As a member of the state House Game and Fisheries Committee, Rep. Eric Davanzo is pictured helping the Pennsylvania Game Commission in stocking pheasants last fall.

A new proposal has been thrown into the debate over the start of Pennsylvania’s hunting season.

House Rep. Eric Davanzo, R-West Newton, is circulating a co-sponsorship memorandum for two pieces of legislation he is drafting that will reset the start of rifle season to the Monday after Thanksgiving as well as a bill that would allow for Sunday hunting.

“This bill responds directly to the Pennsylvania Game Commission’s unilateral decision in 2019 to move the opening day of deer rifle season from the culturally relevant Monday after Thanksgiving to the current Saturday after Thanksgiving,” Davanzo wrote in his co-sponsorship memorandum. “This change was not supported by the majority of Pennsylvania sportsmen and has had a disproportionate negative impact on local economies, family traditions, and annual hunting patterns – particularly in northern Pennsylvania.”

Both issues have been debated over the past several years with little traction for changes. Davanzo offers a compromise that he hopes will gain support. He proposes setting the opening day of regular deer rifle season as the first Monday after Thanksgiving for areas north of Interstate 80, specifically Pennsylvania Game Commission regions 1, 3, 5, and 7. This opening day, he said, would preserve tradition, support seasonal travel and boost local commerce in those regions.

The opening day of regular deer rifle season would remain the Saturday before Thanksgiving for areas south of Interstate 80, specifically Game Commission regions 2, 4, 6, 8, and 9. This earlier opening day would offer flexibility for hunters in more urban and suburban settings without disrupting the Thanksgiving holiday and nor areas that traditionally prefer the post-Thanksgiving opening of the season.

Davanzo also proposes a hunting mentoring season that he said could help reverse the trends of declining hunting license sales and the lack of younger hunters. The one-week mentored hunter season would immediately follow the end of the regular deer rifle season and encourage both young and older hunters to hunt by providing a dedicated week for youth and mentor hunting.

“This bill is a balanced, regionally sensitive approach that respects heritage, supports rural economies, and promotes the next generation of sportsmen and sportswomen,” Davanzo wrote.

Davanzo is also putting forward a straightforward bill to allow Sunday hunting. He said prior efforts to allow hunting on Sundays have been tied to other legislative priorities that, in his opinion, have allowed Sunday hunting to stall out during the legislative process. Davanzo wants to take a different approach.

“This proposal is purposefully narrow in scope,” he wrote. “Contrary to past efforts to enable hunting on Sundays, my legislation will not address trespass issues, modify the structure of the Pennsylvania Game Commission, or authorize only temporary Sunday hunting. Instead, it removes the statutory ban on Sunday hunting entirely, allowing the issue to be debated and decided on its core merits alone. By stripping away ancillary provisions that have complicated previous legislative efforts, this approach ensures a clean vote on a single, straightforward question: Should Pennsylvania continue to ban hunting on Sundays?”