South Carolina

South Carolina's bobwhite quail hunting is a straightforward regional gradient: the Department of Natural Resources' own species data and a 30-year brood survey agree that the coastal plain holds more birds than the piedmont, and within the coastal plain, the row-crop-heavy inner coastal plain outproduces the more heavily forested outer coastal plain. The Southern Coastal Plain, anchored by Allendale, Aiken, Georgetown, and Williamsburg counties, is consistently the state's most productive region, roughly double the density of the Northern Coastal Plain. Several wildlife management areas carry active early-successional habitat restoration for quail, including Webb and Hamilton Ridge in Hampton County, Crackerneck in Aiken County, Draper in York County, Canal and Bonneau Ferry in Berkeley County, and Marsh in Marion County. The general guns-and-dogs season runs from late November through early March, on the same terms for private land and wildlife management areas, with a preseason dogs-only training period and a single statewide youth day just ahead of the opener.

Ruffed grouse in South Carolina is confined entirely to Game Zone 1, the Blue Ridge escarpment portions of Oconee, Pickens, and Greenville counties in the extreme northwest corner of the state, the only mountain terrain South Carolina has and the bird's entire in-state range. Within the zone, hunting concentrates around the Jocassee Gorges, the Andrew Pickens Ranger District of Sumter National Forest, and the Caesars Head/Jones Gap and Buzzard Roost wildlife management areas, generally above 2,000 feet in elevation. The season runs from late November through early March.