California Wild Turkey Hunting with SC2 Outdoors
At SC2 Outdoors we are absolutely crazy about Spring Wild Turkey Hunting, it simply doesn't get any better than hunting America’s bird on a beautiful spring day. Our wild turkey hunting takes place in Northern California on some great private ranches located in the upper Sacramento River Valley and the surrounding foothills. We'll be hunting gobblers from sea level to just over 5,000 foot elevation of Northern California.
Meleagris gallopavo intermedia – The Rio Grande Wild Turkey is the primary subspecies found throughout California. While CDFW and NWTF had previously done numerous relocation's and transplants of birds from other states and other subspecies, there are little if any pure strains of these subspecies left other than the Rio Grande. Hybridization has occurred amongst the subspecies populations throughout California.
Our goal will be to share our passion for this great American game bird. We'll hunt them from early morning off the roost throughout the day, deploying our entire bag of tricks from time tested traditional means to more aggressive "cutting and running". While California Department of Fish and Wildlife has established a daily 5:00 p.m. end to shooting hours, we normally end our hunts around 3:30 or 4:00 p.m. We have found this to be best for our birds and our sanity. Trust us we'll put in the work to make your hunt successful. These are great hunts for anyone, young, old, experienced or inexperienced, these hunts will not disappoint. The combination of the time of year and they quarry itself makes Spring Wild Turkey hunting our greatest obsession.
We are not only dedicated and passionate turkey hunting guides and outfitters, Shelley & I are turkey hunting enthusiasts. When not guiding in the spring you will find us traveling in our pursuit of wild turkeys ourselves. However, when our home state birds are hammering, the Golden State is as good as anywhere. If you are interested in our personal journey in hunting wild turkeys you can follow as Turkey Hunting America on Instagram and Facebook.
Each year we offer limited availability for our California Spring Turkey hunts on private ranches we manage. These are great hunts and a great opportunity to harvest a mature tom. As turkey hunters we love learning and speaking with turkey hunters from across America, so if you are looking to complete any of "The Slams" we would be honored to help you get your California Gobbler. It's the 31st State of the Union and a pretty incredible place to hunt wild turkeys. We are here for you for if you need a Rio Grande Gobbler for the Grand Slam, Royal Slam or World Slam or if you need to check California off your list for your U.S. Super Slam.
If you’d like to enjoy a Spring Turkey Hunt in the "Golden State" it hard to beat beautiful northern California, we’d be honored to spend a few days with you in our turkey woods. Our goal is to meet or exceed your expectations of a great California Wild Turkey Hunt.
The overall California Wild Turkey population is holding strong and expanding in most areas of suitable habitat. The wild turkey is a huge success story for California and is currently found in all but 2 counties in the state. Hunting the Wild Turkey has never been so popular.
While we are outfitters and guides, we are first and foremost wildlife managers. Currently all the ranches we are operating on are located north of San Francisco. On these ranches we have very stable turkey populations that are enhanced by limited harvest, we have endured 2 long years of drought in 2021 and 2022. As of this writing on June 10, 2022, I have yet to see a single wild turkey chick and we just came through the craziest spring I have seen in my 36 years of spring turkey hunting. We can normally pattern the birds fairly well in the aspect of knowing what phase they are in during the season. While we cannot control the weather and turkey's are generally crazy, there was absolutely no flow to this spring, the spring of 2022 was all over the place beginning in February. Hopefully, things will change and we'll start seeing turkey chicks pop everywhere but the extreme dry conditions doesn't fair well for survival with the lack of insects.
This means we will have some very good gobbler hunting during the spring of 2023 but at this point I'm predicting we will have a lot fewer 2 years available in 2024. I think we will see an overall slight decline in turkey populations in our area of California. We can only hope for things to improve, we will take the necessary measures on our managed ranches to insure that our harvest remains inline with our population estimates.
Successful California Spring Wild Turkey Hunt
The California Spring Wild Turkey General Season normally begins on the last Saturday of March and runs for 37 consecutive days. California law allows for hunts to take place daily during the season from one-half hour before sunrise until 5:00 p.m. The daily bag limit allows for 1 bearded bird per day and 3 per season. In addition, California offers a Junior Only hunt that is conducted on the Saturday & Sunday prior to the general opener and an extended season for Juniors (any weapon) and an Adult Archery Only season that extends for 14 days starting the Monday after the general season close. Which is an outstanding 53 days of Spring Turkey Hunting in the Golden State.
2023 California Spring Wild Turkey Season Dates
General – March 25th - April 30th
Junior - March 18th - 19th and May 1st - May 14th
Archery - May 1st - May 14th
Included With Your Hunt Package:
2 Day Guided Wild Turkey Hunt - SOLD OUT FOR 2023 |
(2024 Booking Opens June 1, 2023) |
1 Day Guided Wild Turkey Hunt - SOLD OUT FOR 2023 |
(2024 Booking Opens June 1, 2023) |
Additional Gobbler*** (Must Be Scheduled In Advance) |
$750 |
Harvest Take Policy - A reason our hunts are so successful at SC2 Outdoors is because of our strict adherence to our conservation and management goals. While it is our objective to run as close to 100% success rate for our clients, we will consider any Gobbler knocked down or showing evidence of a hit as a taken or mortally wounded bird and consider it as harvested, which ends the hunt. As hunters, it is our responsibility to insure an ethical pursuit.
California Wild Turkey Hunting SC2 Outdoors
The SC2 Outdoors California Wild Turkey Gallery
Wild Turkey Hunting (California) Gallery
Brian's 2021 California Rio Grande Gobbler
Georgia Boy's California Style
Vance's 2021 California Rio Grande Gobbler
Bradley's 2021 California Rio Grande Gobbler
