The Board: Crucial Dates & Deadlines
The draw is settled and we're deep in the off-season grind. A few things actually need your attention this week — don't let the summer heat lull you into missing them.
Draw results are LIVE. CDFW has posted the 2026 big game main draw results in your online account (ALDS). If you haven't logged in yet, do it today — deer, elk, pronghorn, and bighorn sheep results are all up. Drew a deer tag? You already paid the full license/tag fee at application, so there's nothing more to do but start scouting.
Elk / Antelope / Sheep payment — due July 15. This is the one that bites people every year. CDFW notifies successful elk, pronghorn, and bighorn sheep applicants in early July, and payment for those premium tags is due by 5:00 p.m. PDT on July 15. Miss it and your once-in-a-lifetime tag gets handed to an alternate. Pay early, and confirm the exact deadline in your CDFW account.
Your license expires June 30. California hunting licenses run July 1–June 30, so your current 2025–26 license dies at the end of the month. Anything you do on or after July 1 — summer hog hunting, early archery scouting, or buying dove validations — requires the new 2026–27 license. Grab it now so you're not scrambling the night before a hunt.
From Field to Table: Seared Wild Duck Breast
Your license rolls over July 1, and that makes right now the perfect time to dig into the back of the freezer. If you've still got vacuum-sealed duck breasts from last season taking up space, eat them — there's no sense carrying old birds into a new fall. And the best way to honor a wild duck is also the simplest: a hard sear, served pink.
This works for any wild duck — mallard, widgeon, gadwall, teal. The whole thing takes about ten minutes of cooking.
You'll need:
4 wild duck breast fillets, skinless
Kosher salt and cracked black pepper
1 tbsp neutral oil
1 shallot, minced
2 tbsp butter
1/4 cup stock (or red wine)
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp blackberry or cherry jam
Do this:
Pull the breasts from the fridge 20 minutes ahead, pat them bone-dry, and season both sides with salt and pepper. Dry meat is the whole secret to a good crust.
Get a cast-iron pan screaming hot with the oil. Lay the breasts in and don't touch them — sear about 2 minutes per side for a mallard-sized fillet (less for teal). You're after a deep brown crust and a warm pink center, roughly 130–135°F internal.
Pull the duck onto a board and let it rest for at least 5 minutes. This is non-negotiable.
While it rests, drop the shallot into the same pan with a knob of butter. Cook for 30 seconds, then deglaze with the stock, balsamic, and jam. Scrape up the browned bits and simmer until it's glossy and slightly thick. Swirl in the rest of the butter off the heat.
Slice the duck thin, against the grain, fan it on the plate, and spoon the sauce over the top.
Serve over wild rice or with a crusty piece of bread to mop the plate.
The one rule: Wild duck lives and dies on doneness. Pull it at medium-rare. Cook a mallard to well-done and it turns to shoe leather — slice it pink and even the duck skeptics at your table will come back for seconds.
Waterfowl News: The Regs Are Final
Last issue we flagged a proposal moving through the Fish and Game Commission. It's now adopted — here's what's locked in for the 2026–27 season, straight from CDFW.
Balance of State Zone (most of NorCal — the valley, rice, and foothills):
Ducks & Geese: Oct 24, 2026 – Jan 31, 2027. That puts opening day on Saturday, Oct. 24. The regular duck season now runs a flat 100 days, closing the last day of January.
Early large Canada goose: Oct 3–5 (large Canada only).
Late seasons: white-front/white goose Feb 20–24, late Canada Feb 20–21, plus three falconry-only duck days Feb 20–22.
Northeastern Zone (Modoc, Lassen, far NE):
Ducks: Oct 3, 2026 – Jan 13, 2027.
The limit changes worth tattooing on your blind bag:
White-fronted (specklebelly) geese cut to 6 per day in every zone. This is the reduction we told you was under review last issue — it's now final.
Large Canada geese bumped to 3 per day in the Northeastern Zone.
Ducks unchanged at 7 daily — up to 2 hen mallards, 3 pintail, 2 canvasback, 2 redheads, 2 scaup.
One NorCal-specific heads-up: in the Sacramento Valley Special Management Area, white-fronted geese are capped at 3 per day and that sub-season closes Dec. 21 — tighter than the general zone rule, so know which line you're standing on.
We'll run the full zone-by-zone calendar and the shoot-time tables closer to the opener once CDFW posts them.
Upland News: Dove Opener on the Horizon
It's the unofficial start of California's hunting calendar: dove season opens Tuesday, Sept. 1, with the first split running Sept. 1–15 (a second split follows in November).
Daily bag: 15 mourning and white-winged doves combined, no more than 10 of which may be white-winged.
Nonlead shot is required — for dove and for any game taken with a firearm anywhere in California.
Two things to do now: buy your nonlead shells early (the small shot sizes vanish from shelves by late August every single year), and start glassing water sources and cut grain fields in the evenings to find where birds are flying.
Gear Check: Reusable Game Bags
Koola Buck Treated Game Bags
If last issue's hot-weather meat-care checklist convinced you to ditch the plastic, this is your next buy. Koola Buck's cotton-poly bags are breathable enough to let a quarter cool and form a crust, treated to slow bacterial growth in warm temps, and tough enough to reuse season after season. They wash out, dry fast, and stuff down small in your pack — a serious upgrade from cheesecloth at a fraction of the price of premium backcountry sets.
They come in sizes from deer quarters up to elk, so a four-pack handles a whole hog or a boned-out buck with room to spare. Want to spend up? Caribou Gear (the MOB Wapiti set) and Argali are the lightweight, bombproof backcountry standards. But for valley and foothill hunts where weight isn't life-or-death, Koola Buck gets the meat home clean without emptying your wallet.
Dog of the Week
Meet "Chewy" Owner: Alex A, Durham, CA
Chewy has spent her life tracking down ducks, geese, and pheasants across Northern California's best fields and blinds. Now that she's growing older, she has happily stepped into the role of backyard security coordinator and mentor to the pack. These days, she spends her afternoons guarding the lawn and dropping serious, seasoned veteran retrieval knowledge on the younger dogs.
Want your dog featured? Hit reply, send us a clean photo of your hunting partner, and give us a quick 2–3 sentence blurb about what they hunt and where they put in the work.
From the Field: Bacon, Widgeon, and Winter Memories
"A flock of about thirty birds was approaching from the north, wings flashing in the sunlight. They were headed straight for the decoys. Julian glanced up. His shotgun was leaning against the blind wall. In his hand was a spatula."
Read the hilarious, true story about a wild, high-wind winter morning in the rice north of Little Dry Creek where breakfast and limits collided. [Click here to read the full story]
Community: Help Us Build the Pack
We want this briefing dialed to your exact corner of California. Drop us a quick reply and tell us:
What zones do you hunt most?
What species are you targeting this fall?
(Replying also tells your email provider we belong in your primary inbox, not the promotions tab.)
Know someone who spends their weekends in the foothills, the rice, or the riverbanks? Forward this to them and send them to norcalhunt.com. Word of mouth from real hunters is how we grow.
Stay safe out there, get your gear cleaned, and we'll see you in the field.
— The NorCal Hunt Team
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