Field Journal · June 2026
Draw Results Are Out — Now What?
What to do in the eleven weeks between a successful draw and opening morning, in the order that matters.
Since 1994
A Legacy of Wild Country
The Blackridge Story
Thirty-One Seasons.
“My father ran this camp with eight head of horses and a canvas tent. Everything we have added since — the scouting program, the Academy, the leases — exists to protect the one thing he got right: put a hunter in good country, with someone who knows it, and stay out of the way.”
Callie Mercer · Owner & Camp Operations
The journey
How We Got Here.
1994
Eight head and a canvas tent
Ray Mercer draws an elk tag, takes two friends up the Ramshorn on borrowed horses, and comes home with a business licence instead of a bull.
2003
The first lease
Fourteen thousand acres of Red Desert sage signed for pronghorn and mule deer — the first country Blackridge could rest and manage on its own terms.
2011
Year-round scouting
We stop hunting on memory. Two guides go on salary through the summer to run cameras, count animals, and map the country basin by basin.
2016
Backcountry Academy
The field school opens with six students and one instructor, built out of the mistakes we kept watching good hunters make.
2021
The second generation
Ray’s daughter Callie takes over camp operations after nine seasons guiding, and the pack string grows to twenty-two head.
2026
Where we are
Six programs, eleven guides, 1.4 million acres of scouted country, and the same rule as year one: no more hunters than we have good country for.
The Hunt System
Three Parts, One Standard.
Most outfits sell you a week. We sell you everything that has to be right before that week starts — because by opening morning, most of the outcome is already decided.
One
Country
1.4 million acres of leased and public country, scouted on salary from June through August. We know which basins hold animals in a dry year and which ones only look good on a map.
Two
Guides
Eleven guides, average tenure nine seasons. Nobody guides a unit here in their first year — they packstring it, glass it, and learn it before they take a hunter into it.
Three
Logistics
Twenty-two head of stock, our own packers, and a camp that runs whether or not the weather cooperates. You should be thinking about the hunt, not about how the meat gets out.
No More Hunters
Than Good Country.
We have turned down more bookings than we have taken in the last five seasons. It is the only rule from 1994 that has never been revisited, and it is the reason the country still hunts the way it did then.
Field Journal
From the Shop.
Field Journal · April 2026
Why We Publish Opportunity Rate
Kill rate is the easiest number in this industry to inflate. Here is the one we think you should ask every outfitter for.
Field Journal · March 2026
Glassing: The Four-Minute Problem
Most hunters leave a slope just before the animal stands. A short piece on the discipline that fixes it.
Come See the Country.
Our door in Dubois is open year-round. If you are passing through, stop in and we will show you the maps.