Deer hunting season may not be as central to New Hampshire life as it was before the state became so suburban, but you wouldn’t know that from the numbers.
Last year hunters in New Hampshire killed more white-tailed deer than ever: 14,387 of them. That’s the largest harvest in nearly a century, according to records going back to 1922.
The success is partly due to growth in types of hunting compared to a century ago: Archers killed one-third of the total in 2025 and people using modern versions of old muzzleloader guns got about one-sixth of them. Those methods have longer or earlier hunting seasons than when using modern rifles.
The rifle season for deer starts Wednesday, Nov. 11, and runs through Dec. 6. It is by far the most popular of all hunting seasons in New England.
Just as significantly, the number of hunting licenses issued in New Hampshire has remained relatively stable over the past decade, and even saw a significant bump during the pandemic shutdown when people were desperate to get outside. Almost 30,000 licenses were sold this year through Aug. 1, according to New Hampshire Fish and Game. That’s about 1,000 more than were typically sold through Aug. 1 in the years before COVID.
If past patterns continue, close to 50,000 licenses may be sold by the end of the year since many hunters wait until deer season to get their permits.
This stability ended a years-long decline that saw the number of hunting licenses sold by the state fall by more than a third from the early 1990s to the early 2010s as many traditionally rural pastimes faded.
Nationally, an estimated 15 million hunting licenses are sold each year. About 90% are sold to men rather than women, according to the site DeerHuntingGuide.net, and 57% of the hunters target deer.
New Hampshire has an estimated deer population of 100,000, based on hunting data, surveys, cameras and other data collection. It has stayed relatively stable for years, but that’s only part of the picture.
Much of the southeast corner of the state, from Concord east to Portsmouth and south to Nashua, has a surplus of deer, as can be attested by homeowners who can’t keep their hydrangeas from being eaten. Fish and Game has long allowed hunters in this part of the state to kill an extra deer beyond the one allowed by their hunting license, and this year what are known as the special Unit L antlerless permits are being given out on a first-come, first-served basis instead of via lottery.
A very good piece of news for deer hunters is that chronic wasting disease, often called the deer’s version of mad cow disease, has not shown up in New Hampshire. Although the fatal disease exists in deer in 37 states, there are no outbreaks northeast of Pennsylvania. Nonetheless, New Hampshire has strict rules about moving carcasses, which might carry the pathogens known as prions that cause the disease and cautions hunters about coming in contact with deer’s nervous system where the prions might exist.
New Hampshire’s 2025 deer season resulted in the harvest of 14,387 deer, marking the largest harvest in the state’s history going back to 1922. The adult (antlered males age 1.5+) buck harvest of 8,673 was also the highest documented in the state during that same period. Archers took 4,922 deer, the youth weekend accounted for 375 animals, and muzzleloader and regular firearm hunters took 2,375 and 6,715 deer, respectively.
The Harvest Summary includes data from the NH Trophy Deer Program, run by the NH Antler and Skull Trophy Club, which annually recognizes hunters who harvest deer weighing 200 pounds or more and taken by the three hunting methods: archery, muzzleloader, and regular firearms. The largest deer harvested in 2025 weighed 248 pounds and was taken by James Cannon of Brentwood with a firearm.
