A Maine coyote can make a clear-cut feel haunted. One second the snow is still and flat. The next second a pale shape slips through the spruce like smoke under a door. That is the pull of it. The hunt feels quiet, sharp, and full of nerves.
But Maine law comes first. This is one of those states where the broad answer sounds easy at first. Yes, you can hunt coyotes in Maine all year during daylight hours. Yes, Maine also has a special night season. Then the details start to stack up. Sunday shuts the hunt down. A night permit is separate from your license. Dogs can be used by day, but not at night. Artificial light is allowed at night, but road, vehicle, bait, and registration rules still sit there like hard fence posts.
This guide puts current Maine coyote hunting laws into plain English. It covers the year-round daylight season, the winter-to-summer night season, license rules, the Sunday ban, calls, dogs, bait, roads, vehicles, and what you have to do if you want to sell, trade, or move a coyote out of state. It is not legal advice, and local rules, posted land, and special-area rules can still change what is lawful where you stand.
Maine allows daylight coyote hunting all year
The first rule to know is the simplest one. Maine allows coyote hunting year-round during daylight hunting hours. There is no closed season for daytime coyote hunting, and there is no bag limit. For many hunters, that is the headline.
Still, “year-round” does not mean “any time, any way, any place.” Maine keeps a few tight strings on the hunt. Legal daylight hours still matter. Sunday still kills the plan. Roads, buildings, vehicles, and posted property still count. If you move from one field to the next without sorting those rules first, the open season does not save you.
Think of Maine’s coyote law like a frozen river. From the bank it looks wide open. Once you step out, you start to see the seams.
Maine also has a separate coyote night season
Maine goes farther than many states by opening a special night season for coyotes. That night season runs from December 16 through August 31. During that season, hunters may hunt coyotes from one-half hour after sunset until one-half hour before sunrise.
That sounds broad, but there is a hard Sunday wall built into it. Coyote night hunting must stop at midnight each Saturday and may not resume until 12:01 a.m. on Monday. Maine’s general Sunday hunting ban also applies to coyotes. So even though a Saturday night hunt may begin in a legal way, it must stop when the clock rolls into Sunday.
That one rule catches people every year. A hunter thinks only about sunset and sunrise, not about the day of the week. In Maine, the day of the week matters as much as the moon.
You need a hunting license, and night hunting needs its own permit
In general, anyone who hunts wild animals in Maine needs a hunting license. For coyote hunting, that usually means a regular hunting license or a small game hunting license, depending on the method and license type that fits you. Maine also has junior licenses for hunters under 16 and adult licenses for hunters 16 and older.
There is one narrow break for some landowners. Maine resident landowners and their immediate family may hunt without a license on land they own and live on if that land has 10 or more contiguous acres. That landowner break is real, but it is not a free pass for every person on every family parcel. If you are outside that lane, get the license first.
Night hunting for coyotes adds one more paper layer. To hunt coyotes at night during the coyote night season, you need a coyote night hunting permit in addition to a valid hunting license. Junior licenses include that permit, but adult hunters should not assume the night permit comes along by default. Check your license package before the hunt, not after the truck is parked.
Hunter safety can be part of the gate
Maine ties license eligibility to hunter safety or prior license history for many firearm hunters. A person applying for a Maine firearm hunting license, other than a junior or apprentice license, must show proof of a hunter safety course or proof that they held a valid adult firearms hunting license in Maine or another place in any year beginning with 1976.
That rule matters for coyote hunters too. People sometimes treat predator hunting like a side road that sits apart from the usual license steps. Maine does not read it that way. If you need hunter safety to buy the firearm license, you need it before you head out for coyotes.
Daylight hours and night hours are not the same thing
For daytime coyote hunting, Maine uses the normal daylight hunting hours chart. In plain terms, that means one-half hour before sunrise until one-half hour after sunset.
For coyote night hunting during the special season, the legal window flips. Night coyote hunting runs from one-half hour after sunset until one-half hour before sunrise. Then the Sunday stop jumps in again, and the hunt must cease at midnight on Saturday.
This sounds simple, but it helps to keep both clocks in your head. Daylight coyote hunting is one rule. Night coyote hunting is another. A hunter who mixes them can slide out of legal time without much warning, especially when a late stand bumps against dark.
Calls are not just legal at night. One is required
Maine gives coyote night hunters a very plain rule. If you are hunting coyotes at night, you must be in possession of a predator calling device. The law says that device may be electronic, hand-held, or mouth-operated.
That means the call is not just a smart idea in Maine night hunting. It is part of the legal setup. Show up at night with a rifle and a light but no call, and the hunt is not built the way the state says it must be built.
That rule gives Maine’s night season a clear shape. The state is not setting up a free-roaming spotlight season. It is setting up a calling hunt, then letting hunters use light within that lane.
Artificial light is allowed at night, but dogs are not
Maine expressly allows the use of artificial lights to hunt coyotes at night during the coyote night season. That is one reason the state gets so much attention from hunters who like after-dark predator hunting.
Dogs are a different story. Maine says the use of dogs to hunt coyotes at night is prohibited. So the legal night setup is built around a caller and light, not around hounds running in the dark.
If you plan to hunt coyotes with dogs by day, Maine does allow that path, but it carries its own rules. Anyone age 16 or older using a dog to hunt coyote must have a Dog Training and Hunting Permit. Each dog must have a working tracking collar, like a GPS or VHF unit, and a collar that shows the owner’s name, phone number, and address. The state also says no more than six dogs may be used at one time, and dogs may not be used to hunt during the period from one-half hour after sunset to one-half hour before sunrise, except for raccoon. So for coyote hunters, dogs are a daylight tool only.
Bait is allowed, but it is not loose and sloppy
Maine law does allow baiting for hunting in a general sense, and the coyote pages do not carve coyotes out of that rule. But the state does not treat bait like a dump pile behind a shed. If you place bait for hunting, you need oral or written permission from the landowner or the landowner’s agent. The bait site must be plainly labeled with a 2-inch by 4-inch tag that has the baiter’s name and address. You also have to clean up the site right away if the landowner asks, or within 20 days after the last day the site is hunted if no earlier request is made.
Maine also bars any medicinal, poisonous, or stupefying substance used to entice an animal. So bait can be legal, but poison and dirty shortcuts are not. Think of the bait rule like a narrow road through the woods. It exists, but it has edges.
Sunday hunting is flatly illegal in Maine
This point deserves its own heading because it ruins a lot of plans. Maine bans hunting wild animals and wild birds on Sunday. The state’s own hunting law pages say it in plain language. That ban reaches coyote hunting too.
For daylight hunters, that means no Sunday morning stand, no Sunday afternoon walk, no quick check of one last field after church. For night hunters, it means the hunt must stop at midnight Saturday and may not start again until Monday just after midnight. If your hunting schedule leans on weekends, Maine’s Sunday rule is the part you need to build around first.
Road and vehicle rules can wreck a hunt fast
Maine does not let hunters blur the line between a hunt and a road ride. You may not shoot at a wild animal from a public paved way, from within 10 feet of the edge of its pavement, or from within the right-of-way of a controlled-access highway. You also may not discharge a firearm or archery equipment over a public paved way.
Vehicle rules matter just as much. Maine says a person may not shoot while in or on a vehicle or have a loaded firearm or crossbow in or on a vehicle, with a few exceptions that are not the normal coyote-hunting setup. The state does allow a person who is not in or on the vehicle to rest a loaded firearm on a stopped vehicle with the engine off while hunting, but that is a small exception inside a much larger ban. A hunter who treats the truck like a shooting bench is asking for trouble.
The safer field habit is simple. Park. Get out. Make sure the gun is handled in a legal way. Stay clear of paved roads. Do not shoot across one. Do not trust a roadside ditch to save you.
Buildings and posted land still matter
Maine bars the discharge of a firearm or muzzleloader within 100 yards of a building, or so that a projectile passes within that distance, unless you have permission from the owner or an adult occupant. On a coyote stand, that can matter more than people think. A barn, machine shed, sugarhouse, or farmhouse tucked behind a tree line still counts.
Land access matters too. Maine’s coyote rules do not erase trespass law. If land is posted or the owner has told you no, the answer is still no. A legal season does not turn private land into public land.
Registration and transport rules matter once a coyote is down
Maine handles harvested coyotes in a way that many casual hunters miss. A coyote taken by hunting must be tagged and registered before it is bought, sold, traded, or transported out of state. If you plan to keep it at home and do nothing more than that, the registration issue may sit quiet. If you want to sell the hide, trade the animal, or cross the border with it, registration comes first.
Maine also allows hunters to gift unregistered coyotes. But each gifted coyote needs a tag attached with the harvester’s name, hunting or trapping license number, the harvest method, the date, and the town of harvest. That is a clean little paper trail, and the state wants it there.
This is one of those rules that feels small until it is not. A hunter may do the stand, the shot, and the recovery in a legal way, then break the law later with a cooler, a truck, and a state line.
Thermal and night vision need extra care
Maine’s coyote night pages plainly allow artificial lights. They do not plainly spell out a separate green light for thermal or night vision gear in the same way. At the same time, Maine law sets harsh penalties for unlawful night hunting when night vision or thermal imaging equipment is involved.
That means a hunter planning to use thermal or night vision should not guess. Call Maine Inland Fisheries and Wildlife first and get a clean answer for the gear you want to carry. On this point, a little caution is cheaper than a big mistake.
A plain way to stay legal in Maine
Here is the field version in one pass. Maine allows daylight coyote hunting all year with no bag limit. Maine also allows a special night season from December 16 through August 31. For night hunting, you need a valid hunting license and a coyote night hunting permit, and you must carry a predator calling device. Artificial light is allowed at night. Dogs are not allowed at night.
Sunday hunting is illegal, so night hunting stops at midnight Saturday and resumes at 12:01 a.m. on Monday. If you hunt coyotes with dogs by day and you are 16 or older, you need the dog permit, tracking collar, owner ID collar, and you may not use more than six dogs. If you use bait, get landowner permission, label the bait site, and clean it up on time.
Then come the habits that keep the hunt clean. Stay off paved roads. Do not shoot from or over them. Keep loaded guns out of vehicles. Stay 100 yards from buildings unless you have permission. Respect posted land. If you plan to sell, trade, or move a coyote out of state, tag and register it first.
That is the shape of Maine coyote law once the noise falls away. It is not a maze, but it is not a blank sheet either. It is more like fresh snow in a logging cut. From the road it looks smooth. Once you walk it, every track starts to show.