open season

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open season (countable and uncountable, plural open seasons)

1. (hunting, sometimes followed by on or for to designate the kind of animal hunted) A period of time during the calendar year when authorities within a jurisdiction permit the unrestricted hunting of one or more kinds of animal wildlife.
   • 1912, Jack London, chapter 1, in The Scarlet Plague (fiction):

     "But there weren't many crabs in those days," the old man wandered on. "They were fished out, and they were great delicacies. The open season was only a month long, too."

2. (figurative, often followed by on or for) A situation in which someone is endangered, blamed, harassed, or opposed in a sustained manner by a number of others; a situation in which something is endangered or otherwise opposed.
   • 1919, William MacLeod Raine, “Prologue”, in A Man Four-Square (fiction):

     In the country of the Clantons there was always an open season on any one of his name.

   • 1964 March 20, “Patents: Knocking Down the Pole”, in Time‎^[1], →OCLC, archived from the original on 16 April 2016:

     The court thus overruled all the states' protective laws, except against outright fraud, and declared open season on any products not protected by patents.

   • 2009, Tawny Weber, Coming on Strong (fiction), →ISBN, page 37:

     The paparazzi and gossip hounds have declared open season on celebrities.

3. (idiomatic, often followed by on or for) A situation or period in which some activity is routinely carried on.
   • 1921, Peter B. Kyne, chapter 15, in The Pride of Palomar (fiction), page 155:

     "My dear Miss Parker, this is the open season on terrible practical jokes."

   • 1959 October 26, “Music: Curtains Up!”, in Time‎^[2], →OCLC, archived from the original on 4 August 2014:

     The open season on culture in Manhattan used to begin with the first stroke of a Metropolitan Opera baton.

• (antonym(s) of “hunting”): close season, closed season

• “open season”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• open season on Wikipedia.Wikipedia