Free space diffraction causes the spreading of the received energy at the receiver and thus reduces the signal-to-noise ratio. Bessel–Gauss (BG) beams are considered physically realizable beams, which are robust to free space diffraction over finite propagation distances. Non-diffraction beams have proved useful in many applications, such as optical wireless communications (OWC) and non-linear optics. However, in turbulence BG-beams do suffer from turbulence-induced diffraction. The extended Huygens–Fresnel principle is the main tool of analysis under the effect of strong turbulence. However, the extended Rytov theory (ERT) method provides expressions for the small- and large-scale turbulence-induced signal fluctuations and hence is particularly suitable for statistical channel modeling. In this work, application of the ERT to BG-beams propagating through turbulence is carried out. Closed-form expressions for the induced on-axis small- and large-scale log-irradiance variances are derived. The resultant index of scintillation is analyzed. Then, the error performance of OWC is investigated for BG-beams combined with intensity modulation, M-ary phase shift keying, polarization shift keying, and single-input-multiple-output systems. Significant performance gains are reported compared to Gaussian beams.