Maryland waterfowl and deer guns

What to carry for Chesapeake ducks and geese, for whitetails in a shotgun county or a rifle county, and for sika in the Dorchester marsh.

Check the current guide. Seasons, bag limits, zones and legal firearms are set each year by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources and, for migratory birds, by federal rules. Nothing here replaces the current DNR Guide to Hunting and Trapping. This page is general information, not legal advice.

Waterfowl on the Chesapeake

Maryland waterfowling comes in three kinds, and they ask different things of a gun. On the Eastern Shore, in Kent, Queen Anne's, Talbot and Dorchester counties, it is Canada geese and puddle ducks over decoys in cut corn and impoundments, with shots of 25 to 40 yards from a pit or a hedgerow blind. On the tidal rivers and creeks it is mallards, black ducks, teal and wood ducks at close range. On the open Bay it is divers and sea ducks, including canvasbacks, scaup, buffleheads, long-tailed ducks and scoters, shot from offshore blinds and boats in wind, spray and ice.

One gun can do all three: a 12-gauge pump or semi-automatic with a 3-inch chamber, a 26 or 28 inch barrel and a synthetic or camo finish. Pumps are cheaper and nearly immune to salt and mud. Gas semi-automatics soften recoil from heavy goose loads but need cleaning after every salt-water trip. A 3.5-inch chamber is worth having only if you mostly hunt geese. Plain field semi-automatics with a tube magazine are ordinary shotguns under Maryland law and are listed here. Tactical and folding-stock models are not.

The rules that shape the gun are federal. Shot must be non-toxic, the shotgun no larger than 10 gauge, and the gun plugged so it holds no more than three shells in total. Hunters 16 and older need a federal duck stamp, and Maryland adds its own migratory game bird stamp and Harvest Information Program registration. Maryland also has an unusual system of licensed offshore blind sites and shoreline, with set distances for boat hunters. Read that section of the DNR guide before hunting tidal water.

Two things to verify each season: the daily limit for migratory Canada geese, which has been tight in recent years and differs between the state's goose zones, and the rules on Sunday hunting, which vary by county and species.

Deer: first find out what your county allows

Maryland manages whitetails in two regions. Region A is the western mountains, and Region B is the rest of the state. Bag limits differ between them, and the firearm season traditionally opens the Saturday after Thanksgiving and runs two weeks, with junior days, muzzleloader seasons and a short winter firearm season around it. Within that, the state sets legal firearms county by county.

The pattern is this. In the mountain counties of Garrett and Allegany, and in other counties named in the guide, rifles firing ordinary bottleneck cartridges are legal for deer. Across much of the crowded central part of the state between Washington and Baltimore, deer hunters are limited to shotguns, muzzleloaders and, in recent seasons, rifles chambered for straight-walled cartridges. Some counties are split by a road or a boundary. We are deliberately not printing a county list, because it changes and the DNR guide is the authority. Look up the county you hunt, not the one you live in.

The guide also sets a minimum muzzle energy for deer rifles (1,200 foot-pounds in recent editions), requires shotguns to fire a single solid projectile for deer, and requires fluorescent orange or pink during firearm seasons. Check each of those against the current edition.

Sika deer in Dorchester County

Sika are Maryland's oddity: a small Asian deer released on James Island in 1916 that spread through the marshes of lower Dorchester County and now supports a hunt people travel across the country for. A mature stag weighs about as much as a whitetail doe. They live in phragmites, loblolly pine and knee-deep marsh, the stags whistle and bugle during the October rut, and they move mostly at first and last light.

Sika have their own bag limit, separate from whitetails, and are hunted during the regular deer seasons. Public ground includes Fishing Bay and Taylors Island wildlife management areas and permit hunts on Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, which has its own federal rules. Check the guide for which firearms the county allows. For a gun, think about the conditions before the cartridge: a stainless or coated finish, a synthetic stock, a sling, and a scope that gathers light. Shots are usually short, across a gut or a marsh opening, and tracking an animal through that ground at dusk is miserable, so use a bullet that holds together and take only shots you are sure of.

Rifle counties and the western mountains

Where bottleneck cartridges are allowed, a bolt-action in .243, 6.5 Creedmoor, .270, .308 or .30-06 does everything Maryland asks. Garrett and Allegany counties add steep hardwood ridges, longer shots across hollows and clear-cuts, and a black bear season run by permit lottery. A lever-action .30-30 is still a fine gun in that timber. Bolt-action, lever-action and single-shot rifles are ordinary long guns under Maryland law. Our catalog filter is cautious: a rifle whose listing mentions a folding stock, a flash hider, a threaded barrel or similar features is left out, even in cases where Maryland law might allow it.

One pump, two barrels

The cheapest way into Maryland hunting is a pump 12-gauge with two barrels: a 28-inch vent-rib barrel with steel-rated chokes for ducks, geese, doves and turkey, and a rifled, cantilever-scoped barrel for deer. One receiver and one transfer fee cover three seasons.

Whatever you buy ships to a licensed Maryland dealer, where you complete ATF Form 4473 and the background check. Shells, slugs and rifle ammunition ship to your door. New hunters need a hunter education certificate before buying a license, so book the course early in the year, not in November.

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