BirdTrout

Ring-necked pheasant Hunting in Virginia

Phasianus colchicus

Open November 7, 2026 to January 31, 2027 — 86 days afield. In Virginia it is barely present.

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
Other states

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 carries the page it was read from.

Where it is in Virginia

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

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.

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

32 of 53 subbasins draining Virginia carry a ring-necked pheasant 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 Ring-necked pheasant.

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

Bag limit: not shown No single bag limit is shown for it here. Where VDWR publishes one that changes by zone or partway through the season, the figures are in the notes below and this page will not pick one of them; where it publishes none at all, this page leaves it empty rather than guess — a wrong limit is worse than a missing one, because it looks researched. Check the Virginia Hunting & Trapping Regulations.
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.
VDWR publishes no daily or seasonal bag limit for pheasant. The null here is that, not an unread digest.
Virginia holds no self-sustaining wild pheasant population. What is hunted is released birds on a handful of stocked and licensed shooting preserves, and the season above is the wild-bird season that barely applies.

Where to hunt it

All 130 of Virginia's huntable public units name ring-necked pheasant 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.