West Virginia · Squirrel · 2026–27 Edition
West Virginia Squirrel Season 2026–27: Dates & Bag Limits
01 — Seasons
| Season | Zone | Dates |
|---|---|---|
| Squirrel season (gray, black, albino and fox) | Statewide | Sep 12 – Feb 28 |
| Youth squirrel season | Statewide | Sep 5 – Sep 6 |
02 — Bag limits
| Daily, regular season | 6 |
|---|---|
| Possession, regular season | 24 |
| Daily, youth season | 6 |
| Possession, youth season | 12 |
03 — Shooting hours
No shooting-hours restriction — legal at any hour during the open season.
Rule: No statewide shooting-hours restriction on squirrel. WVDNR's regulations name the species carrying the half-hour margins, and squirrel is not among them; no other passage sets small-game hours.
04 — License
Squirrel hunters in West Virginia need a West Virginia hunting license.
West Virginia hunting license cost →
Where to hunt public land in West Virginia — WMAs by county & access rules →
05 — FAQ
When does squirrel season start in West Virginia?
The 2026–27 opener is September 5, 2026. See the table above for the full window.
When does squirrel season end in West Virginia?
The 2026–27 closing date is February 28, 2027.
Is there a difference between fox and gray squirrel rules in West Virginia?
See the bag limit table above — most states run one combined limit across both species, but this is worth confirming against West Virginia Division of Natural Resources before you hunt.
How many squirrels can you shoot in West Virginia per day?
2026–27 bag limits: Daily, regular season — 6. Possession, regular season — 24. Daily, youth season — 6. Possession, youth season — 12. Limits are set per zone and per permit — check the agency's own regulations before you hunt.
What time can you start shooting squirrel in West Virginia?
There is no shooting-hours restriction — squirrel may legally be hunted at any hour during the open season in West Virginia. The rule is: No statewide shooting-hours restriction on squirrel. WVDNR's regulations name the species carrying the half-hour margins, and squirrel is not among them; no other passage sets small-game hours.
Can I hunt squirrels on my own land in West Virginia without a license?
West Virginia resident landowners, their resident children or parents, and resident tenants may hunt, trap, or fish their own land without a license — except on land designated a wildlife refuge or preserve. Some species stamps carry their own separate landowner rules.
Verified · West Virginia Division of Natural Resources · Last verified 2026-08-14
Publisher's note. Read from WVDNR's own official 'Hunting and Trapping Regulations Summary, JULY 2026 – JUNE 2027' PDF via a text-extraction proxy (a direct binary fetch could not be parsed). The squirrel table row reads 'Squirrel (Gray, Black, Albino and Fox) September 12 February 28 6 24' — regular season 2026-09-12 through 2027-02-28, daily bag 6, possession 24, no zone split (statewide, one season for all four listed color-phase/species groups). A separate youth-season row reads 'Squirrel (Youth Season — see page 40) September 5 September 6 6 12' — 2026-09-05 through 2026-09-06, daily bag 6, possession 12. No squirrel-specific shooting-hours exception was found in the document (small-game hunting is generally barred during the first three days of buck firearms season in a given county, per a note elsewhere in the PDF, but that is a scheduling restriction, not a shooting-hours rule) — none is set here rather than guessed. A 2024 WVDNR news article (wvdnr.gov/west-virginias-squirrel-season-starts-sept-14/) independently confirms the bag/possession numbers (6 daily / 24 possession) for a prior year, consistent with what the current PDF states. SHOOTING HOURS: the regulations summary's general prohibitions list bans hunting 'deer, bear or boar' outside the half-hour margins by name — squirrel is not among them, and no other passage in the document sets small-game hours. EXPLICIT shootingHours MARKER (2026-08-27): this file now carries shootingHours.unrestricted = true. Simply omitting the field did NOT work and had been silently wrong on the live page: the season templates read season.shootingHours ?? meta.shootingHours, so an absent block fell through to the state-level default in states.json and the page printed a computed sunrise/sunset window plus a rule the law does not impose - while the licence section right below it said the opposite. The templates now honour the marker and print the no-restriction sentence instead. The original reasoning stands: West Virginia imposes no statewide hunting-hours restriction on squirrel, so any offset — including 0/0 — would state a limit the regulations do not impose.