Deer Season Opens Saturday in Montgomery County, and Young Hunters and Veterans Get the Ducks First
By The Magnolia Standard · November 3, 2026
The first week of November is when the county's woods change hands. Archery season ends Friday, rifle season starts Saturday, and the duck blinds open a week later. This is the first edition of Texas Outdoors, a regular column on the season dates and public land around Greater Magnolia.
Montgomery County sits in Texas Parks and Wildlife's North Zone for white-tailed deer, and the general season opens at legal shooting time on Saturday, November 7. It runs through Sunday, January 3, 2027.
The archery-only season that opened October 3 ends Friday, November 6. The youth-only weekend came first, October 30 through November 1.
The deer rules for this county
- Bag limit: four deer, no more than two bucks and no more than two antlerless, all seasons combined.
- Antler rule: a hunter may take two legal bucks, but only one of them may have an inside spread of 13 inches or more.
- Antlerless days: November 7 through 29, by hunting license tag.
- Not on National Forest land: TPWD's county page says no antlerless harvest on National Forest Service property. Much of the county's north end is the Sam Houston National Forest.
- After the general season: a late youth-only season and a muzzleloader season both run January 4 through 17, 2027.
Antlerless deer can also be taken during the archery, muzzleloader and youth-only seasons, according to the same TPWD page, unless a property is enrolled under antlerless permits of its own.
Ducks: the youth and veterans weekend comes first
The North Zone's special youth and veterans duck days are this same weekend, Saturday and Sunday, November 7 and 8. The regular duck season then opens Saturday, November 14, runs through November 29, closes for a week, and reopens December 5 through January 31, 2027.
The daily bag in the regular season is six ducks in the aggregate, mergansers included, with species sub-limits. One of them: no more than five mallards, and only two of those may be hens.
Things to check before Saturday
- That a hunting license for the 2026-27 year is in hand, with its tags.
- Whether the land you hunt is National Forest, where the antlerless rule above applies.
- The county's own page in the TPWD Outdoor Annual, which lists every season for Montgomery County, including squirrel (open through February 28) and the seasons that do not open here at all, such as javelina.
TPWD's line on the county page is worth repeating as written: hunters are responsible for knowing the restricted areas in the county.
Texas Outdoors runs the facts: season dates, limits and public land as the state publishes them. It is not hunting, legal or safety advice, and the Outdoor Annual governs where this column and the state's rules disagree.
Sources: Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Outdoor Annual, Montgomery 2026-2027 Hunting Seasons, for the deer and duck dates, bag limits, the antler rule, the antlerless days, the National Forest rule, squirrel and javelina; and 2026-2027 Hunting Season Dates for the North Zone youth and veterans duck days, November 7 and 8, 2026. Corrections to editor@themagnoliastandard.news.