Updated on September 7, 2026. Season dates, bag limits, and legal-buck rules move by deer management unit. Confirm them on the MDWFP hunting seasons page and the 2026–27 eRegulations deer table before you buy a license or drive south.
Pick the dirt before you pick a tree.
If you want a still-hunt in longleaf and burns, hunt De Soto and Homochitto on archery or the December primitive window, and accept thinner deer, ticks, and dog traffic on the gun days.
If you want bigger-bodied deer and soybean-edge travel, hunt the Delta bottoms and accept mud, limited parking, and a legal buck that has to make 12 inches inside or a 15-inch beam.
I have hunted whitetails for 23 years, starting with my dad in southern Missouri when I was 12. I grew up broke, so I learned public land before I ever paid for a lease, and I still split time between my 65-acre lease in Pike County, Illinois and public dirt in the Missouri Ozarks. Mississippi is not that Ozark ridge country, and it is not a Pike County bean field. It is four soil-based deer management units, a velvet weekend, and a gun season that splits “dogs allowed” from “dogs not allowed.” Hunt it like Illinois and you will sit pretty pine and watch squirrels. Hunt it like a dog drive on a still-hunt day and you will educate every deer in the section.
This page is the statewide trip plan. Parent hub: deer hunting by state. Public-land how-to: public land deer hunting and hunting national forest land. Destination pages live under Places. The animal is on white-tailed deer. Mississippi sits next to hunts we already cover: Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee.
Mississippi deer hunting facts
| Item | What to know | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Species | White-tailed deer only. No mule deer, no elk tag. | MDWFP White-tailed Deer Program |
| Herd / harvest | Population estimated at 1.75 million. Hunters reported 271,836 deer in 2024–25 (about 1.5 deer per hunter; 180,636 deer hunters). Velvet weekend: 325 bucks that year. | MDWFP Deer Program / 2025 SEAFWA cervid report |
| License | OTC statewide. No draw for a regular deer tag. Some WMA and state-park hunts are quota. Velvet needs its own permit. | MDWFP license prices |
| 2026 cost band | Resident: All Game $25, or Sportsman $45 (includes archery/primitive/crossbow). Archery add-on $14 if you bought All Game. WMA User Permit $15. Velvet $10. Nonresident: All Game $300 + deer permit $100 + archery/primitive $75 + WMA $30. | Resident prices · Nonresident prices (last checked Sept. 7, 2026) |
| Legal buck | Hills and Southeast: 10″ inside spread or 13″ main beam. Delta: 12″ or 15″. North Central (Alcorn, Benton, DeSoto, Marshall, Tate, Tippah): any hardened antler. Bucks: 1/day, 3/season (4 in North Central). | MDWFP white-tailed deer hunting |
| CWD | First free-ranging case February 2018. Feeding, salt, and mineral banned inside management zones. Whole carcasses stay in the zone. | MDWFP CWD management zones |
| Pressure | Highest on the Saturday-before-Thanksgiving dog-gun opener and on Leaf River / easy De Soto roads. Lowest on weekday archery and the Dec. 2–15 primitive window. | Season structure plus WMA harvest reports |
| Gateway towns | Hattiesburg, Wiggins, Oxford, Natchez, Vicksburg | Trip bases, not a motel dump |
Four DMUs, one species
Mississippi is white-tailed deer country. The split that changes a trip is the four Deer Management Units, drawn mostly on soil regions and highways.
- Hills — most of the state. Legal buck: 10-inch inside spread or a 13-inch main beam.
- Southeast — south of U.S. 84 and east of Mississippi 35. Same 10/13 tape, archery opens Oct. 15, plus a Feb. 1–15 legal-buck extension.
- Delta — west of I-55 and north of I-20, plus south of I-20 and west of U.S. 61. Legal buck: 12-inch spread or a 15-inch beam. Strictest tape in the state.
- North Central — Alcorn, Benton, DeSoto, Marshall, Tate, and Tippah counties. Any hardened antler. Four bucks a year. Ten antlerless on private land. Also CWD country.
Antlerless bag on private land is five statewide, except ten in North Central and three in the Southeast (one antlerless per day there). On U.S. Forest Service land it is one per day, five per season, except three in the Southeast. One of your three statewide bucks may fail the DMU tape on private land and on Holly Springs National Forest in Benton, Marshall, and Tippah counties. Youth 15 and under on private and authorized lands may fill the three-buck bag with any antlered deer. I treat that as a youth rule, not a loophole for me.
The state-record non-typical is Tony Fulton’s 295 6/8 from Winston County (1994–95). That is a camp story, not a public-land expectation. National Deer Association age-structure work has put Mississippi near the top of the country for harvested bucks 3½ or older. That is mostly a private-land and DMAP story. Do not pack a 400-yard western setup. In longleaf, creek bottoms, and 20-year-old pine, most honest shots are inside 80 yards.
2026–27 season stub (confirm before you hunt)
I am not pasting the proclamation. This is a 2026–27 stub, last checked September 7, 2026 against MDWFP and eRegulations. If this table and the agency disagree, the agency wins. Wildlife Management Areas are not “open public land.” They run their own calendars.
Hills, Delta, and North Central
| Weapon / season | 2026–27 dates | Legal deer (summary) |
|---|---|---|
| Velvet archery | Sept. 11–13 | One legal buck. Special permit, report by 10 p.m., CWD sample within 5 days. Private and authorized state/federal land. |
| Archery | Oct. 1 – Nov. 20 | Either-sex on private and open public land. |
| Youth gun (15 and under) | Nov. 7–20, then Nov. 21 – Jan. 31 | Either-sex early; later, either-sex on private, legal-buck rules on open public. |
| Antlerless primitive | Nov. 9–20 | Antlerless only, private land. Not a WMA hunt. |
| Gun with dogs | Nov. 21 – Dec. 1 | Either-sex private and Holly Springs NF. Legal bucks only on other open public land. |
| Primitive weapon | Dec. 2–15 | Either-sex private and open public. After Nov. 30, weapon-of-choice on qualifying private land with the right license. |
| Gun without dogs | Dec. 16–23 | Either-sex private and Holly Springs NF. Legal bucks only on other open public land. |
| Gun with dogs | Dec. 24 – Jan. 20 | Same sex rules as the first dog-gun segment. |
| Archery / primitive | Jan. 21–31 | Either-sex private and Holly Springs NF. Legal bucks only on other open public land. |
Southeast DMU uses the same gun and primitive skeleton, but archery opens Oct. 15 – Nov. 20, and there is a Feb. 1–15 archery/primitive legal-buck extension. Official table: MDWFP seasons.
Shooting hours for resident game are a half-hour before sunrise to a half-hour after sunset. Sunday hunting is legal; velvet is a Friday–Sunday weekend on purpose, and if a deer season ends on a Friday the statute can push it through Sunday. Dogs are legal only on the gun-with-dogs segments — not archery, primitive, or the still-hunt gun week. Hunter orange or pink: 500 square inches of solid unbroken fluorescent, in full view, during any firearm deer season, unless you are 12 feet up or in a fully enclosed blind. Mesh and orange-camo do not count.
OTC vs draw, and what it costs
Step-by-step cart — hunter education, Sportsman vs All Game, the nonresident deer permit, and the WMA User Permit — is on how to get a Mississippi deer hunting license.
A regular Mississippi deer hunt is over the counter at MDWFP license sales. All deer hunters need All Game, Sportsman, or a lifetime license. Bow and primitive seasons need the archery/primitive/crossbow privilege — bundled in Sportsman ($45 resident), or $14 on top of All Game. Nonresidents stack All Game ($300) plus a $100 deer permit plus $75 for archery/primitive if they are not gun-only. A WMA User Permit is $15 resident / $30 nonresident. Velvet is a separate $10 resident permit.
Draw hunts are the exception: Mahannah, Twin Oaks, Charles Ray Nix, Natchez State Park, Sky Lake, and a handful of other quota primitive hunts. Canemount is a small, tightly managed WMA near Port Gibson, not a walk-in Leaf River clone. I treat De Soto, Homochitto, Holly Springs, and the Delta forest as Plan A, and I check the current WMA booklet the week I leave.
CWD, baiting, Sunday, dogs
Chronic wasting disease showed up in Mississippi in February 2018. MDWFP and Mississippi State Extension have reported on the order of 446 positives through 2025, with 128 positives from July 2024 to June 2025, and detections in about 18 counties, mostly the northern tier. The North Mississippi CWD Management Zone covers Alcorn, Benton, DeSoto, Lafayette, Marshall, Panola, Prentiss, Tate, Tippah, Tishomingo, and Union counties, plus mapped pieces of Coahoma, Pontotoc, Quitman, and Tunica. Separate zone language has also been published for Issaquena-area and Harrison County detections. Maps move. Check the current zone page the week you hunt.
Inside a zone: no feeders, no salt, no mineral. Whole carcasses do not leave. Deboned meat, bone-in quarters with no spine or head, hides without heads, cleaned skulls/skull plates, and finished taxidermy can travel. Velvet bucks must be sampled. Year-round, drop a head at an MDWFP freezer or a participating taxidermist. Symptoms: CWD deer symptoms and deer diseases. How to submit: get your deer tested for CWD.
Hemorrhagic disease (EHD/bluetongue) is a late-summer and early-fall risk in the South. If I see dead deer on a waterhole in September, I back out, report it, and I do not assume every sick deer is CWD.
Baiting is legal on private land outside CWD zones if the feed is in an above-ground covered or spin-cast feeder, not poured on the ground, and at least 100 yards from the property line. You may hunt over that feeder. I do not bait national forest or WMA dirt. Alabama’s bait-privilege culture is next door on the Alabama page. Natural cervid urine is a prion risk; skip it.
Dogs: Mississippi still runs deer with hounds on the gun-with-dogs days, including on Holly Springs National Forest. Other open public land is legal-buck-only on those days. Homochitto is the special case. From November 1 through January 31, any dog-hunting group there needs a free permit from the U.S. Forest Service Meadville office (1200 Highway 184 East), dogs need working tracking collars, and the permit number goes on the truck window. If I am still-hunting Homochitto, I hunt the no-dog calendar on purpose: archery, Dec. 2–15 primitive, and Dec. 16–23 still-hunt gun. Tracking a hit deer at night is legal with lights and no more than two dogs; after-hours dispatch is a handgun with a barrel no longer than six inches, no larger than .45. That is a tracking rule, not a night hunt.
Public land that actually matters
Mississippi’s six national forests plus the WMA system are the public hunt. National Forests in Mississippi advertise more than a million acres open to hunting. Fourteen WMAs sit on those forests. WMAs need the User Permit and their own season sheet. General forest outside a WMA hunts the statewide open-public calendar, except recreation sites and the Camp Shelby Impact Closure Area on De Soto — signed for unexploded ordnance. I do not invent a De Soto child URL. That page is not live. Hunt it from this state page and a Forest Service map.
- De Soto National Forest — the big one, on the order of 380,000 NFS acres in the southeast pine belt. Longleaf, slash, burns, bogs, creek drains. Ranger districts in Wiggins and Laurel. WMAs inside the proclamation: Leaf River (41,350 acres near Wiggins), Chickasawhay (29,049, Laurel), Mason Creek, Red Creek, Little Biloxi. Leaf River’s 2024–25 DMAP sheet showed 152 deer (91 bucks, 61 does). That is a hunted WMA, not a secret. Black Creek Wilderness and the 21-mile Black Creek National Scenic River are the weather-died paddle, not a pin I am going to drop. If the Leaf River lot is full, I slide to Mason Creek or Red Creek, or I walk farther off a quieter forest road.
- Homochitto National Forest — about 191,000 NFS acres in southwest Mississippi. Mixed pine-hardwood hills, Caston Creek and Sandy Creek WMAs. Meadville is the office. The dog permit is the thing that surprises still-hunters.
- Holly Springs National Forest — about 155,000 NFS acres in the north, plus a Yalobusha County block. Upper Sardis WMA is 50,725 acres near Oxford. Either-sex on many gun days where other open public land is bucks-only, and the North Central DMU overlaps the north end. It is also CWD country. Upper Sardis DMAP harvest in 2024–25 was 38 deer on 50,000-plus acres. Elbow room, not a slaughter.
- Delta National Forest / Sunflower WMA — bottomland hardwoods, about 60,000 acres near Rolling Fork. Sunflower WMA is listed at 61,481 acres. Water, mast, mud. Mahannah (12,675 acres, Redwood) is the nearby quota/primitive option.
- Bienville National Forest / Bienville WMA — about 178,000 NFS acres in the central Hills, WMA 26,760 acres near Morton. I-20 access. Caney Creek and Tallahala sit in the same block.
- Canemount WMA — 3,587 acres near Port Gibson. Small and managed. Copiah County WMA (7,466 acres, Hazlehurst) is the other small Hills tract people name-drop. I would rather spend a first trip on De Soto or Homochitto and learn the dog calendar.
- Pascagoula River WMA — 39,150 acres near Vancleave. Bottomland, hogs, mosquitoes.
If De Soto is slammed, I do not invent a new forest page. I hunt a nastier drain on the same forest, I switch to Homochitto on a no-dog day, or I look at Louisiana pine woods or Arkansas Ozark public as a different trip, not a same-weekend backup from Hattiesburg. Tennessee is mountains. Mississippi is not.
One tactic: hunt the calendar, then hunt the ugly 200 yards
The tactic that matches Mississippi is calendar-first. On dog-gun days I assume hounds and trucks on the easy roads. I either join a legal dog hunt I was invited to, or I stay home, or I sit a no-dog WMA if the booklet allows it. I do not “still-hunt De Soto” on the Saturday before Thanksgiving and then blame the forest. Archery in October and the Dec. 2–15 primitive week are when a saddle and a climbing stick earn their keep.
On pine-woods public that hunts like De Soto and Homochitto, I pick two burn-edge setups and two hardwood-slash setups, then I let fresh tracks decide. Burns and young pine win when browse is green. Hardwood drains win when acorns are actually hitting dirt. Pretty pole timber with no understory is a squirrel sit. I learned that in the Missouri Ozarks on open oaks; Mississippi longleaf will do the same thing.
I hunt 400 to 900 yards off the easiest forest road, last 200 yards briar, bog, or a creek crossing other people will not make in snake country. I want tracks in wet sand going both ways and droppings that still look wet. Old rubs are camp talk. When I time movement I check deer feeding times, then I let the unit change the food: acorns and palmetto edges on De Soto, soybeans and oak flats on the Delta, suburban browse in North Central. What they eat in a yard is a different page — what do deer eat and, for Gulf-South landscaping, do deer eat azaleas.
Delta dirt is the other hunt. Scent pools in the bottoms at first light. I sit the downwind side of a ridge-to-flat funnel, not the middle of a flooded soybean. A 12/15 legal buck means I pass forkhorns I would shoot in North Central. Wind still matters — same lesson as do deer move in the wind, just hotter. I wasted money on $400 ozone scent control that made zero difference. I play the wind and sit still.
Cover swallows a bad hit. I decide max range before I climb. Bow in timber: 30 yards unless the lane is wide and the deer is calm. Rifle: a backstop and a “no farther than that pine” line. Refresh shot placement, the arrow version at where to shoot a deer with an arrow, and the after the shot hub. I gut-shot a doe in 2007, pushed her too early, and never found her. In palmetto and briar, that mistake is worse.
Snake gaiters and rubber boots are not fashion down here. I have walked enough cottonmouth country in southern Missouri to take rattlesnakes and copperheads seriously on a De Soto creek in October.
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Pressure: the dog opener is a holiday
The Saturday prior to Thanksgiving is Mississippi’s cultural firearm opener. Every Forest Service pull-off with a two-track will have a truck. That is not a reason to stay home. It is a reason to hunt like public land: people cluster on roads, peak on opening weekend, and quit when the walk gets wet or snaky. I hunt archery weekdays in October if I can take the days. I hunt the primitive week in December if I want forest without hounds. I hunt North Central private or Holly Springs either-sex days if I need a freezer deer and I am in the CWD zone with a testing plan. I do not rattle all morning on Leaf River the day the dogs hit the woods.
Where to stay, and why the town matters
Pick a base for the forest you are actually hunting. Drive time to the parking area, a grocery that is open after dark, ice, and a processor matter more than a pretty lobby. Cabins and motels both work. Hunters do not all want hotels. I want late checkout on opening morning and a place I can hang wet clothes. Book the room before the dog-gun opener.
Hattiesburg, MS — north De Soto and Chickasawhay access, airport, late-night grocery, processors. Best all-around pine-woods base.
Wiggins, MS — Leaf River WMA and the De Soto Ranger District office. Quieter. Cook in the cabin.
Oxford, MS — Holly Springs and Upper Sardis. CWD zone rules apply. Do not drag a whole carcass south out of the zone.
Natchez, MS — Homochitto, Sandy Creek, Canemount. Meadville is closer to the ranger office; Natchez has the rooms and the river.
Vicksburg, MS — Delta National Forest, Mahannah, and the I-20 corridor toward Bienville.
Processors, ice, and getting a deer out
Call a processor before you shoot, especially in a CWD zone. Ask two questions: do you take zone deer, and when can I actually pick up meat. If they say “call us after you kill one,” keep calling down the list. I do not name shops I have not used this year. Hattiesburg, Oxford, and Vicksburg all have options; the opener fills them.
I process my own deer in the garage when I can, taught by my uncle who was a butcher. On a Mississippi road trip I still want a backup shop, a cooler, and a carcass plan that matches the zone. Ice is a town problem — buy it the night before. A Delta drag through water and cypress knees is a different pain than an Ozark ridge. Tag it, then report it if the hunt requires it (velvet is mandatory by 10 p.m.). How to tag a deer is the mechanics. Field work is how to field dress a deer. Southern deer can be lighter than corn-fed Illinois deer, so I size coolers with how much meat from a deer.
If you are not hunting: Black Creek on De Soto is a sandbar canoe when the woods are slammed. Natchez and Vicksburg are river towns. Oxford is a football Saturday whether you wanted one or not.
Wildlife that actually lives here: feral hogs on De Soto, Homochitto, and the Pascagoula, tearing up the same drains the deer use. Black bears exist in the Mississippi Delta in small numbers. I hang food and I do not pretend they are a Yellowstone problem. Highway collisions are real on I-55 and U.S. 49 at dusk — what to do if you hit a deer, collisions by state, and the safety hub.
FAQ
Do I need a draw tag to hunt deer in Mississippi?
No. A regular deer hunt is OTC. Velvet needs a special permit. Some WMAs and state parks are quota. National forest outside a WMA is not a draw.
When is Mississippi gun deer season?
The first guns-with-dogs segment is Nov. 21 – Dec. 1 in 2026–27, then a still-hunt gun week Dec. 16–23, then dogs again Dec. 24 – Jan. 20. Primitive is Dec. 2–15. Confirm on the MDWFP seasons page, last checked September 7, 2026.
Can I bait deer in Mississippi?
On private land outside a CWD management zone, yes, with covered or spin-cast feeders 100 yards from the line. Inside a CWD zone, no. I do not bait WMAs or national forest.
Where should a first-timer go?
If you need to see deer and you can get permission, hunt private Hills or Delta dirt on a weekday and take a legal antlerless deer. If you want a woods trip, hunt De Soto or Homochitto during archery or the December primitive week, walk 400 to 900 yards off the road, and do not expect Illinois numbers. Leaf River on the dog opener is the wrong first trip.
Are dogs legal?
Yes, on the gun-with-dogs dates. No, during archery, primitive, and the still-hunt gun week. Homochitto adds a free group permit Nov. 1 – Jan. 31 from the Meadville Forest Service office.
What about CWD and eating the deer?
Have it tested if you are in a management zone or you shot a velvet buck, and do not eat a sick-looking animal. Do not haul a whole carcass out of the zone. Testing: get your deer tested. Symptoms: CWD deer symptoms. Sundays are legal. Wear 500 square inches of solid orange or pink during firearm seasons unless you qualify for the stand or blind exception.
Official regs, then go hunt
Primary source: MDWFP 2026–27 hunting seasons and bag limits. Deer-specific rules: white-tailed deer hunting. Licenses: MDWFP license prices. CWD zones: management zone map. WMAs: MDWFP WMA list. National forest hunting notes: hunting on National Forests in Mississippi. Forest visitor maps: USFS National Forests in Mississippi.
I am not a Mississippi guide. I am a public-land hunter who has eaten tag soup in more than one pine woods. If you pick the DMU on purpose, hunt the no-dog days when you want still-hunting, stay out of Camp Shelby’s closure, and sleep near a grocery and a processor, Mississippi will give you a shot. When it does, slow down, make it count, and enjoy the drag.
Updated on September 7, 2026.
