Wisconsin Hunting Season Kicks Off; State Condenses Six Dates Into Single Month

WAUKESHA — The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources' 2026-2027 hunting season calendar opened this month with separate dates for early teal, mourning dove, early Canada goose, youth deer hunt, the general dove and goose opener, and early archery, landing on Sept. 1, 9, 12, 16, 19, and 26 respectively, a schedule local hunters describe as technically defensible and practically unusable.

Martin Eiselstein, 52, of the town of Waukesha, said he set phone reminders for all six dates in early August after realizing he could not otherwise keep track of them. He has since silenced four of the six. "I know today is one of them," Eiselstein said Tuesday, holding his phone up to show a lock screen notification reading "HUNT DAY." "I could not tell you off the top of my head which one. I want to say goose. It might be dove. There's a version of today that's both, potentially, and I don't have the specific knowledge to rule that out."

The Nextdoor Thread

A post titled "Which opener is TODAY????" appeared on the Waukesha Nextdoor community board Sept. 12 and had generated 43 comments by Tuesday evening, including a 14-comment sub-thread devoted entirely to whether the youth deer hunt and the early goose season could legally overlap for a single 16-year-old hunting both species in one morning. The DNR's published calendar answers this question directly in a footnote, a detail that did not stop the thread from running an additional 40 minutes past the point at which someone linked it.

Eiselstein, who participated in the thread under the username "MartyE_Waukesha," said he did not read the footnote before commenting. "I saw six dates and I had a reaction to six dates," he said. "I don't think that reaction was wrong just because the DNR had already answered it. The confusion is the real thing here. The footnote doesn't undo the confusion, it just means somebody, somewhere, anticipated the confusion and tried to get ahead of it, which honestly makes it worse."

"I have never once in fifteen years of doing this looked at my phone and known, without checking, what today's date meant."

— Martin Eiselstein, town of Waukesha

DNR wildlife management supervisor Carla Feaster said the staggered calendar reflects the differing biological windows for each species covered, not an attempt to create confusion, and noted that the six September dates have appeared in some form on the state calendar for over a decade. "Teal migrate early. Geese migrate differently than teal. The youth deer hunt is scheduled around the school calendar," Feaster said. "Every date is defensible on its own. I understand that doesn't help someone trying to hold all six in their head at once."

Six Reminders, One Rifle

Eiselstein said he plans to actually hunt on only two of the six dates, the youth deer hunt weekend with his 15-year-old nephew and the early archery opener Sept. 26, and that the other four reminders exist mainly "so I know what everyone else is talking about" when the subject comes up at Piggly Wiggly or at his Tuesday bowling league. He said he has twice shown up to the wrong location for the wrong season, once driving to a public teal marsh near Waterville on what turned out to be the early goose date, where he encountered no teal, no geese, and one other hunter who Eiselstein said "seemed just as lost as I was, honestly, which I found comforting."

Feaster said the DNR does not track how often hunters confuse the six September openers but confirmed the department's call center receives "a noticeable uptick" in general hunting-hours questions each September, without specifying a number. She recommended hunters consult the printed regulations pamphlet rather than relying on memory or secondhand information from neighborhood message boards. Eiselstein said he owns the pamphlet but keeps it in his truck's glovebox, where it has not been opened since 2024.

The final of the six September dates, the early archery opener, arrives Sept. 26. Eiselstein said he has already set a reminder.