History

The Wheeler Island Duck Club was incorporated in the State of California on April 3, 1924. The land — 1,054 acres — was purchased for the purpose of duck hunting and other recreational activities.

Ten men signed on as the club's charter members, founding an institution that has run continuously ever since.

In 1928, an application was submitted and approved by the Superior Court of California, renaming the club the Wheeler Island Land Company.

Membership was originally capped at seventeen. That number held until 1974, when it was raised to twenty. It has since grown to today's twenty-one members.

The original clubhouse held a main dining room, a kitchen, a small room for the keeper, and a handful of small bedrooms on the west side.

Builders set the foundation on treated lumber — laid flat like railroad ties — to carry the building on marshy ground. It has endured remarkably well, and building movement has stayed minimal ever since. Later additions used the same method, with the same success.

In the club's early years, the daily limit was 15 birds, and no more than 25 live decoys were ever used. Blinds sat close to the boat ditches for easy access.

The club kept a single boat on the marsh, run by the keeper. Hunters boarded before dawn, were dropped near a blind, and walked the rest of the way — often guided by stakes strung with wire. Decoys were stored at the blind, sometimes left right in the water overnight.

The earliest blinds were redwood tapered tanks, about four feet deep, with no lids. Muskrat ladders were kept in each one during the season, in case a hunter fell in and needed a way out. Come summer, the blinds were filled with water so the wood wouldn't dry out and leak the following winter.

Those wooden blinds had their problems — problems that member Henry Smith (1957–1977) set out to fix. He designed and built the Smitty Duck Blind: a fiberglass blind with a lid, a rotating seat, and shelves for shells and gear. Smitty blinds are still in place on Wheeler Island today.

A century after its founding, Wheeler Island remains active on the same ground its charter members claimed in 1924. The club now spans approximately 1,000 acres along the Sacramento River, with a clubhouse offering private accommodations for all 21 members. Roughly 900 acres are managed as hunting habitat — marshes, ponds, and waterways — much as they always have been.

The traditions have endured alongside the land: meals prepared for the membership, a boat run to and from the island, and a clubhouse gathering place at the end of the day. What began with ten men in 1924 continues today as a family club, passed down through generations of members who return to the same marsh, season after season.