BirdTrout

Ruffed grouse Hunting in Virginia

Bonasa umbellus

Open October 24, 2026 to February 13, 2027 — the days depend on the zone, and they are in the table below. 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

The upland bird of the northern hardwoods — a chicken-sized woodland grouse that holds tight and flushes loud. It lives in young aspen and mixed brush between about five and twenty years old, which is why grouse country is cut-over country rather than big timber. Look for the black neck ruff it is named for and the broad dark band across the end of the fanned tail.

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.

Blue Ridge and Allegheny mountains only, and declining hard — the young forest the bird needs has aged out across most of its Virginia range. The season is closed outright east of I-95.

Open this map in the app

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

24 of 53 subbasins draining Virginia 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.

Season and limits

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

Zone	Opens	Closes	Days
West of I-95 boundary not mapped	October 24, 2026	February 13, 2027	113
East of I-95	Closed season — Virginia shuts this zone

Bag limit: 3 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.
The I-95 line is not drawn in this app. The dates are for the western zone; which side of the interstate you are on is not answered here.
East of I-95 is a continuous closed season — not a gap in this app's data, a closure Virginia has declared.
Virginia's grouse are a Blue Ridge and Allegheny bird and the population has been declining for decades. West of I-95 is where the season is; the mountains are where the birds are.

Where to hunt it

103 of Virginia's 130 huntable public units name ruffed grouse among their species — the other 27 are ground where this bird's season does not reach. Acreage is the same the map is drawn from.

Class	Units	Acres
National forest	19	1,674,677
State wildlife management area	84	191,298
Total	103	1,865,975

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

Ruffed grouse hunting in the Virginia Alleghenies

Ruffed grouse in other states

Ruffed grouse hunting in Michigan high
Ruffed grouse hunting in Wisconsin high
Ruffed grouse hunting in North Carolina low
Ruffed grouse hunting in Minnesota high