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Additional to Greg's post and the oil boom, consider this when planning your hunt into our corner of the world.

The population of all the little towns around Western ND and Eastern Montana have exploded with folks flooding in from areas of the country where there is no work to the extent that Williston, a city of 20 thousand has some 70 thousand people in it at any time of the day, Sidney, a town of 5,500 will have 18 thousand souls in town at any time.

That means there are no rooms to let, not nightly, monthly,or by the year. Most folks coming in are living in man camps, or in campers and campers are being charged every where form $450 to park in the pasture to $1,200 a month when utilities are available.

Consequently, restaurant waits exceed two hours on the week ends and more than a hour on the week days with chicken fried steak dinners above 20 bucks, rib eyes at forty (Ala carte). Gas prices are high, 4.15 here in Sidney for petrol and 4.55 for diesel.

Groceries and sundries are now priced high, as has been the history in every boom town since the gold rush. Milk is over 4 dollars a gallon, bread 3.50 a loaf as an example.

The truck traffic is unbelievable, with often fifty or sixty rigs bumper to bumper. DO NOT try to pass them on our two lane roads. I promise you that the on coming traffic will be similar.

Secure you rigs and be aware that the crime rate has escalated, particularly theft. Do not leave your dogs in a rig unattended.

I run a commercial kennel operation and last year I had 13 calls about stolen bird dogs. Four of them were brought here by folks who found them after they were abandoned by who ever stole them.

Bird dogs have been found in the bar pits, shot after they were taken and presumed use to hunt a day or two.

Guys, I am not trying to discourage anyone form joining us this fall around here, but I am trying to make you aware that all of the seedy side of a boom, this time oil, is here as it has been through out history in every mining camp and oil town.

The bird numbers are down as Greg noted, more so here in Montana than the Dakotas and while some folks who always let someone hunt are now charging to do so, there are still some places a man can get out on.

I am afraid though, that as more and more people come into the area, we will see more and more closures, just as many of you have seen on the other side of the Mississippi and through the deep south.

Good hunting and safe hunting to you all.

That's just unreal. I lived up in Glasgow on the AFB back in the early-mid sixties. The area was very sparsely populated, town was something like 5000 population back then. When I visited Glasgow about 10 yrs ago, it had actually lost some population.

Being going to SD for the last 5 years. Staying in Super8 in Chamberlain for about $65 a night with advanced reservation. Beautiful views of the river right from the windows and plenty of WPA,GPA grounds within hour or so drive. As someone said, all the maps can be downloaded to GPS and you can just drive from spot to spot. My only problem is that now even in Nov is pretty warm. Last year I had butterflies and bees flying around ....watching dog and watering a must ..

About 5-6 yrs ago, it was 80F in Huron on the openning weekend. It's been much cooler the last few openners. I hope I never see it that hot there again. I prefer it in the low 50s or even upper 40s.

93 here today Chuck. Grouse has been opened since the 1st of the month and pheasants open a week from Saturday.

We had our youth pheasant opener last Sat and Sunday and it was 85 by 10:00 AM.

I start working the dogs at 4:30 in the morning to get them through their training before it gets to hot.

We need the weather in this country to get back to something close to normal.

Well, the way I�m looking at it I give North Dakota the advantage in hunting with its easier waterfowl restrictions and their rules governing posted land, but South Dakota sounds better for making living accommodations. However, two years ago I saw so many birds in South Dakota regardless of the posted land restrictions and it is closer. I�m still trying to decide and I�ll tell you this is a tough decision.

Yes, ND is changing ....

http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/28/pf/north_dakota_jobs/index.htm?source=cnn_bin&hpt=hp_bn5

I would not bother east of the river here in ND. The bird numbers on my farm are usually great but this year suck. We had a series of storms come through the south central part of the state during the hatch which hurt real bad. I have seena good number of birds just south of the border around Eureka. There is some public walk in areas around there. In normal years we have good numbers but as previously mentioned three bad winters and a wet summer have hurt various parts of our state real bad. I picked my dog up from my trainer over in Mott last week. We ran her in a field so I could see her progress. We did see a lot of birds but many of them were very small yet (1/3 grown)and will likely die this winter. It will be interesting to see how the season plays out.