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Minnesota Hunting Regulations 2026
Season dates, bag limits and legal hours for the 6 upland birds MN DNR publishes as data, from September 19, 2026 to January 3, 2027 — compiled here so you can read them in one screen instead of a PDF.
Last updated 2026-09-24 · rebuilt nightly from MN DNR data · 2026 season year
- Season dates
- Bag limits
- Hunting hours
- Licences and stamps
- Zones
- Special regulations
- Where to hunt
- What this page does not cover
- Official documents
Season dates by species
MN DNR's own dates for the 2026 season year, read from MN DNR's season dates. A zoned species has no statewide date and is listed by zone.
| Species | Zone | Opens | Closes | Days |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| American woodcock | Statewide | September 19, 2026 | November 2, 2026 | 45 |
| Ruffed grouse | Statewide | September 19, 2026 | January 3, 2027 | 107 |
| Sharp-tailed grouse | Northwest zone boundary not resolved | September 19, 2026 | November 30, 2026 | 73 |
| Sharp-tailed grouse | East-central zone | Closed — no open season in this zone | ||
| Spruce grouse | Statewide | September 19, 2026 | January 3, 2027 | 107 |
| Wild turkey | Statewide | October 3, 2026 | November 1, 2026 | 30 |
| Ring-necked pheasant | Statewide | October 10, 2026 | January 3, 2027 | 86 |
Bag limits, stamps and the per-species rules
Everything MN DNR publishes for each bird, and — where it publishes nothing — the word “not verified” rather than a number.
American woodcock Scolopax minorHunter orangeBag not verified
- Season
- September 19, 2026 to November 2, 2026
- Daily bag
- Not published on a citable MN DNR page. We leave it blank rather than guess — read it in the Minnesota Hunting and Trapping Regulations.
- Hunter orange
- Required — see the rule below.
- Also required
- HIP registration
- Minnesota requires blaze orange or blaze pink while a firearms deer season is in progress, and it applies to small game hunters too. Treat orange as required for the whole season: missing it during gun deer season is the dangerous error. We have not been able to confirm the exact wording against MN DNR — read the regulations before relying on the detail.
- MN DNR publishes no bag limit we could confirm for this season, so none is shown.
- Migratory bird: a federal HIP registration is required in addition to the small game licence.
Ruffed grouse Bonasa umbellusHunter orangeBag not verified
- Season
- September 19, 2026 to January 3, 2027
- Daily bag
- Not published on a citable MN DNR page. We leave it blank rather than guess — read it in the Minnesota Hunting and Trapping Regulations.
- Hunter orange
- Required — see the rule below.
- Minnesota requires blaze orange or blaze pink while a firearms deer season is in progress, and it applies to small game hunters too. Treat orange as required for the whole season: missing it during gun deer season is the dangerous error. We have not been able to confirm the exact wording against MN DNR — read the regulations before relying on the detail.
- MN DNR publishes no bag limit we could confirm for this season, so none is shown.
- Statewide. MN DNR reported ruffed grouse in the declining phase of the population cycle in July 2026, which is a cycle position and not a season restriction.
Sharp-tailed grouse Tympanuchus phasianellusHunter orangeBag not verified
- Season
-
Northwest zone — September 19, 2026 to November 30, 2026
East-central zone — closed - Daily bag
- Not published on a citable MN DNR page. We leave it blank rather than guess — read it in the Minnesota Hunting and Trapping Regulations.
- Hunter orange
- Required — see the rule below.
- Minnesota requires blaze orange or blaze pink while a firearms deer season is in progress, and it applies to small game hunters too. Treat orange as required for the whole season: missing it during gun deer season is the dangerous error. We have not been able to confirm the exact wording against MN DNR — read the regulations before relying on the detail.
- MN DNR publishes no bag limit we could confirm for this season, so none is shown.
- Open in the northwest zone only. The east-central zone has been closed since 2021 on low population and is not open in 2026.
- The zone boundary is not mapped in this app — the dates are per zone, the zone you are standing in is not yet answered.
Spruce grouse Falcipennis canadensisHunter orangeBag not verified
- Season
- September 19, 2026 to January 3, 2027
- Daily bag
- Not published on a citable MN DNR page. We leave it blank rather than guess — read it in the Minnesota Hunting and Trapping Regulations.
- Hunter orange
- Required — see the rule below.
- Minnesota requires blaze orange or blaze pink while a firearms deer season is in progress, and it applies to small game hunters too. Treat orange as required for the whole season: missing it during gun deer season is the dangerous error. We have not been able to confirm the exact wording against MN DNR — read the regulations before relying on the detail.
- MN DNR publishes no bag limit we could confirm for this season, so none is shown.
- Same season dates as ruffed grouse — MN DNR publishes them on one row — but a different bird with its own bag limit, found in the far-north conifer rather than in aspen.
Wild turkey Meleagris gallopavoHunter orange
- Season
- October 3, 2026 to November 1, 2026
- Daily bag
- 1, 1 in possession
- Hunter orange
- Required — see the rule below.
- Minnesota requires blaze orange or blaze pink while a firearms deer season is in progress, and it applies to small game hunters too. Treat orange as required for the whole season: missing it during gun deer season is the dangerous error. We have not been able to confirm the exact wording against MN DNR — read the regulations before relying on the detail.
- Fall season only. One turkey of either sex; hunt any open permit area statewide, and report the area of harvest when registering.
- Spring turkey is not covered here. Minnesota runs spring turkey as numbered lottery time periods, and we could not read the 2026 period dates from MN DNR, so they are left out rather than guessed.
Ring-necked pheasant Phasianus colchicusHunter orangeBag not verified
- Season
- October 10, 2026 to January 3, 2027
- Daily bag
- Not published on a citable MN DNR page. We leave it blank rather than guess — read it in the Minnesota Hunting and Trapping Regulations.
- Hunter orange
- Required — see the rule below.
- Minnesota requires blaze orange or blaze pink while a firearms deer season is in progress, and it applies to small game hunters too. Treat orange as required for the whole season: missing it during gun deer season is the dangerous error. We have not been able to confirm the exact wording against MN DNR — read the regulations before relying on the detail.
- MN DNR publishes no bag limit we could confirm for this season, so none is shown.
- Roosters only. The birds are in the south-west and south-central farmland; the season is statewide but the pheasants are not.
Legal shooting hours
MN DNR publishes Minnesota's small game shooting hours in the hunting regulations booklet rather than as a sentence on a page this build reads, and this app holds no copy of it. We do not retype it from memory: the states on this site do not agree with each other about when the day ends — Michigan closes at sunset, Virginia a half-hour after it — so a rule carried across a state line is exactly how a hunter gets a citation. Read the booklet before opening day. MN DNR's hunting regulations →
Licence requirements
What a small-game hunter has to be carrying. Prices are deliberately absent: they change without notice and are the field this page would be wrong about first.
| Document | Who needs it | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Small game licence | Everyone hunting small game | Bought through MN DNR's licence system, and what the stamps below are added to. |
| Firearms safety certificate | Anyone born after 31 December 1979 | Or an apprentice hunter validation, which Minnesota limits to a small number of seasons in a lifetime rather than allowing indefinitely. |
| Federal HIP registration | Woodcock and every other migratory bird | Free registration with the federal harvest survey, and it lapses every season. |
| Small game surcharge and stamps | Varies by bird | Minnesota attaches its own validations to some birds — the pheasant stamp is the one an upland hunter meets first. Which ones your licence needs is on MN DNR's licence page; this app does not carry the ladder. |
Buy through Minnesota Department of Natural Resources's own portal. We do not sell licences and we do not take a fee on one.
Zone maps
The part of a small-game regulation that is actually spatial. Everything else on this page is the same rule in every county; these are not.
Sharp-tailed grouse 2 zones
| Zone | Season |
|---|---|
| Northwest zone boundary not resolved | September 19, 2026 – November 30, 2026 |
| East-central zone boundary not resolved | Closed — no open season |
Special regulations
- American woodcock
Minnesota requires blaze orange or blaze pink while a firearms deer season is in progress, and it applies to small game hunters too. Treat orange as required for the whole season: missing it during gun deer season is the dangerous error. We have not been able to confirm the exact wording against MN DNR — read the regulations before relying on the detail. - American woodcock
MN DNR publishes no bag limit we could confirm for this season, so none is shown. - American woodcock
Migratory bird: a federal HIP registration is required in addition to the small game licence. - Ruffed grouse
Statewide. MN DNR reported ruffed grouse in the declining phase of the population cycle in July 2026, which is a cycle position and not a season restriction. - Sharp-tailed grouse
Open in the northwest zone only. The east-central zone has been closed since 2021 on low population and is not open in 2026. - Sharp-tailed grouse
The zone boundary is not mapped in this app — the dates are per zone, the zone you are standing in is not yet answered. - Spruce grouse
Same season dates as ruffed grouse — MN DNR publishes them on one row — but a different bird with its own bag limit, found in the far-north conifer rather than in aspen. - Wild turkey
Fall season only. One turkey of either sex; hunt any open permit area statewide, and report the area of harvest when registering. - Wild turkey
Spring turkey is not covered here. Minnesota runs spring turkey as numbered lottery time periods, and we could not read the 2026 period dates from MN DNR, so they are left out rather than guessed. - Ring-necked pheasant
Roosters only. The birds are in the south-west and south-central farmland; the season is statewide but the pheasants are not.
Youth hunts, apprentice and mentored licences, dog training seasons, and the ORV rules on state land are all real regulations and none of them is covered here. They are in the Minnesota Hunting and Trapping Regulations, and they are listed again under what this page does not cover so a reader does not take the silence for “no rule”.
Where to hunt
The hunting-legal public land BirdTrout draws in Minnesota — 1,082 units, about 7,643,293 acres. This is not every public parcel: national wildlife refuges, military land and city parks are all public and none is here, because hunting them is restricted, closed, or decided unit by unit.
| Land class | Units | Acres |
|---|---|---|
| State forest | 119 | 3,342,013 |
| National forest | 4 | 3,233,935 |
| Wildlife management area | 959 | 1,067,345 |
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. MN DNR's public land →
Open the live map in hunt mode → — the same land, drawn, with observed bird occurrence, upland cover and a wind-and-weather read on the day you are going. Per-species pages are the next thing planned; today the depth is in the app.
Recent changes
Nothing has moved since the previous build. This page is rebuilt nightly and this section fills in the night a season date, a bag limit or a required stamp changes.
What this page does not cover
Named rather than left silent. Every line below is a real Minnesota season or rule that is not in the data behind this page, so its absence here says nothing at all about it.
- White-tailed deer — the firearms, muzzleloader and archery seasons, and the 100-series, 200-series and 300-series permit areas each runs on
- Spring turkey, which is a separate season from the fall one on this page
- Waterfowl — duck and goose, and the north/central/south zone split
- Prairie chicken, which is drawn by lottery in the west
- Bear, elk, moose and the other drawn-permit species
- Rabbit, hare, squirrel and the other small game on the same MN DNR page
- Youth seasons, apprentice rules and dog training seasons
- The sharp-tailed grouse zone boundary. The dates on this page are per zone and correct; which zone you are standing in is not something this app can answer
- The Boundary Waters Canoe Area's own permit and access rules, which apply to a great deal of the huntable ground in the north-east
And MN DNR publishes no bag limit we could cite for American woodcock, Ruffed grouse, Sharp-tailed grouse, Spruce grouse, Ring-necked pheasant — those fields are blank above on purpose.
The official documents
We do not reproduce MN DNR's digest or its licence pages. These are the originals, and they are the authority.
-
Minnesota Hunting & Trapping Regulations →
The document this page is a searchable compilation of -
MN DNR season dates →
The page every date above was read from -
Buy a Minnesota hunting licence →
Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, official portal -
MN DNR hunting regulations →
Including any in-season change or emergency order