BirdTrout

American woodcock Hunting in Virginia

Scolopax minor

Open November 11, 2026 to January 18, 2027 — 45 days afield. In Virginia it is well established.

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

A migratory shorebird that gave up the shore for wet woods, and the one bird on this list no state sets its own season for — the dates come down from the federal flyway framework. It wants damp alder and dogwood bottoms with soil soft enough to probe, and it moves on cold fronts rather than living anywhere all season. Unmistakable in the hand: a bill nearly a third of its body length, and eyes set so far back it can see behind itself while feeding.

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

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

Statewide, and almost entirely a passage bird — Virginia's season is split into two segments around the turn of the year to sit under the flights rather than over the handful that nest here.

Open this map in the app

Stronghold Regular Present Occasional No records The 10 units in the table below 7 units too small to draw

42 of 53 subbasins draining Virginia carry a american woodcock 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 American woodcock.

Segment	Opens	Closes	Days
Segment 1	November 11, 2026	December 1, 2026	21
Segment 2	December 26, 2026	January 18, 2027	24

Bag limit: 3 per day, 9 in possession
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.
Stamps: Federal HIP registration
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.
Migratory bird: HIP registration is required in addition to the hunting licence, and it lapses every July 1.
Two segments, split around the late-December break. The birds in the second are flight birds moving through on cold fronts, not Virginia's own.

Where to hunt it

All 130 of Virginia's huntable public units name american woodcock 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.