Where can you hunt ruffed grouse in North Carolina?

Where to hunt ruffed grouse in North Carolina

Last updated 2026-09-24 · from NCWRC data · 2026–27 season year

In North Carolina, ruffed grouse is thin and local. The western mountain counties and effectively nowhere else — the Blue Ridge escarpment, and the Nantahala and Pisgah national forests. The season is written statewide; the bird is not. 140 of North Carolina's 140 huntable public units name ruffed grouse among their species — 1,913,995 acres in all. The best-supported of them is Nantahala National Forest: 489,617 of its 532,900 acres lie in cells where the bird is recorded. Units here are ordered by how much of each one lies in subbasins where ruffed grouse is recorded at regular strength or better, not by how big the unit is.

Where the bird is

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

The western mountain counties and effectively nowhere else — the Blue Ridge escarpment, and the Nantahala and Pisgah national forests. The season is written statewide; the bird is not.

Open this map in the app

Stronghold Regular Present Occasional No records The 10 units in the table below 6 units too small to draw

15 of 46 subbasins draining North Carolina carry a ruffed grouse 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.

The public units with the most recorded ground

Public units that name ruffed grouse among their species.

Ordered by recorded acres — how much of each unit lies inside subbasins where ruffed grouse 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.

NCWRC 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.

Unit	Class	Recorded acres	Acres	Where the records are
Nantahala National Forest	National forest	489,617	532,900	49% stronghold, 43% regular, 6% present, 2% occasional
Pisgah National Forest	National forest	125,722	510,983	25% regular, 75% occasional
Needmore Game Land	State game land	5,087	5,087	100% stronghold
Cold Mountain Game Land	State game land	3,384	3,384	100% regular
William H Silver Game Land	State game land	2,027	2,027	100% regular
Pisgah Game Land	State game land	1,317	4,728	28% regular, 72% occasional
Nantahala Purchase Unit	National forest	730	730	100% regular
Nantahala Game Land	State game land	300	300	100% stronghold
Cherokee National Forest	National forest	99	451	22% regular, 67% present, 12% occasional
Chattahoochee National Forest	National forest	16	48	33% regular, 67% present

The whole public estate, by land class

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

Class	Units	Acres
National forest	11	1,258,837
State game land	129	655,158

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 NCWRC 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.

The other questions

By region

Ruffed grouse hunting in Nantahala and Pisgah

Open the hunting map →Public land and bird cover, drawn for the bird you are after.