American woodcock hunting in Northern Lower Michigan

Last updated 2026-09-24 · from MDNR data · 2025–26 licence year

American woodcock hunting in Northern Lower Michigan. The season runs September 15, 2025 to October 29, 2025 — 45 days afield, bag 3 per day, 9 in possession. 148 public units and 1,859,835 acres fall inside this region, the largest of them Huron National Forest at 436,312 acres. The bird is a stronghold in Michigan.

The ground
The cover
Season and limits
Public land here
Weather and timing
The place

The ground

The top third of Michigan's mitten: state forest in big continuous blocks, aspen cut on a rotation that has been running for decades, and river bottoms — the Au Sable, the Manistee, the Pere Marquette — where the alder runs down to the water. This is the most heavily hunted upland ground in the state and it still produces, because the forestry that makes the cover has not stopped.

Written for this app — not an agency description. Everything below that is a rule or a number names the source it came from.

The cover, and how it is hunted

Wet alder runs, damp aspen bottoms and shrub swamp — soft ground the bird can probe for worms. Woodcock cover is often two hundred yards of a creek bottom rather than a whole block of forest.

Hunt the low wet ground inside grouse country, and hunt it again after a cold front: this is a migratory bird and a covert that was empty on Tuesday can hold a flight on Friday. Birds sit tight and flush straight up through the alders.

Pointing dogs shine on woodcock — the bird holds for a point far better than a grouse does, which is why so many dogs are finished on them.

Season and limits

MDNR's dates for the 2025–26 licence year, read from MDNR. Michigan lists this season as American woodcock.

Segment	Opens	Closes	Days
Statewide	September 15, 2025	October 29, 2025	45

Open today: Shut
Bag limit: 3 per day, 9 in possession
Hunter orange: requiredSmall game hunters must wear a hunter-orange cap, hat, vest, jacket or rain gear as the outermost garment, visible from all sides. Camouflage counts if it is at least 50% orange.
Shooting hours: One half-hour before sunrise until sunset.
Sundays: No statewide Sunday closure for small game. A few counties restrict firearm hunting on private land under PA 319 of 1994 — not mapped here.

Federally set — woodcock is a migratory bird, so the season is a US Fish and Wildlife framework Michigan selects within, not a state season.
The stamp is free but it is not optional, and it registers you with HIP.

Public land in Northern Lower Michigan

148 units and 1,859,835 acres, out of 344 huntable units in Michigan. MDNR does not publish a per-parcel species list, so this is not filtered to american woodcock.

Ordered by recorded acres — how much of each unit lies inside subbasins where american woodcock is recorded at regular strength or better — rather than by how big the unit is. The biggest block in a state is often not in the half of it the bird is in. PAD-US splits a forest into many parcels, so acreage is summed over the unit's name, and the share is measured against the unit's drawn boundary rather than a centroid: a national forest can be two polygons across half a peninsula.

MDNR names no geographic restriction on this season, so no unit is excluded for being outside one.
Season geography read against the published rule on 2026-08-23.

Unit	Class	Manager	Recorded acres	Acres	Where the records are
Huron National Forest	National forest	USFS	430,532	436,312	14% stronghold, 84% regular, 1% present
Shingleton State Foreset Area	State forest	SDNR	338,298	368,105	92% regular, 7% present, 1% no records
Manistee National Forest	National forest	USFS	223,527	538,905	41% stronghold, 51% present, 8% occasional
Atlanta State Forest Area	State forest	SDNR	188,404	261,158	28% stronghold, 44% regular, 28% present
Cadillac State Forest Area	State forest	SDNR	111,428	221,994	50% stronghold, 13% present, 37% occasional
Pigeon River Country State Forest Area	State forest	SDNR	61,340	103,170	59% stronghold, 41% present
Kirtland Warbler Unit Damon	State forest	SDNR	25,229	25,229	100% regular
Kirtland Warbler Unit Clear Lake	State forest	SDNR	19,202	19,202	82% stronghold, 18% regular
Deford State Game Area	State game area	SFW	10,395	10,395	100% regular
Kirtland Warbler Unit Lovells	State forest	SDNR	9,902	9,902	100% regular
Little Manistee, Michigan Wild And Scenic River Study Area	Wild & scenic river corridor	USFS	9,557	9,812	97% stronghold, 3% present
Manistee, Michigan Wild and Scenic River	Wild & scenic river corridor	USFS	8,921	8,921	100% stronghold

Class	Units	Acres
National forest	9	978,958
State forest	40	673,799
State game area	87	140,461
Wild & scenic river corridor	12	66,617

A region here is a bounding box — 43.5° to 45.9° north, 86.7° to 82.9° west — and not a boundary anybody drew on the ground. A unit that straddles the edge is placed by where its middle is. PAD-US says who manages a parcel, not where its line runs and not whether it carries a local closure: context, not permission. Check the unit with MDNR before you park.

Weather and timing

Early October is warm and green and hard to see through; the two weeks either side of the leaf drop, usually mid to late October, are the season. Snow arrives in November and concentrates birds in conifer edges.

The place

Grayling, Mio, Baldwin and Cadillac are the towns the season runs out of. Camps book a year ahead for the third week of October, and the state forest campgrounds fill with dog trailers.

Other regions in Michigan

Open the hunting map →Public land and bird cover, drawn for the bird you are after.