What Constitutes Hunting Before/After Legal Daylight?

This is a condensation of my comments regarding a thread on D&DH regarding the following question:

I'm wondering about legal shooting times for bow hunting, specifically last light... If the law reads you have to quit at 5:00 p.m for example, do I have to be out of the woods at that time, or not have an arrow knocked at that time, or the bow in a case at that time..........or what ?? Is there some sort of a grace period to get out of the woods, say half of an hour, just to get back to your vehicle ???? Anybody know the right answer for this question ? I don't get much out of that little rule book they give you when you buy your license.....

It is a seemingly fine point of procedure that seems to differ a lot from state to state. You should probably take this up with your local game warden and ask him to interpret it for you. He would be the fellow writing you up. I have had to ask mine for a couple of interpretations. I also ask these kind of questions on a forum site that is specific to my state and has a couple of CO's regularly monitoring the posts. This is, by the way, the perfect sort of question to break the ice getting to know your game warden, and I would recommend doing so.

My middle-aged eyes give out about 15-20 minutes before the end of legal hunting, so I'm usually picking up and on my way out when the legal end comes. I would figure that all arrows in the quiver and the bow being carried in a non-threatening way would be sufficient. With firearms, I assume unloaded and slung is enough.

In the mornings, I figure that it is wrong to have one nocked before legal shooting or have the firearm loaded. I usually get to the stand 30-60 minutes ahead of time, so I leave my bow or rifle up on a hook until it is time to hunt. It always boils my bunny to be out in the gloom and hear some Zeke on the neighboring ridge firing off his rifle half-an-hour early.


I had not thought this out all that far until the second time through Kentucky Hunter Ed, accompanying my youngest son through. It was only then that the instructor explained what KY has in mind with their statute. You can't be loaded, you can't be nocked. It changed my whole view of what I was doing up in the treestand before legal hunting time. This wasn't the only thing that opened my eyes at Hunter Ed, even though I was grandfathered and didn't really have to take it either time. One of the best tips I got from the first one was this: don't walk to and from your stand with an arrow nocked. Never mind the legality of hunting before or after legal hunting time. Far too many hunters trip and fall on their arrows, and it's a poorly reported statistic. That was both a revelation and a Godsend for me, because I'd been trying for over 2 decades to stalk deer on the way and A) never seen a thing, and B) wasted a heck of a lot of time trying to pussyfoot around with a big honking climbing stand on my back.

My guess is that enforcement on this is not going to be all that stringent. I have heard of some absurd prosecutions from game wardens splitting hairs. However, I would not be walking out to the truck cocked and locked, either. To me, this really becomes an issue of Fair Chase, which by definition includes following all pertinent game rules. This isn't like Football where if the ref doesn't see it, it's not a penalty. This is more like Golf; you have a very few rules, and part of the game is doing your utmost to observe them fastidiously. This is like a toe over the line in Bowling. Functionally it provides absolutely no great advantage to the bowler. However, the line has to be drawn somewhere. Part of the challenge is following the rules.

I'm a guy who started out deer hunting in Ohio and Kentucky with a Remington 1100 slug gun, and a Remington 742 semi. I can vouch that there is nothing quite as vexing as spending all that time and effort silently slipping into your stand and then having to hit that bolt release-- CHING! It takes a bit more discipline to wait until a half hour before sunrise to load up, but it's the law. Nowadays, part of my choice of battery comes from this very issue. A pump or a lever loads quieter than a semi. A bolt is quieter than all of them. In the afternoons it doesn't make any difference. Truth be known, it doesn't make all that much difference in the morning either. 4 seasons of taking Mooseboy out with his M1 Garand convinced me of that. #2 son never failed to get a deer on the morning of the Opener, despite the noise it makes on loading; it sounds like rattling nuts and bolts in a coffee can followed by that loud throaty Cha-CLUMP with a hint of "ding!" at the end. Either the deer are deaf or they just don't care.