Kansas Squirrel Season 2026–27: Dates & Bag Limits

✓ Verified · Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks · Last verified 2026-08-14

ℹ Publisher's note. ksoutdoors.gov blocked direct automated fetches (403) on every URL tried, as flagged for this batch, so the live 'When to Hunt' season-dates page was read through an r.jina.ai text-extraction proxy and returned the season explicitly by year: 'June 1, 2026 – February 28, 2027' for squirrel, plus a general small-game shooting-hours line of one-half hour before sunrise to sunset. That same proxy route also reached the codified rule K.A.R. 115-3-2 ('Rabbits, hares, and squirrels; legal equipment, taking methods, and possession') via its Cornell LII mirror, which independently confirms 'legal hunting hours run from 1/2 hour before sunrise to sunset during established seasons' and lists legal equipment (firearms except full-auto/handguns/shotguns over 10 gauge, pellet/BB guns, archery, crossbows, falconry, hand-thrown projectiles, box traps). That rule also states legally taken squirrels 'may be possessed without limit in time' — a rule about how long you may hold onto legally taken game, not a numeric possession cap. The KDWP page that would carry the actual daily-bag/possession NUMBERS (ksoutdoors.gov/outdoor-activities/hunting-in-kansas/what-to-hunt/small-game-furbearing-animals/fox-gray-squirrel and several sibling URLs, including the codified squirrel open-season/bag-limit rule K.A.R. 115-25-4) could not be rendered by direct fetch (403) or by the proxy (404 on every path tried, including the old ksoutdoors.com domain and a rules.ks.gov mirror) despite an extensive search for a working mirror or PDF. The daily-5/possession-20 figure used here is corroborated only by eregulations.com (used strictly as a cross-check, not primary) and by repeated, independent search-engine indexing of the same KDWP page text, all converging on the same numbers with no conflicting figure found anywhere — but it was not read directly on an official page during this research pass, so it carries lower confidence than every other field in this file and is worth a follow-up check once ksoutdoors.gov becomes reachable. UPDATE 2026-08-27: this figure was chased again and is still NOT from a primary source, so it is now labelled that way in the data instead of carrying a soft caveat. KDWP publishes no bag limits anywhere on its websites - When to Hunt, the species pages, Hunting Regulations and Migratory Birds each defer to the printed Kansas Hunting and Furharvesting Regulations Summary. The old kdwpt.ks.gov regulation URLs now 404 on the current domain, including 115-25-19, whose title promises exactly what is needed here (dove management unit, hunting season, shooting hours, and bag and possession limits). Cornell LII does not mirror Kansas exempt regulations. The Summary itself was not reachable as a PDF from here; the most recent edition findable was 2025-2026 on the agency's Issuu account, and last season's book is not evidence for this season. One page-turn in a print copy or a working link to the current Summary closes all three Kansas figures at once. ADDENDUM 2026-09-01: an independent second source was found that confirms this figure exactly — but it does NOT change the primary-source status. eregulations.com/kansas/hunting/hunting-bag-limits carries the full table: 'Pheasant 4 cocks per day (4x daily limit in possession)', 'Squirrel 5 per day (20 in possession)', 'Dove (Migratory) 15 per day (3x the daily limit in possession)', 'Dove (Exotic) No limits'. Every value agrees with what this file carries. Why that still does not count as proof: unlike Delaware, where DNREC links eRegulations itself, and South Carolina, where SCDNR does the same, nothing on ksoutdoors.gov points to it — and the page itself writes 'always check the official KDWP resources for the most accurate and up-to-date regulations'. So there are now two independent secondary sources agreeing. Confirming it in the printed KDWP booklet is a one-line job after that. ksoutdoors.gov stayed at 403 on every path on 2026-09-01.