After spending most of April in Mexico, it felt good to be back in the states. I enjoyed the adventures I had in the Jungle and in the mountains of Northern Mexico, but this Yankee girl was glad to be home. Even if it was only as far as Houston. I spent a few days in Texas, resting up for the last leg of my journey. I had only two more birds to go and 30 days left before the season ended for good. I flew back home to Michigan for a quick try at that pesky Eastern with no luck. I spent only a few days, because I had a date with a Merriams in New Mexico. This time, I flew from Grand Rapids, landed in Colorado Springs, and drove a few hours south to Raton, New Mexico, where Bridger Petrini of Tri State Outfitters was waiting for me at the T/O Ranch.

This ranch is three hundred thousand acres of pure heaven. It has been a working cattle ranch for the last century. There is lots of history surrounding this place and I picked Bridger’s brain for knowledge about it as we spent the five-day hunt together. It was at least a thirty to forty-five minute drive to get to our hunting spot each morning, so it made for a long day. I also found out that the whole state of New Mexico has a very small population of Merriams to choose from. It felt like I was hunting the only five birds in the entire state. We had good luck in locating them. Bridger knew every inch of this land and how the birds used it. That was definitely in my favor. We hunted hard each day. Each night when I got back to the bunkhouse, I was greeted by Mule deer in the yard. There was a blind doe that hung around the buildings and rarely left the safety it provided. One day out in a canyon, Bridger pointed out a track that happened to belong to a black bear. He also let me know that the black bear around that area were anything but black. Most of the bear in this canyon area were an off color, such as brown, cinnamon or blonde. Black was usually hard to find.

Antelope were everywhere. Elk were the easiest to spot, and didn’t run from us like the antelope did, so I got to enjoy them more. One night we watched as a bunch of hens, roosted almost on top of us. We had to wait until dark to sneak out of there. The season in New Mexico ended on May 10th. The guys from Mossy Oak had hunted the week before me and were all successful. By May 9th, I was starting to get worried. We had had plenty of near misses, but no real target yet. I didn’t really have a good backup plan for the Merriams bird either. When I was researching for the slam, everyone told me the Merriams would be my easiest one. This is the reason I didn’t put a lot of effort into Plan B. This may have been my easiest, had I picked a state that had oodles of Merriams, like Wyoming. The only smart part about my choice of picking New Mexico was that I picked Bridger to guide me on it.

May 10th rolled around and at 1 PM, I shot a Tom and decreased the population to four Merriams in the whole state. Talk about cutting it close! Bridger was the only reason I was able to bag this bird and make the count 5 out of 6 birds. It was a nice Mother’s Day gift for me. He was a small but mature bird. His spurs had been rubbed off, but I was just happy to have him. I finished the hunt and headed back to Colorado Springs that very next morning. The clock was ticking and the Eastern bird was going to be a challenge.