Georgia · Bear · 2026–27 Edition
Georgia Bear Season 2026–27: Dates, Zones & Bag Limits
01 — Seasons
| Season | Zone | Dates |
|---|---|---|
| Archery | Northern Zone — Barrow, Carroll, DeKalb, Fulton, Gwinnett, Hart, Jackson, Madison, Walton counties and all counties north | Sep 12 – Oct 19 |
| Primitive weapons (youth may use legal firearms) | Northern Zone | Oct 10 – Oct 16 |
| Firearms | Northern Zone | Oct 17 – Jan 11 |
| Firearms | Central Zone — Bibb, Bleckley, Houston, Twiggs counties (Oaky Woods WMA check station); no WMA hunting, no dogs | Dec 19 – Dec 19 |
| Firearms | Southern Zone — Brantley, Camden, Charlton, Clinch, Echols, Lanier, Lowndes, Ware counties; still-hunting only in Lanier and Lowndes | Sep 17 – Sep 19 |
| Firearms | Southern Zone (same counties) | Sep 24 – Sep 26 |
| Firearms | Southern Zone (same counties) | Oct 1 – Oct 3 |
| Firearms | Southern Zone (same counties) | Oct 8 – Oct 10 |
02 — Bag limits & check-in
| Statewide | 2 bears per season, but no more than 1 of the 2 may come from the Central and Southern Zones combined |
|---|---|
| Statewide | It is unlawful to kill a female bear with cub(s) or a cub weighing under 75 pounds |
| Central Zone quota | If fewer than 6 female bears are harvested on the Dec. 19 hunt day, the season reopens the first Saturday after Jan. 1 for further hunting — a hard biological trigger, not a fixed second date |
| Harvest reporting | All bears must be reported through Georgia Game Check within 24 hours of recovery, statewide |
| Northern Zone check-in | Hide and skull must be taken to a Game Management office, participating processor, or taxidermist within 3 business days of harvest for tagging |
| Central/Southern Zone check-in | Central Zone bears are checked and tagged at the Oaky Woods WMA check station; Southern Zone bears are tagged within 24 hours at a state-approved cooperator or Georgia Forestry Commission office |
| Chattahoochee & Chestatee WMA — dog-bear exception | Dogs are banned for bear statewide except on these two WMAs, which run a quota dog-bear hunt Oct. 4-12 (2 per person or 5 per party) layered on top of the regular Northern Zone archery window (both WMAs are also open Sept. 27-Oct. 3 under the standard no-dogs rule); dog-bear hunters must check in at the Chattahoochee WMA check station (which also serves Chestatee) before hunting and attend a pre-hunt meeting as directed by their notification email — sourced from eRegulations' Georgia WMA pages, not independently confirmed on a directly-rendering GA DNR page this round (georgiawildlife.com remained blocked to every fetch method tried) |
03 — Shooting hours
Legal light on opening day (September 12, 2026) 06:45 — 20:12
Rule: Legal hours for hunting are 30 minutes before sunrise until 30 minutes after sunset — Georgia's single rule for hunting; its night-hunting exceptions (alligator, raccoon, opossum, fox, coyote, bobcat, feral hog) do not include bear. Sunrise/sunset shift daily — the times above are computed for opening day; use your local Georgia sun times for any other date.
04 — License
Bear hunters in Georgia need a Georgia hunting license — a Big Game License plus a free Harvest Record (serves as the bear tag); WMA Stamp additionally required to hunt bear on public Wildlife Management Areas Check-in or reporting a harvest is typically mandatory; see the row above for Georgia's specific rule.
Georgia hunting license cost →
Where to hunt public land in Georgia — WMAs by county & access rules →
05 — Scouting gear
Patterning bear activity before Georgia'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 Georgia?
The earliest 2026–27 opener is September 12, 2026. See the table above for each method and zone.
When does bear season end in Georgia?
The latest 2026–27 closing date is January 11, 2027. Individual segments and zones can close earlier — see the table above.
Do I need a separate bear license or tag in Georgia?
a Big Game License plus a free Harvest Record (serves as the bear tag); WMA Stamp additionally required to hunt bear on public Wildlife Management Areas
How many bears can you shoot in Georgia?
2026–27 bag limits: Statewide — 2 bears per season, but no more than 1 of the 2 may come from the Central and Southern Zones combined. Statewide — It is unlawful to kill a female bear with cub(s) or a cub weighing under 75 pounds. Central Zone quota — If fewer than 6 female bears are harvested on the Dec. 19 hunt day, the season reopens the first Saturday after Jan. 1 for further hunting — a hard biological trigger, not a fixed second date. Harvest reporting — All bears must be reported through Georgia Game Check within 24 hours of recovery, statewide. Northern Zone check-in — Hide and skull must be taken to a Game Management office, participating processor, or taxidermist within 3 business days of harvest for tagging. Central/Southern Zone check-in — Central Zone bears are checked and tagged at the Oaky Woods WMA check station; Southern Zone bears are tagged within 24 hours at a state-approved cooperator or Georgia Forestry Commission office. Chattahoochee & Chestatee WMA — dog-bear exception — Dogs are banned for bear statewide except on these two WMAs, which run a quota dog-bear hunt Oct. 4-12 (2 per person or 5 per party) layered on top of the regular Northern Zone archery window (both WMAs are also open Sept. 27-Oct. 3 under the standard no-dogs rule); dog-bear hunters must check in at the Chattahoochee WMA check station (which also serves Chestatee) before hunting and attend a pre-hunt meeting as directed by their notification email — sourced from eRegulations' Georgia WMA pages, not independently confirmed on a directly-rendering GA DNR page this round (georgiawildlife.com remained blocked to every fetch method tried). 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 Georgia?
On opening day (September 12, 2026) legal light runs 06:45 to 20:12. The rule is: Legal hours for hunting are 30 minutes before sunrise until 30 minutes after sunset — Georgia's single rule for hunting; its night-hunting exceptions (alligator, raccoon, opossum, fox, coyote, bobcat, feral hog) do not include bear. Sunrise and sunset shift daily, so work the offset against your local Georgia sun times for any other date.
Can I hunt bear on my own land in Georgia without a license?
Georgia residents 16 and older don't need a license on land they or their immediate family own — tenants aren't covered. Deer and turkey still need a free Harvest Record, and waterfowl needs a free state license plus the federal Duck Stamp.
Verified · Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Wildlife Resources Division · Last verified 2026-08-15
Publisher's note. Georgia's full 2026-27 Hunting & Fishing Regulations guide is only published as a Publuu flipbook (publuu.com/flip-book/1025508/2375523) that neither renders nor extracts past its table of contents through direct fetch or a text-extraction proxy — consistent with prior experience on this project. Fetched georgiawildlife.com/bear-info directly instead, which confirmed the three-zone structure (Northern/Central/Southern), the Central Zone's Dec. 20, 2025 hunt-day precedent and its 'fewer than 6 female bears' reopening trigger, and the 24-hour Georgia Game Check reporting rule. The season MECHANISM and zone/county lists and bag limit were independently confirmed against the codified Georgia Administrative Rule 391-4-2-.22 'Bear' (2026 Edition of the Rules and Regulations of the State of Georgia, read via rules.sos.ga.gov / Cornell LII mirror) — this rule ties Northern Zone bear hunting directly to the statewide archery/primitive-weapons/firearms deer seasons in Barrow, Carroll, DeKalb, Fulton, Gwinnett, Hart, Jackson, Madison, Walton and all counties north, sets the Central Zone hunt on the third Saturday of December with a first-Saturday-after-Jan.-1 reopener if fewer than 6 female bears are taken, and sets the Southern Zone as specific Thursday-Saturday periods in September/October in Brantley, Camden, Charlton, Clinch, Echols, Lanier, Lowndes and Ware counties, with still-hunting only in Lanier and Lowndes. The specific calendar dates for 2026-27 (Northern Zone archery Sept. 12-Oct. 19, primitive weapons/youth Oct. 10-16, firearms Oct. 17-Jan. 11; Central Zone Dec. 19; Southern Zone Sept. 17-19, Sept. 24-26, Oct. 1-3, Oct. 8-10) come from Georgia Outdoor News' dedicated '2026-2027 GA Hunting Seasons Quick Guide' article, which GON sources from GA DNR's own season-setting each year; these dates check out internally (each Southern Zone segment lands on a Thursday-Saturday as the rule requires, and Dec. 19, 2026 is in fact the third Saturday of December 2026). eRegulations.com's Georgia guide, while labeled 2026-2027, showed dates one calendar day off (e.g. Dec. 20 instead of Dec. 19) that do not fall on the correct weekday, so it was used only as a secondary cross-check on zone/bag-limit language, not as the date source. License requirements (Big Game License plus a free Harvest Record) and the three-business-day hide/skull check-in for the Northern Zone were confirmed via georgiawildlife.com's own license-selection guidance and Rule 391-4-2-.22 respectively. RE-CHECKED 2026-08-15: the Chattahoochee & Chestatee WMA dog-hunting carve-out is now sourced — georgiawildlife.com was still blocked to every fetch method tried this round (403 across multiple pages, including one that had been directly fetchable during the original bear-species research), so this detail comes from eRegulations' Georgia WMA regulations pages (which independently reproduce GA DNR's own WMA charts) rather than a directly-rendering official page: both WMAs run the standard no-dogs Northern Zone window Sept. 27-Oct. 3, then a specific quota dog-bear hunt Oct. 4-12 (2 bears per person or 5 per party), with mandatory check-in at the Chattahoochee WMA check station (serving both WMAs) and a mandatory pre-hunt meeting. This is a secondary source for this specific detail, not independently cross-checked against a primary GA DNR page — confirm directly with GA DNR before relying on the exact dates/bag limit if hunting these two WMAs. The precise Harvest Record/Big Game License fee remains unconfirmed — still not found on any page reached this round.