Maryland sika deer

[GE286]

Not whitetail but didn’t see a sika deer forum. Moved to NC a couple years ago and have been interested in hunting Sika in Maryland. Was curious about non resident tags and availability of public land? Figured I would ask here before spending hours looking at regs and maps.

 

[Eship]

I am a Maryland resident. Public land is available but it is not like you’d have in western NC or any of the national forests. It’s much smaller management areas and they have gotten very crowded over the last few years. It used to be that they were treated as an invasive and they would just count as part of the whitetail bag limit. Starting last year, you now need to purchase a regular sika deer tag. The season for sika and whitetail still remain the same, so there’s no need to track separate dates. However, most of the public land requires a separate permit to hunt and has season dates that do not correspond with the Maryland general season (that is for whitetail and sika). One thing to consider with them is that they are generally nocturnal, so they’re a bit more of a challenge to hunt.

 

[GE286]

This is great. Thank you for the help.

 

[K9kodi]

Va has a good Sika season too

 

[TWard]

Additionally, I would not wait till late in the year to hunt them. At that point, people are doing deer drives on public land. Yes, you read that right. Deer in the surrounding areas get freaked out from unwelcomed guest and gunfire and usually wait till dark to move.

 

[Zach75]

Unfortunately you’re about 10 years late to the game for quality public land sika hunting. Social media and Steve Rinella have turned the public lands into a zoo.