Perhaps the fair weather hunters are done for the year there, but up here in the "patch" all of these thousands of oil workers are all over every block management area, from Plentywood to Froid.

I have never seen so many folks in the fields in all the years I have been here.

I visited with three groups last week when I went up to Froid to hunt with a landowner I am friends with. They had two birds among 14 hunters, stark proof of the value of a good dog, which they had none.

Housing up here for these folks is either man camps or camper trailers, neither of which accommodates keeping a dog.

I must get five or six calls a week on the kennel phone from folks wanting to know if I rent or lease a dog by the day.

bc