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Jul 13, 2025 By Ben Moyer 4 min read

Deer hunters still have a few hours to acquire something never before available in the history of Pennsylvania deer management — a guaranteed doe license (antlerless deer) in any unit of their choice.

Until midnight July 13, Pennsylvania resident hunters can visit the Game Commission’s website, or a retail agent, to purchase a doe permit in any Wildlife Management Unit in the state. Beginning July 14, the Commission will sell doe licenses on a first-come-first-served basis in each unit, and only until each unit’s quota of permits has sold out.

Non-residents of Pennsylvania may apply for licenses under that limited availability arrangement beginning July 14.

Residents may apply for their second doe license beginning July 28. A third round of applications opens Aug. 11, and a fourth round on Aug. 25. Hunters applying in these later rounds risk finding their unit of choice sold out.

A hunter may acquire and possess a maximum of six doe licenses at one time. After that hunter kills an antlerless deer, they may apply for another permit in units where permits remain unsold. In two suburban units near Philadelphia, an individual hunter may possess 15 antlerless licenses.

The sale of antlerless deer licenses has a long and sometimes controversial history in Pennsylvania. Viewed in the context of that history, the Game Commission’s current offering of one guaranteed license, in any unit, is revolutionary.

Hunters of middle-age and up will remember late night trips to post offices in county-seat towns like Somerset, Washington, Waynesburg, Uniontown, and even up north to Clearfield and Ridgway to mail their doe license applications for early pickup the next morning. Back then, doe licenses were allocated by county and could only be sold by county treasurers’ offices. The license quotas set by the Game Commission were also far smaller than today’s allotments. So, no hunter could be sure of getting a doe license in the county they wished to hunt. They mailed their application early, in its destination city, to boost their chance of success.

Only a few years ago, the state legislature changed the law so the Game Commission could sell doe licenses directly to hunters, which made more sense since the quotas are now allocated to Wildlife Management Units, which may contain all or parts of several contiguous counties.

When doe license sales first went online, hundreds of thousands of hunters logged on at the same time and temporarily crashed the website.

It’s still not entirely clear how the Game Commission could confidently guarantee every hunter a license in the unit of their choosing. Suppose everybody in the state decided to hunt in Wildlife Management Unit 2A (Greene, Washington, and western Fayette counties). Let’s hope not. That would mean something like 600,000 hunters were all demanding a license from a quota of 44,000 total permits.

But realistically, the Game Commission knows that’s not going to happen. People tend to stick to their habitual hunting grounds, near home, at camp, or at a friend or relative’s property.

The process the Game Commission worked through in their guarantee must have been something like an insurance company, which knows the statistical probability of various illnesses and accidents through the stages of a person’s life. Likewise, the Commission knows how many people applied to various units in the past and is betting (which is what insurance companies do) the same pattern will continue.

Hunters must possess their general Pennsylvania hunting license to be eligible to apply for a doe license. You can complete both purchases in the same transaction until midnight July 13, online or at a retail agent. Successful applicants will receive their physical licenses, with tags, by U.S. Mail about ten days later.

A doe (antlerless) license can be used to take an antlerless deer in any of the state’s deer seasons-archery, muzzleloader, firearm, or flintlock.

Most hunters in this area apply for doe licenses in Wildlife Management Unit 2A (Greene, most of Washington, and western Fayette counties) or Wildlife Management Unit 2C (eastern Fayette, eastern Westmoreland, and Somerset counties).

Hunters with doe licenses are encouraged to seek permission to hunt on private farmland in the region, where farmers are experiencing crop damage losses from overabundant deer.