Two shotgun weeks, and a Sunday between them
Shotgun season in 2026 runs November 30 through December 12, and it is split in a way that changes the errand before any a trusted processing shop in the region sees the deer. Week one is Monday, November 30 through Saturday, December 5. Every deer taken in that week has to go to an in-person check station. Week two is Monday, December 7 through Saturday, December 12, and online reporting resumes. December 6 is the Sunday between those weeks. Sunday hunting is prohibited, so that day is closed even though it sits inside the broader shotgun dates.
Archery has already run October 5 through November 28 by the time guns open. The youth deer hunt was October 2 and October 3. The paraplegic hunt was October 29 through October 31. Primitive firearms follow shotgun, from December 14 through December 31, again with Sundays closed. Week one is the week this note is for, because the check station is mandatory then and a processor conversation does not replace it.
Find the station on the official map
Taunton Game Meats does not publish check-station streets, hours, or a ranked list of which station is closest to the Taunton River, Route 24, or Route 138. Staffing and dates change, and a guessed address would send a Berkley or Dighton hunter to the wrong door with a deer in the truck. Use the official check-station map for the day you need it. Confirm the station is taking deer, make the stop, and get the report finished before you ask a trusted processing shop in the region for anything.
Write the confirmation number on the harvest tag at that station or as soon as the report is in your hands. The deer stays intact except for field dressing until it is reported. Week one does not create an exception that lets you quarter a buck in the five-vehicle dirt lot off Prospect Hill Street so the cooler closes. Field dressing can already be done. Further breakdown waits. The 2026 transport-visibility rule was removed, which does not remove the check-station requirement for this particular week.
Where week-one hunters are coming from
The center of Taunton is in Wildlife Management Zone 11 on the state zone map. Raynham hunters often leave Hockomock Swamp WMA or Erwin S. Wilder WMA and then look for a station while Route 24 is busy with other shotgun traffic. The swamp's published parking is that five-vehicle dirt lot on Prospect Hill Street. It is a place to get the deer into a vehicle, not a check station and not a processor. A hunter who parked there still has the map errand ahead.
Dighton and Berkley hunters are often on Route 138 beside the Taunton River when they start the drive toward a station. Freetown and Assonet sit down Route 24, so their first paved miles are south of the Taunton exchanges. Somerset callers come up Route 138 from the south side of the river. Route 140 is the other name Taunton hunters use for the side of the city they are crossing. Tell intake which of those places you hunted after the station stop, not instead of it.
What the referral can do after the station
Once the deer is checked, this line connects you with a trusted processing shop in the region. The processor sets the price and decides whether the deer can come in. No street and no drop-off schedule are printed for that stop. Call before you leave the station lot and point the truck at an address you have not confirmed. Capacity is not confirmed. A Saturday in week one, with archery already finished and many Zone 11 camps in the woods on the same days, is a hard week to assume there is room.
Cut sheets, sausage, jerky, skin-only work, quartered acceptance, caping, and other species are not confirmed. Taxidermy is a separate business. Ask those questions on the call if you need to, and treat silence on this page as silence, not as a yes. A cape for a shoulder mount has to be discussed before the neck is opened at the station parking area. Quartered acceptance, even after a legal report, is still not confirmed, so the safe plan is a whole, field-dressed, checked deer until a trusted processing shop in the region says otherwise.
Donation, disease precautions, and week two
Some hunters in week one want the deer to become a Hunters Share the Harvest donation rather than meat for the house. Hunters must use the official program map to choose that processor. This referral does not claim a trusted processing shop in the region is on that map. A whole donation is field dressed within four hours unless the air stays under 37°F, dropped off whole within 24 hours, and legally reported and tagged. The hunter pays no processing fee on a qualifying whole deer. A replacement antlerless permit for zones including Zone 11 usually takes two to four weeks. Before Thanksgiving the program tries to issue it before shotgun. After Thanksgiving, which is where week one sits, the replacement is for the next year. Some processors decline partial donations.
December air is usually colder than early October, and the four-hour donation clock still applies when the air does not stay under 37°F. Chronic wasting disease has not been found in Massachusetts. Wear gloves at the swamp edge or on the riverbank and avoid brain, spinal, and lymph tissue. Deer-derived scents are banned. Un-deboned deer-family carcasses from outside New England are barred, so week one is for a Massachusetts deer, not a carcass hauled in from outside that region.
- Week one: in-person check station for every deer, November 30 through December 5.
- Station streets come from the official map, not from this page.
- Confirmation number written on the harvest tag before the processor call.
- Deer intact except for field dressing until the report is finished.
- Week two, December 7 through December 12: online reporting resumes. December 6 is closed.
Zones 9, 10, and 11 have a winter deer season from January 1 through January 30, 2027, and that hunt needs a 2027 license on sale December 1, 2026. You do not need that license to finish shotgun week one. You do need the check station, the tag, and a call to this line if you want a trusted processing shop in the region afterward. Name the town, name the land along the river or the swamp, and let the processor set the price.