Mendota Wildlife Area (11,825 acres) in the central San Joaquin Valley, CA
www.dfg.ca.gov/lands/articles/mendota01.html
Hunting and fishing:
Game species include ducks, geese, snipes, coots, doves, pheasants, cottontail rabbits, black tailed hares and raccoons. The 600 acres that make up the Fresno Slough offer the angler a chance to catch crappie, catfish, bluegill, carp, and black and striped bass.
The use of firearms is limited to shotguns only. The area is open 24 hours a day for all recreational use from the close of waterfowl season in January to Sept. 16, though one portion of the area is closed to dog training during nesting season from April 1 to June 30. The area is open to fishing 24 hours a day, but only by boat during the waterfowl-hunting season.
Mendota annually accounts for approximately 10 percent of the ducks harvested on California’s 40 public waterfowl hunting areas. Over 9,000 acres are open to hunting, the largest allotment of public hunting land on any single wildlife area or refuge in the Central Valley of California. Thanks to the vast size of the hunting area, Mendota accommodates over 10,000 hunter days per year and, amazingly, never seems crowded.
A key element of hunting Mendota is finding where the birds are feeding. The bulk of the feed comes from two marsh plants — swamp timothy, a low-growing annual that produces lots of seeds and provides sheet-water conditions when flooded; and watergrass, a robust-seed producing plant that can be chest-high during the fall.
