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Where to hunt northern bobwhite in Wisconsin

Last updated 2026-09-24 · from WDNR data · 2026 season year

In Wisconsin, northern bobwhite is barely present. The extreme south-west, at the northern edge of the species' range and thin even there. Wisconsin does set a season — statewide, five a day, from mid-October to early December — but the season is statewide and the bird is not. Wisconsin's huntable public estate is 4,969,547 acres across 507 units, not filtered by species because WDNR does not publish a per-parcel list. The best-supported of them is Chequamegon National Forest: 73,824 of its 863,436 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.

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.

The extreme south-west, at the northern edge of the species' range and thin even there. Wisconsin does set a season — statewide, five a day, from mid-October to early December — but the season is statewide and the bird is not.

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Stronghold Regular Present Occasional No records The 10 units in the table below

The public units with the most recorded ground

Wisconsin's huntable public units. WDNR 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.

WDNR names no geographic restriction on this season, so no unit is excluded for being outside one.
Season geography here is read off a dates table rather than the rule itself, and a dates table carries no boundary.

The whole public estate, by land class

Every huntable unit in Wisconsin, 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 WDNR 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 Madison
• Northern bobwhite hunting near Green Bay
• Northern bobwhite hunting near Appleton
• Northern bobwhite hunting near Eau Claire
• Northern bobwhite hunting near Janesville
• Northern bobwhite hunting near Fond du Lac
• Northern bobwhite hunting near Wausau
• Northern bobwhite hunting near Stevens Point
• Northern bobwhite hunting near Marshfield
• Northern bobwhite hunting near River Falls
• Northern bobwhite hunting near Beaver Dam
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• Northern bobwhite hunting near Holmen
• Northern bobwhite hunting near Monroe
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• Northern bobwhite hunting near Rhinelander
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• Northern bobwhite hunting near Waupaca
• Northern bobwhite hunting near Berlin
• Northern bobwhite hunting near Dodgeville
• Northern bobwhite hunting near Oconto
• Northern bobwhite hunting near Medford
• Northern bobwhite hunting near Stanley
• Northern bobwhite hunting near Black River Falls
• Northern bobwhite hunting near Ladysmith

The other questions

• How to hunt northern bobwhite in Wisconsin
• When does Wisconsin's 2026 northern bobwhite season open?
• Wisconsin northern bobwhite regulations, 2026
• Wisconsin northern bobwhite hunting report
• Northern bobwhite hunting in Wisconsin — the whole picture
• Northern bobwhite — biology, range and how it is hunted

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