Deer Rifle Season Opens this Saturday in Oklahoma, Here’s the Rut Report

This is it. It's the day every hunter looks forward to each year. It's a day to prepare as tomorrow is the opening day of deer rifle season across Oklahoma.

Normally, hunters across a majority swath of the Sooner State get a somewhat slow start to deer season. It's usually still warm overnight, but since Thanksgiving is a week later than normal, the cold nights have the deer up and moving around earlier than expected.

If you hunt, your odds of tagging out early just shot up bigtime.

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According to the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation "Rut Report," the big males that normally spend their days lazing around bedded up in soft grasses are already on their own hunt for breeding females.

Basically, the mating season has been in full swing at a fever pitch for the last few days. That's great news for hunters looking to bag their limits early with big, quality deer.

License Changes in 2024

2024 also marks the first deer rifle season under the new Oklahoma licensing rules.

In years past, Oklahoma hunters needed both a hunting license to harvest deer and a separate "deer tag" to help the state keep track of everything. It's different this year.

While hunters still need to obtain their base hunting license, the tags are now referred to differently as an additional Deer Gun Season License.

Instead of purchasing multiple $18 tags, you purchase one $36 license that covers the Thanksgiving deer gun season, and the Christmas specialty anterless deer gun season.

It's same/same, but different.

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You can read up on it all you want on the ODWC website, but odds are, if you're a hunter, you've likely already carved your way through that mountain of information to find the little pearl of useful info inside.

Best of luck, stay safe.