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Where to hunt northern bobwhite in Michigan

Last updated 2026-09-24 · from MDNR data · 2025–26 licence year

In Michigan, northern bobwhite is barely present. All but gone. It hangs on in a few of the southernmost counties and nowhere else, which the occurrence data on its card shows plainly, and Michigan publishes no bag limit for it. Michigan's huntable public estate is 5,515,411 acres across 344 units, not filtered by species because MDNR does not publish a per-parcel list. The best-supported of them is Deford State Game Area: 10,395 of its 10,395 acres lie in cells where the bird is recorded. Units here are ordered by how much of each one lies in subbasins where northern bobwhite is recorded at regular strength or better, not by how big the unit is. The list is also clipped to the ground MDNR opens a season on, which leaves 44 of the state's units eligible.

Where the bird is

barely present An editorial summary of the bird's status in this state — not a population estimate and not a survey.

All but gone. It hangs on in a few of the southernmost counties and nowhere else, which the occurrence data on its card shows plainly, and Michigan publishes no bag limit for it.

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Stronghold Regular Present Occasional No records The 10 units in the table below 3 units too small to draw

The public units with the most recorded ground

Michigan's huntable public units. MDNR does not publish a per-parcel species list, so this is not filtered to northern bobwhite.

Ordered by recorded acres — how much of each unit lies inside subbasins where northern bobwhite is recorded at regular strength or better — rather than by how big the unit is. The biggest block in a state is often not in the half of it the bird is in. PAD-US splits a forest into many parcels, so acreage is summed over the unit's name, and the share is measured against the unit's drawn boundary rather than a centroid: a national forest can be two polygons across half a peninsula.

Season boundary drawn Narrowed to ground MDNR opens a season on (Open counties), which leaves 44 eligible units.
Boundary: county lines (Census TIGER). The order names counties rather than describing a boundary, so the county edges are the rule itself and not a simplification of it.
Season geography read against the published rule on 2026-08-23.

The whole public estate, by land class

Every huntable unit in Michigan, not the ranked ten above and not narrowed to where northern bobwhite is recorded or where the season is open. It is here as the denominator the table above was drawn from.

PAD-US says who manages a parcel, not where its boundary runs on the ground and not whether a unit carries a local closure. Context, not permission — check the unit with MDNR before you park.

Within a drive of a town

The same ground read from where a reader starts rather than from the state line: the public units within forty miles of one town, ordered the same way. A town is on this list only where at least three units reach that far and hold ten thousand recorded acres between them.

• Northern bobwhite hunting near Ann Arbor
• Northern bobwhite hunting near Lansing
• Northern bobwhite hunting near Flint
• Northern bobwhite hunting near Rochester Hills
• Northern bobwhite hunting near Saginaw
• Northern bobwhite hunting near Jackson
• Northern bobwhite hunting near Adrian
• Northern bobwhite hunting near Howell
• Northern bobwhite hunting near Marshall
• Northern bobwhite hunting near Caro
• Northern bobwhite hunting near Bad Axe
• Northern bobwhite hunting near Sandusky

The other questions

• How to hunt northern bobwhite in Michigan
• When does Michigan's 2025–26 northern bobwhite season open?
• Michigan northern bobwhite regulations, 2025–26
• Michigan northern bobwhite hunting report
• Northern bobwhite hunting in Michigan — the whole picture
• Northern bobwhite — biology, range and how it is hunted

By region

• Northern bobwhite hunting in southern Michigan

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