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Ring-necked pheasant
Phasianus colchicus
Ring-necked pheasant (Phasianus colchicus) is present in all 5 states this app covers, and every one of them sets a season for it. It is strongest in Michigan, where it is well established. Of the states that set one run of dates statewide, the longest season is Virginia's at 86 days, November 7, 2026 to January 31, 2027.
Last updated 2026-09-24 · seasons from each state's own agency
The bird
An Asian import, naturalised in North America since the 1880s, and a farmland bird rather than a forest one — it lives on the seam between grass nesting cover and standing grain. It would rather run than fly, and after opening week it is very good at it. Only roosters are legal in most places it is hunted, so the white neck ring, red face wattle and long barred tail are the marks that matter.
Written for this app. Not an agency description and not a regulation — everything below this point that is a rule or a date carries the agency it was read from.
State by state
The comparison this page exists for. The band is an editorial summary of the bird's status on the same five-step scale in every state — not a population estimate — and the season is that state's own, against that state's own licence or season year, which do not line up with each other.
| State | Status | Season | Days | Bag | Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Michigan | well established | October 10, 2025 – January 1, 2026 zoned | — | 2 per day, 4 in possession | 2025–26 |
| Wisconsin | well established | October 17, 2026 – January 3, 2027 | 79 | not published | 2026 |
| Virginia | barely present | November 7, 2026 – January 31, 2027 | 86 | not published | 2026–27 |
| North Carolina | barely present | September 5, 2026 – February 28, 2027 zoned | — | not published | 2026–27 |
| Minnesota | well established | October 10, 2026 – January 3, 2027 | 86 | not published | 2026 |
A bag this app cannot state as one number is left empty here rather than guessed. Some of these states publish none for a species; others publish one that changes by zone, or partway through the season, and no single figure would be true of the whole of it. A wrong limit is worse than a missing one, because it looks researched.
Ring-necked pheasant in Michigan
The southern third, on the grass-and-grain edge, and zoned into three for the season. Ten Upper Peninsula counties are shut to it entirely.
- Ring-necked pheasant hunting in Michigan — the whole picture
- How to hunt it — Michigan
- When the season opens — Michigan
- Where to hunt it — Michigan
- Regulations — Michigan
- Hunting report — Michigan
- Michigan hunting regulations
Ring-necked pheasant in Wisconsin
Statewide season, southern farmland bird, and heavily supported by WDNR stocking — a pheasant stamp is required on the land the state stocks.
- Ring-necked pheasant hunting in Wisconsin — the whole picture
- How to hunt it — Wisconsin
- When the season opens — Wisconsin
- Where to hunt it — Wisconsin
- Regulations — Wisconsin
- Hunting report — Wisconsin
- Wisconsin hunting regulations
Ring-necked pheasant in Virginia
No self-sustaining wild population. Virginia runs a season and publishes no bag limit for it, and what is actually hunted is released birds on licensed shooting preserves.
- Ring-necked pheasant hunting in Virginia — the whole picture
- How to hunt it — Virginia
- When the season opens — Virginia
- Where to hunt it — Virginia
- Regulations — Virginia
- Hunting report — Virginia
- Virginia hunting regulations
Ring-necked pheasant in North Carolina
A naturalised population on the barrier islands of Carteret, Dare and Hyde — Hatteras and Ocracoke — hunted as a wild bird, males only. On the mainland the long either-sex season is a released-bird season.
- Ring-necked pheasant hunting in North Carolina — the whole picture
- How to hunt it — North Carolina
- When the season opens — North Carolina
- Where to hunt it — North Carolina
- Regulations — North Carolina
- Hunting report — North Carolina
- North Carolina hunting regulations
Ring-necked pheasant in Minnesota
The south-west and south-central farmland, and nothing north of it. The season is statewide and the birds are not — the range follows the grassland and CRP acres of the prairie counties.
- Ring-necked pheasant hunting in Minnesota — the whole picture
- How to hunt it — Minnesota
- When the season opens — Minnesota
- Where to hunt it — Minnesota
- Regulations — Minnesota
- Hunting report — Minnesota
- Minnesota hunting regulations
Cover and tactics
The seam between grass nesting cover and grain: switchgrass and CRP-style fields, cattail sloughs, weedy fencelines and picked corn. A pheasant runs before it flies, so the cover that matters is the cover it can run through.
Work fields toward a hard edge — a road, a ditch, a corner — so running birds run out of ground rather than out the far end. Blocking a corner is worth more than another pass through the middle.
A flushing dog that stays inside gun range, or a pointer steady enough to relocate on a running bird. Retrieving matters here more than on grouse: a hit rooster in heavy grass is a lost rooster without a dog.
Written for this app, and general to the bird rather than to a state. Where a place changes it, the regional pages below say so.
By region
- Ring-necked pheasant hunting in southern Michigan
- Ring-necked pheasant hunting in south-east Wisconsin