North BMU — 31 permits issued for 2025 (reduced from an originally approved 46) | Dec 6 – Dec 28 |
| Any legal weapon (permit hunt) | Central BMU — 18 permits issued for 2025 | Dec 6 – Dec 28 |
| Any legal weapon (permit hunt) | South BMU — 55 permits issued for 2025 | Dec 6 – Dec 28 |
| Private Lands Bear Harvest Program (non-lottery, per-property permits) | Qualifying private properties of 5,000+ contiguous acres, enrolled by the May 31, 2026 application deadline; permits deducted from the same BMU quota pool above | Oct 1 – Dec 31 |
02 — Bag limits & check-in
| Statewide | 1 bear per permit; 1 nontransferable permit per person |
|---|---|
| Weapons | Bow, crossbow, airbow, muzzleloader of at least .30 caliber, centerfire rifle or handgun, shotgun, or large-caliber pre-charged pneumatic air gun; fully automatic firearms, rimfire ammunition, and semi-automatic rifles with magazines holding more than 5 rounds are prohibited |
| Statewide | No baiting, traps, snares, artificial light, drugs, or poison; legal hunting hours are 30 minutes before sunrise to 30 minutes after sunset |
| Harvest reporting | Must be reported within 24 hours via the Fish|Hunt FL app, GoOutdoorsFlorida.com, or by phone; the permit tag must be attached to the hide before the bear is moved; unused tags must be returned to FWC within 14 days after the permit expires |
| Dogs | Hunting bear with dogs is not permitted for the 2025 or 2026 seasons — training dogs on bear became legal in 2026, with hunting-with-dogs scheduled to begin in 2027 |
03 — Shooting hours
Legal light on opening day (December 6, 2025) 06:40 — 18:03
Rule: One-half hour before sunrise to one-half hour after sunset — FWC's single rule for hunting game, whose only exceptions are spring wild turkey and migratory game birds. Individual Wildlife Management Areas can set their own shooting hours, so check that WMA's brochure. Sunrise/sunset shift daily — the times above are computed for opening day; use your local Florida sun times for any other date.
04 — License
Bear hunters in Florida need a Florida hunting license — a nontransferable Bear Harvest Permit awarded by random drawing ($5 application fee, $100 resident / $300 nonresident permit fee), one per person, in addition to any otherwise-required Florida hunting license Check-in or reporting a harvest is typically mandatory; see the row above for Florida's specific rule.
Florida hunting license cost →
Where to hunt public land in Florida — WMAs by county & access rules →
05 — Scouting gear
Patterning bear activity before Florida'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 Florida?
The earliest 2025–26 opener is December 6, 2025. See the table above for each method and zone.
When does bear season end in Florida?
The latest 2025–26 closing date is December 31, 2026. Individual segments and zones can close earlier — see the table above.
Do I need a separate bear license or tag in Florida?
a nontransferable Bear Harvest Permit awarded by random drawing ($5 application fee, $100 resident / $300 nonresident permit fee), one per person, in addition to any otherwise-required Florida hunting license
How many bears can you shoot in Florida?
2025–26 bag limits: Statewide — 1 bear per permit; 1 nontransferable permit per person. Weapons — Bow, crossbow, airbow, muzzleloader of at least .30 caliber, centerfire rifle or handgun, shotgun, or large-caliber pre-charged pneumatic air gun; fully automatic firearms, rimfire ammunition, and semi-automatic rifles with magazines holding more than 5 rounds are prohibited. Statewide — No baiting, traps, snares, artificial light, drugs, or poison; legal hunting hours are 30 minutes before sunrise to 30 minutes after sunset. Harvest reporting — Must be reported within 24 hours via the Fish|Hunt FL app, GoOutdoorsFlorida.com, or by phone; the permit tag must be attached to the hide before the bear is moved; unused tags must be returned to FWC within 14 days after the permit expires. Dogs — Hunting bear with dogs is not permitted for the 2025 or 2026 seasons — training dogs on bear became legal in 2026, with hunting-with-dogs scheduled to begin in 2027. 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 Florida?
On opening day (December 6, 2025) legal light runs 06:40 to 18:03. The rule is: One-half hour before sunrise to one-half hour after sunset — FWC's single rule for hunting game, whose only exceptions are spring wild turkey and migratory game birds. Individual Wildlife Management Areas can set their own shooting hours, so check that WMA's brochure. Sunrise and sunset shift daily, so work the offset against your local Florida sun times for any other date.
Can I hunt bear on my own land in Florida without a license?
Florida's exemption is narrower than 'any land you own' — it only covers hunting (or freshwater fishing) on your own homestead property, or that of your spouse or minor child. Whether deer, turkey, or waterfowl permits are still required on a homestead-exempt hunt isn't spelled out in the statute — check with FWC directly before relying on it.
Verified · Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission · Last verified 2026-08-15
Publisher's note. Read directly from myfwc.com/hunting/bear/ and myfwc.com/license/limited-entry/bear-permits/, cross-checked against FWC's own December 30, 2025 news release on the 2025 hunt results (myfwc.com/news/all-news/bear-1230/). UPDATED Aug. 15, 2026: there is now stronger evidence that FLORIDA IS NOT RUNNING A GENERAL-PUBLIC QUOTA BEAR HUNT IN 2026, not just that one hasn't been announced yet. FWC's live bear-hunting page still states only that 'the 2025 bear hunting season is closed,' with no 2026 general-public dates, quotas or application window. Checked myfwc.com/about/commission/commission-meetings/ directly: the ONLY remaining FWC Commission meeting in 2026 is Dec. 9-10, 2026 — the 2025 hunt (Dec. 6-28, 2025) was itself approved about seven months in advance, at the Commission's May 2025 meeting, to allow time for an application window and lottery draw; with no meeting between now and Dec. 9-10, there is no remaining opportunity on FWC's own calendar to approve, open applications for, draw, and run a general-public hunt inside 2026. Independently, huntingseasons.org's 2026-27 Florida season guide states explicitly that 'Florida does not list a general public statewide bear season in the main 2026-2027 season tables,' with only the private-land program active. Per this project's convention for a state with no current-year general-public season, this file continues to report the last officially-confirmed general-public season — December 2025 — labeled 2025-26, rather than fabricating 2026-27 dates that do not exist; readers should treat the 2026 calendar year as having private-land-only bear-hunting access in Florida. All December 2025 season facts (Dec. 6-28 dates, the four BMUs, the 172 total permits broken out as 68 East Panhandle / 31 North / 18 Central / 55 South, the 163,459 applications received, weapon rules, legal hours, and the 24-hour Fish|Hunt FL/GoOutdoorsFlorida.com reporting requirement) are drawn from FWC's own permit page and news release, cross-checked against contemporaneous reporting from WTXL and MyNews13 for the exact zone-by-zone permit and applicant counts, which FWC's own release did not break out by zone. Separately, and independently confirmed on myfwc.com/hunting/bear/ as currently live and dated, the Private Lands Bear Harvest Program takes qualifying large private landowners (5,000+ contiguous acres) through a non-lottery application track (deadline was May 31, 2026) for a hunt window of Oct. 1-Dec. 31, 2026, issuing 1-3 tags per approved property; FWC's page states these tags are deducted from the same overall BMU quota pool used for the general-public draw. Not independently confirmed this round: the exact list of Wildlife Management Areas that ran shorter sub-windows within the Dec. 6-28 statewide dates during the 2025 hunt — secondary reporting mentioned examples like Dec. 6-8 and Dec. 13-14 on specific WMAs, but this was not verified on an official FWC page, so it is flagged here rather than included as a dated row.