| Window | Dates | Days |
|---|---|---|
| Season | 18 DEC 2026 – 31 JAN 2027 | 45d |
As publishedDec 18, 2026 – Jan 31, 2027
Single continuous segment, statewide, all Game Zones.Shooting hours ½ hour before sunrise to sunset (same as dove). HIP registration (SC's no-cost Migratory Bird Permit) required for hunters age 16+; same age-64+ exemption as dove.
South Carolina hosts a wintering (not breeding-concentrated) American woodcock population, and both a peer-reviewed USGS study and hunting-focused sourcing agree the distribution is patchy and tied to specific bottomland habitat rather than uniform across the state. A USGS habitat-use and survival study of wintering woodcock in coastal South Carolina (1988-89) found birds frequented seasonally flooded stands of gum-oak-willow more than 75% of the time, with switch cane as the dominant understory. A SCDNR small-game biologist quoted in Carolina Sportsman describes South Carolina as having a good, though patchily distributed, wintering population of woodcock ranging through the piedmont to the coast, with the best current-season bets in bottomlands associated with major rivers and their tributaries, soft, damp soil under cane and privet growth rather than the alder/poplar stands typical further north. This is a habitat-driven concentration along river-bottomland corridors spanning the Piedmont-to-coastal-plain gradient, not a single named region.
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