Welcome back. A week into the A-zone archery season, the first blacktail of 2026 are on the ground, and the calendar is about to get busy. Bow season is down to its final weekend, the rifle opener is two Saturdays away, and bear archery lands right behind it. This week we're cooking the best cut on the animal the way it deserves: a fresh blacktail backstrap, seared pink in cast iron. We've also got a value glass pick to get you seeing deer before the opener, a straight read on the 2026 duck survey and what it actually means for your season, and a fire picture that has gotten serious. And we're kicking off something new this week, The Showcase, our reader-photo feature. Let's get into it.

If you punched a tag this month, the backstrap is your reward, and it's the one cut you do not want to overthink. This is the long loin that runs down either side of the spine: the one that turns venison skeptics into believers when you cook it right. It comes together fast, and the single rule is the same one we preached with wild duck back in Issue #3: pull it pink.

Wild venison is lean, with almost none of the marbling that carries a beef steak through an overcook. Take a backstrap past medium and it goes gray, dry, and livery, and all that careful field care from the last two issues dies right there on the cutting board. Cook it to a warm pink center and it's as good as anything you'll eat all year.

This scales to whatever you've got, one steak or a whole loin. There are no measurements here on purpose. Backstrap doesn't need a recipe card, it needs heat, fat, and restraint.

What you need: backstrap with the silverskin trimmed off, salt and pepper, a neutral oil that can take high heat, a good knob of butter, a few smashed garlic cloves, and a sprig or two of thyme or rosemary. That's it.

The method:

The one rule, again: medium-rare, then rest. A backstrap is too good a cut to gray out. Hand the skeptics at your table a pink, rested slice and watch them circle back for the end pieces. Then finish the rest of the animal the way we talked about last week, under vacuum and into the freezer, so a July blacktail eats like a gift in December.

You don't walk up on coastal blacktail, you find them, and you find them by glassing the thick edges in the first and last hour of light. With the rifle opener two weeks out, good glass is the upgrade that puts the most deer in front of you.

Our value pick is Vortex across the board. Honest glass in low light, a tough build, and the unlimited lifetime VIP warranty behind all of it: damage it however you manage, they fix or replace it, no receipt needed. A 10x42 binocular is the do-everything choice for Northern California (drop to 8x42 for tight cover or shaky hands), a spotting scope earns its keep picking apart far hillsides, and if you're moving to the rifle, a solid Vortex scope covers you there too.

And the timing's right: July is Vortex Month at Sportsman's Warehouse, the year's best deals on Vortex glass, online and in store, often with a gift-card offer on select buys. If you've been meaning to upgrade or replace binoculars, a spotting scope, or a rifle scope before the season ramps up, this is the window. Check the current terms, it's a July-only thing.

Duck season feels a long way off in this heat, but the report that shapes it just landed. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has released the field reports from the 2026 Waterfowl Breeding Population and Habitat Survey, the seven-decade-running count that flies transects across the northern breeding grounds every spring.

The short version: mixed, leaning dry. Crews found spring delays and drought across several key western breeding areas, which is not what you want to hear. There were bright spots too, including improved conditions in parts of the Dakotas and some recovery in the central Canadian boreal, but those may not fully offset the drier country elsewhere.

What that actually means for you, in plain terms. The young birds hatched on those breeding grounds this spring are the ducks that come down the Pacific Flyway this coming season. Dry breeding country generally means fewer juveniles in the fall flight, though the bright spots temper it. So this is a real, if early, signal about the flight headed our way.

The nuance a reliable newsletter owes you: the hard population numbers, the formal Waterfowl Population Status report, come out later this year, and those numbers set the framework for the 2027-2028 season, not this one. This coming season's NorCal dates and limits are already locked, and we covered them back in Issue #3: Balance of State ducks and geese October 24 to January 31, specklebelly cut to 6 a day, ducks at 7 with the usual sub-limits.

And the local wildcard that matters more than any continental number: water in the Sacramento Valley rice. However the breeding grounds shook out, our valley season lives and dies on how much rice gets flooded this fall and how the refuges fill. Those green checks you're driving past right now are this winter's hunting. Watch the flood-up.

We're starting something new, and it's on you to fill it. Every issue we'll feature one reader photo that stopped us in our tracks, right here in the briefing. Here's the part that makes it yours: it runs for subscribers only. The people who get this email are the only ones who see it. Consider it one more thing you get for being on the list.

Grip-and-grins, a limit strap in the fog, the dog on a retrieve, a kid's first bird, a sunrise from the blind, a trail-cam giant you're chasing. If it's from your season, we want to see it.

Here's how to get in: hit reply with a photo, where you hunt, and a sentence about it. Tell us how you want to be credited (we run first name, last initial, and town). We read every reply, and the best one each week runs up top.

And it doesn't stop at a week. At the end of every month, we'll put that month's featured photos to a subscriber vote and crown a Showcase winner. For now the prize is bragging rights and a permanent spot on our new subscribers-only Showcase page. Down the road, we're looking at putting real gear on the line for the monthly winners.

We know you've got the photos. Send us one to kick it off.

Meet "Gunner" Owner: Abe D., Durham, CA

Gunner is a black Lab who just turned one, and the drive this young dog has for waterfowl is like nothing we've seen. All heart and all business, putting in work every single day to be ready when the season opens. Come those first cold, foggy mornings in the rice, this pup is going to be a problem for the ducks. Keep an eye on him.

Want your dog featured? Hit reply, send us a clean photo of your hunting partner, and give us a quick 2 to 3 sentence blurb on what they hunt and where they earn their kibble. Pointers, flushers, retrievers, and the occasional very good mutt all qualify.

If you're carrying a bear tag into the August 15 archery opener or the August 8 general opener, know the paperwork. Your tag has to be validated (countersigned) by CDFW before you transport the bear, with a narrow exception for driving it to the nearest person authorized to validate on your way home. Premolar tooth submission and harvest reporting are mandatory. And it's non-lead, no bait, no dogs, same as everything else in California. You can hold up to two tags, take only one bear per day, and the whole season closes statewide the moment the harvest hits 1,700 bears (last year's take came in around 1,180, so the quota has room, but check the CDFW bear harvest page before you head out).

No story this week. This section runs on your hunts, and we want to share your story. A first deer, a close call, a comedy of errors, a last hunt with an old dog, the morning everything went sideways and somehow worked out anyway. Got one? Hit reply and tell us, long or short, and the best ones run right here in an upcoming issue and live on our website at norcalhunt.com.

Last week's poll is in, and you were clear. We asked what the new NorCalHunt weather page should focus on: refuges, cities, or areas (hunt zones and regions). The winner, by a comfortable margin, was a combination of all three. Message received. Building all three into one page you can actually trust is a bigger job than flipping a switch, and we'd rather do it right than do it fast. So we're taking the time to build it properly and roll it out in stages: refuge, town, and hunt-area conditions in one place, so you're not bouncing between three apps the night before a hunt. It's in the works, we'll keep you posted as pieces go live, and thanks to everyone who voted.

This week's poll ties right to today's Field to Table. Everybody's got a signature. How do you cook your backstrap?

Then hit reply and send us the actual recipe. The best ones might just run in a future From Field to Table.

This briefing gets sharper when we hear from you. Drop us a quick reply and tell us:

Got a hunting partner who lives in the foothills, the rice, or along the riverbanks? Forward this briefing and point them to norcalhunt.com. Word of mouth from real hunters is how we grow.

Short version, because you know the drill by now: it's hot, it's dry, and it's dangerous out there. The national preparedness level hit its ceiling (Level 5) on July 18, so firefighting resources are stretched thin and a new start can run before crews get to it. At home it's mid-90s climbing toward triple digits, low humidity, cured fuels, and recurring Red Flag Warnings in the far northeast. Before you load the truck: confirm current fire restrictions for your exact unit (Forest Service, BLM, and CAL FIRE rules change fast and vary by district), don't be the ignition near dry grass, mind your exhaust and drag chains, and beat the heat by hunting first and last light around water, carrying more water than you think you need, and cooling any game immediately.

Stay safe out there, get your gear cleaned, and we'll see you in the field.

#008

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