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Where to hunt ring-necked pheasant near Culpeper, Virginia
Last updated 2026-09-24 · seasons from VDWR · 2026–27 licence year
There are 8 public units within 40 miles of Culpeper, Virginia that hold ground where ring-necked pheasant is recorded — 23,651 acres of it. The most of it is in Rapidan Wildlife Management Area, 18.5 miles out, with 10,007 recorded acres. The closest is C.F. Phelps Wildlife Management Area at 10.8 miles. The season runs November 7, 2026 to January 31, 2027 — 86 days afield, read against the 2026–27 licence year from VDWR. Public-land boundaries here are PAD-US, which records who manages a parcel rather than where the line runs or whether a unit carries a local closure — check with VDWR before you park.
Public land within 40 miles of Culpeper
Distance is measured to the nearest edge of a unit rather than to its middle, in a straight line — this app carries no road network and will not print a drive time it cannot compute. A unit whose ground reaches inside the circle is listed for the acreage that is inside it, never for its statewide total.
Ordered by recorded acres — how much of each unit lies inside subbasins where ring-necked pheasant 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.
VDWR names no geographic restriction on this season, so no unit is
excluded for being outside one.
Season geography here is read off a
dates table rather than the rule itself, and a dates table carries no boundary.
| Unit | Class | Miles | Recorded acres | Acres in range | Where the records are |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rapidan Wildlife Management Area | State wildlife management area | 18.5 | 10,007 | 10,031 | 100% regular |
| C.F. Phelps Wildlife Management Area | State wildlife management area | 10.8 | 4,544 | 4,544 | 100% regular |
| Oakley Forest Wildlife Management Area | State wildlife management area | 20.5 | 4,454 | 4,454 | 100% regular |
| Thompson Wildlife Management Area | State wildlife management area | 31 | 3,968 | 3,968 | 5% stronghold, 95% regular |
| Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries Easement part of the unit | State wildlife management area | 21.5 | 544 | 544 | 100% regular |
| Lake Orange Public Fishing Lake | State wildlife management area | 16.3 | 121 | 121 | 100% regular |
| Lake Thompson Public Fishing Lake | State wildlife management area | 33.5 | 9 | 9 | 100% regular |
| Phelps Pond Public Fishing Lake | State wildlife management area | 13.5 | 4 | 4 | 100% regular |
A unit marked part of the unit has ground outside the circle as well, and the acreage here is only what is inside it. PAD-US records who manages a parcel, not where its line runs on the ground and not whether it carries a local closure: context, not permission. Check the unit with VDWR before you park.
Season and limits
VDWR's 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 |
- Open today
- Shut — next opening November 7, 2026
- Bag limit
- not shown No single bag limit is shown for this species here — read the notes below and check the current VDWR regulations before you go.
- Hunter orange
- requiredEvery 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.
- Shooting hours
- One half-hour before sunrise to one half-hour after sunset.
- 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.
What to walk when you get there
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.
Written for this app rather than read off an agency page — the cover a bird uses does not change at a state line. Everything above that is a date, a limit or an acreage names the source it came from.
Read next
- Where to hunt ring-necked pheasant in Virginia — every unit, ranked
- Ring-necked pheasant hunting in Virginia — season, limits and range
- How to hunt ring-necked pheasant in Virginia
- Ring-necked pheasant — biology, range and how it is hunted
- Virginia hunting regulations