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Where to hunt ring-necked pheasant near Roanoke, Virginia
Last updated 2026-09-24 · seasons from VDWR · 2026–27 licence year
There are 5 public units within 40 miles of Roanoke, Virginia that hold ground where ring-necked pheasant is recorded — 25,076 acres of it. The most of it is in Jefferson National Forest, 8.8 miles out, with 12,353 recorded acres. 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 Roanoke
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jefferson National Forest part of the unit | National forest | 8.8 | 12,353 | 291,206 | 4% regular, 11% present, 83% occasional, 1% no records |
| George Washington National Forest part of the unit | National forest | 24.4 | 7,139 | 119,109 | 6% regular, 92% occasional, 2% no records |
| Fairystone Farms Wildlife Management Area | State wildlife management area | 32.9 | 5,087 | 5,087 | 100% regular |
| Turkeycock Wildlife Management Area | State wildlife management area | 33.9 | 424 | 2,634 | 16% regular, 84% occasional |
| Fairystone Farms | State wildlife management area | 33.4 | 73 | 73 | 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