Virginia Best Times to Hunt

The Virginia calendar runs in the New York timezone (America/New_York). Major and minor periods on this page are already shifted to local VA time, so you can match them directly against your sunrise and sunset. Coast to mountains, east to west — Virginia's elevation gradient is the calendar. Tidewater coastal counties peak rut late October to early November. Piedmont central Virginia runs mid-November on the standard mid-Atlantic timeline. The southwest mountain counties — particularly the Jefferson National Forest — peak slightly later into mid-to-late November. Black bear hunting in the western mountains is some of the East Coast's best, with peak activity tied to fall mast crops. Eastern Shore waterfowl on the Atlantic side of the Chesapeake peaks November through January. A 65-degree afternoon in Norfolk can be 35 degrees on Whitetop Mountain on the same day, which physically shifts the productive solunar window to different parts of the day depending on which county a stand sits in.

Coast to mountains, east to west — Virginia's elevation gradient is the calendar. Tidewater coastal counties peak rut late October to early November. Piedmont central Virginia runs mid-November on the standard mid-Atlantic timeline. The southwest mountain counties — particularly the Jefferson National Forest — peak slightly later into mid-to-late November. Black bear hunting in the western mountains is some of the East Coast's best, with peak activity tied to fall mast crops. Eastern Shore waterfowl on the Atlantic side of the Chesapeake peaks November through January. A 65-degree afternoon in Norfolk can be 35 degrees on Whitetop Mountain on the same day, which physically shifts the productive solunar window to different parts of the day depending on which county a stand sits in.