BirdTrout

Northern bobwhite Hunting in Virginia

Colinus virginianus

Open November 7, 2026 to January 31, 2027 — 86 days afield. In Virginia it is thin and local.

Last updated 2026-08-24 · from VDWR data · 2026–27 licence year

The bird
Where it is
Season and limits
Where to hunt it
Hours, orange and licences
The questions
By region
Other states

The bird

A small covey quail in steep decline across nearly all of its range. It wants brushy fencerows, weedy field corners and shrub thickets — the scruffy edges that modern field margins have largely removed, which is the whole story of what happened to it. The male carries a bold white throat and white eyestripe outlined in black; on the hen both are buff.

Written for this app. Not an agency description and not a regulation — everything below this point that is a rule carries the page it was read from.

Where it is in Virginia

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

The Piedmont and the south-east are the quail ground, and the long-term trend is down. Note the closure: quail is shut on all public land west of the Blue Ridge, and on Flippo-Gentry WMA.

Open this map in the app

Stronghold Regular Present Occasional No records The 10 units in the table below 9 units too small to draw

43 of 53 subbasins draining Virginia carry a northern bobwhite record. Observed occurrences, not a range map and not a habitat model. Scored as a share of all bird records in the same cell, so a well-watched county does not read as better bird country than an unwatched one. The mesh is the subbasin — the unit this app scores in — and not the state line, so its edge is a drainage divide rather than a border. The green is the 10 public units in the table below, drawn as PAD-US records their boundaries: context, not permission.

Season and limits

VDWR's own dates for the 2026–27 licence year, read from VDWR. Virginia lists this season as Northern bobwhite.

Segment	Opens	Closes	Days
Statewide	November 7, 2026	January 31, 2027	86

Bag limit: 6 per day
Hunter orange: required Every hunter, and anyone accompanying one, must wear a solid blaze orange or blaze pink hat, or solid blaze upper-body clothing visible from 360 degrees, or display at least 100 square inches of solid blaze material at shoulder level, visible from 360 degrees.
Sundays: Virginia allows Sunday hunting, with two exceptions: not within 200 yards of a house of worship, and not for deer or bear with dogs.

Virginia requires solid blaze orange or blaze pink — a hat, 360-degree upper-body clothing, or 100 square inches at shoulder level. Waterfowl and dove hunters are exempt; upland bird hunters are not.
Quail is closed on all public land west of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and on Flippo-Gentry WMA in Sussex County until further notice. That is a rule about the parcel you are standing on, not about a line on this map, and this app cannot draw it — check the ownership of the ground before you hunt quail in the mountains.

Where to hunt it

All 130 of Virginia's huntable public units name northern bobwhite among their species. Acreage is the same the map is drawn from.

Class	Units	Acres
National forest	19	1,674,677
State wildlife management area	111	227,735
Total	130	1,902,412

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 VDWR before you park.

Hours, orange and licences

Shooting hours

One half-hour before sunrise to one half-hour after sunset.

Not Michigan's rule. Virginia gives you the extra half-hour at the end of the day that Michigan does not, and this app's hunt planner draws the Michigan line — so the shaded evening on the planner is conservative here rather than wrong. Spring turkey runs on its own hours: until 12 noon for the first sixteen days, then to sunset. VDWR

Licences

Hunting licence
Everyone, resident or not — Bought through Go Outdoors Virginia, and what every other permit is added to.
Hunter education certificate
Anyone born on or after 1 January 1961, and every hunter under 16 — Or an apprentice licence, which lets an uncertified hunter hunt under supervision.
Federal HIP registration
Woodcock and every other migratory bird — Free, and it lapses every July 1 — last season's registration is not this season's.
Public land permits
Hunters on national forest and some WMAs — Virginia sells a separate access permit for national forest and DWR land. Check which your ground needs before you park.

The questions under this one

A page each, because each one is its own search. This page is the whole picture; those answer one thing and show the rows behind the answer.

Where in Virginia

Northern bobwhite hunting in the Virginia Piedmont