Fewer hunters headed into the fields and woods around the state for deer season in 2025 than they did before the state rolled back its longstanding ban on Sunday hunting, Game Commission data shows.

The decline mirrors national trends, and Game Commission spokesman Travis Lau said officials believe the drop might have been worse without the Sunday hunting change.

“Pennsylvania generally is said to be losing hunters at a slower rate, possibly due to new opportunities and removing barriers to participation,” Lau said in an email to CapitolWire/State Affairs on Friday.

Pennsylvania had long barred hunting on Sunday, but began relaxing one of the last remaining blue laws on the books a few years ago. House Bill 1431 completely eliminated the Sunday hunting ban after Gov. Josh Shapiro signed it into law as Act 36 last June.

The number of junior hunters and out-of-state hunters was up slightly in 2025, compared to the previous year.

Now, the Game Commission is eyeing another major change, with the board set to consider this weekend whether to move the start of the deer season up a week.

The start of the deer hunting season in Pennsylvania had long been the Monday after Thanksgiving, but the state switched it to the Saturday after Thanksgiving in 2019.

Game Commission executive director Steve Smith said moving the start of deer season ahead a week will save hunters from having to try to squeeze hunting trips in during the busy Thanksgiving holiday weekend. The move will also allow college students to start hunting as soon as their holiday break begins, he said.

Ahead of this year’s changes, hunters killed almost 477,000 deer in Pennsylvania in the 2024-25 hunting season. That was an 11% increase over the prior year and up 38% compared to the number of deer killed by hunters a decade earlier. The Game Commission doesn’t typically release deer harvest numbers until March.

Only hunters in Texas killed more deer than they did in Pennsylvania in 2024.

And while the number of people buying hunting licenses has been dropping, those who do buy a license have been more successful more often.

The Game Commission says about 28% of hunters last year took antlered deer — the highest success rate since at least the late 1980s.

Hunting license revenue

Adult resident hunting licenses cost $21, while junior hunting licenses cost $7 for a basic license and $10 for a combination license that includes turkey hunting. Combined, the sale of those licenses generated about $11 million in 2025.

Hunters can also purchase add-on licenses to hunt anterless deer for $7.

Hunters are allowed to buy multiple antlerless deer licenses. The sale of those licenses generated about $8.8 million.

Out-of-state hunting licenses cost $102 for adults, $42 for a junior license and $52 for the junior combination license. Combined, those out-of-state licenses generated just over $5.7 million.

By the numbers

Pennsylvania hunting license sales figures:

Adult resident hunting licenses sold 2024 — 512,505

Adult resident hunting licenses sold 2025 — 501,591 (down 10,914 or 2.13%)

Junior resident hunting licenses sold 2024 — 56,143

Junior resident hunting licenses 2025 — 56,191 (up 48 or less than 1%)

Out-of-state adult hunting licenses sold 2024 — 53,740

Out-of-state adult hunting licenses sold 2025 — 55,454 (up 1,714 or 3.2%)

Out-of-state junior hunting licenses sold 2024 — 2,257

Out-of-state junior hunting licenses sold 2025 — 2,440 (up 183 or just under 1%)