Hunting Season 2026 Around Fredericton: The Dates, the Rules, and What Hikers and Dog Walkers Need to Know

The 2026 dates, in the order they arrive

From the province's 2026 season summary for the wildlife management zones around Fredericton:

September 1 to November 22: fall bear (bow and crossbow only September 21 to 26). September 1 to 19 and October 1 to November 22: coyote. September 22 to 26: moose, five days, 4,727 licences province-wide by draw. October 1 to December 31: ruffed grouse; October 1 to February 27: varying hare. October 5 to November 22: deer, archery and crossbow. October 26 to November 22: deer, firearms, the season that puts the most people in the woods. Migratory birds in Zone 2, which is ours: ducks October 1 to January 15 (six a day), geese September 1 to 15 and October 1 to December 31, woodcock September 15 to November 30, snipe October 1 to December 31.

And the one most people miss: Sunday hunting is permitted from October 18 to December 27, 2026. The Fish and Wildlife Act opens a Sunday window from mid-October to year-end each year; before October 18 the woods are hunter-free on Sundays, after it they are not.

The 400-metre rule, and why the city is mostly outside all this

The Fish and Wildlife Act forbids discharging a rifle, or a shotgun loaded with slug or ball, within 400 metres of a dwelling, school, playground, athletic field, dump or place of business, and forbids firing from, across or within ten metres of the paved portion of a designated road. Draw a 400-metre circle around every house in Fredericton and you have covered the city, Odell Park, Killarney's near side, the Nashwaak trail through Marysville and the riverfront. We could not locate a separate municipal hunting or firearms-discharge by-law in the City's index, and provincial parks such as Mactaquac are not hunting grounds; but the practical effect of the 400-metre rule is the same. Inside the city you will hear shots in November; they are coming from beyond the edge.

The edge is where it matters: the far side of Killarney Lake, the woods off the Kingsclear and Hanwell roads, the Nashwaak valley above Marysville, the ridges over Douglas and Keswick, the Crown land south of Rusagonis and Charters Settlement. Those are also the best fall walks, which is the problem this guide exists to solve.

Orange: what hunters must wear, and what you should

From September 1 to December 31, every hunter, guide and fur harvester carrying a firearm in New Brunswick must wear a solid or camouflage fluorescent orange jacket or vest (camo must be at least half orange) plus a solid orange hat, visible from every direction. Waterfowl hunters are exempt, and bowhunters are exempt once they are in a tree stand or blind during the archery season, which is exactly why you may not see the person sitting fifteen feet up a maple.

Nothing requires a hiker to wear orange. Everything recommends it. A blaze-orange toque and vest cost less than a tank of gas and turn you from a brown shape moving through brush into a person. Put an orange bandana or vest on the dog, and keep the dog on a leash; a loose dog crashing through alders sounds like a deer and will be treated as one until it is seen. From October 26 to November 22, when the firearms season is on, treat orange as part of getting dressed.

A plain plan for walking the woods this fall

Know the season you are in. Before October 5 the only big-game hunters are the bear and moose seasons, which are short and focused; from October 5 there are bowhunters in the deer woods; from October 26 there are rifles. Choose the hour. Legal shooting runs from half an hour before sunrise to half an hour after sunset, and hunters concentrate at dawn and dusk. A walk between 10 and 2 is the quiet middle of the day for both of you. Choose the ground. Inside the city, walk anywhere. On the fringe, prefer marked trails, and read the trailhead signs: Killarney, the Nashwaak Watershed trails and Crown land near Fredericton carry notices in season. Make noise, calmly. Talk, let the dog's bell ring, do not hide. Stay on the trail; a hunter has a right to be off it, and a stand overlooks the game trail, not the footpath. Avoid the opening weekends of the firearms season (October 26 and the Saturday after) and the first Sunday, October 18, when the woods are busiest. If you see a hunter, say hello. Almost everyone in orange out there is a neighbour, and a wave settles both parties.

For hunters: the paperwork and the checks

Licences come through the province's e-licensing portal (you need an Outdoors Card number) or Service New Brunswick and licensed vendors. The moose draw closed June 12 and the results came out July 6; the 2025 draw had roughly 58,000 applicants for a few thousand tags, so odds run under ten percent. Resident licence prices from a secondary listing are in the range of $28 for deer and bear, $50 for moose and $18 for small game; confirm at Service New Brunswick, because the province's own price page would not load for us. Migratory birds need the federal permit and habitat stamp.

After the shot: deer must be registered within 24 hours, bear within 72, and moose by noon the day after the season closes, either on the online Big Game Registration Portal or at a DNRED registration station; moose and bear teeth go to a DNRED office within 14 days. Posted land is off limits; unposted private land implies consent except in protected categories, and the province's trespass rules changed in 2023, so read the current summary before you cross a fence. Hunter education and firearms safety courses in Fredericton run through DNRED's regional course listings, 506-453-3826.

The moose week, and what the dog needs to know

The five days of moose season, September 22 to 26, are the strangest week of the year on the back roads: pickups at every woods road gate at 5 a.m., orange in the Tims line, and a village's worth of people who took the week off. It is short and it is mostly north and west of the city, in the big Crown blocks. For a Fredericton walker the effect is minimal in town and real on the Keswick and Nackawic ridges. The deer firearms season is the one that changes November: four weeks, Sundays included after October 18, and a quieter, wider presence in every hardwood stand within an hour of the city. Both end November 22, after which the woods belong to grouse hunters with shotguns and hare hunters with beagles until the snow, and to you, in orange, on the trail, at noon.