Box Elder County, Utah · 11,758 acres
Public Shooting Grounds Wildlife Management Area Hunting 2026: Species & Access
Public Shooting Grounds Wildlife Management Area covers 11,758 acres near Corinne in Box Elder County. Freshwater wetland complex on the Great Salt Lake's Bear River delta — uplands, mudflats, emergent marsh, and open water, established in 1928 with the Bureau of Land Management specifically to manage for waterfowl.
01 — What you can hunt here
| Species | Notes |
|---|---|
| Waterfowl | Primary management focus since the area's founding — nesting, resting, and feeding habitat for ducks and geese. |
| Pheasant | Managed for alongside waterfowl on the upland portions. |
02 — Access rules specific to this WMA
- Utah's Class 1/Class 2 county rule doesn't apply here — Box Elder County isn't one of the four counties (Davis, Salt Lake, Utah, Weber) where anyone 18+ needs a license just to access a WMA, not only to hunt it.
- A standard Utah hunting or combination license covers hunting; DWR's own duck season data notes this WMA is closed to light-goose hunting starting on the last day of that zone's dark-goose season each year.
04 — Facilities
Camping: Not permitted. No shooting range on-site.
One of Utah's original Great Salt Lake wetland complexes, alongside Farmington Bay, Ogden Bay, Howard Slough, and Locomotive Springs.
05 — Where to go next
Public Shooting Grounds is reportedly the first area in the United States ever set aside specifically for public waterfowl hunting — established in 1928, nearly a century before this page was written. It's still run for exactly that purpose today, on wetland fed by the Bear River delta into the Great Salt Lake, with pheasant added as a secondary upland species. Nearly 12,000 acres of freshwater marsh in a state better known for desert makes it one of the more surprising entries in this project's public-land coverage.
Utah hunting license costs and permits →
Verified · Utah Division of Wildlife Resources · Last verified 2026-08-13
Publisher's note. Read from DWR, retrieved 2026-08-13. Review due 2027-08-01. WMA-specific rules and closures can change between seasons — confirm before you hunt.