I really hate ditches!

Apparently I gave Jessie the "big head" by bragging on her the last time. On the 16th when she came down to weight again, we went back over to the ranch and Picked up Grace to try the ditches again. Grace likes to see her fly and had yet to see her kill anything, so I called her mother and asked if Grace could come out to play with us.

We went up past the barn to an area of the ditch that I was sure would have ducks in it. Well, we went too far. The ducks were behind us. We had the whole remuda of ranch horses following us, and then spinning and throwing mud from their hooves when they would spook and run. One of the kid's horses doesn't like dogs, so he spent his time trying to run down Betsy. He was no match for her.

Jessie took a good pitch and we ran the ditch only to find that there was nothing where I hoped there would be. We finally got far enough down the ditch for a Mallard to flush far enough behind us that she could not get a shot at him until he was back over the ditch. She knocked him in the water anyway. She didn't kill him, but he won't forget her for a while either. She finally wore out and sat down somewhere. I thought that I had a line on another bunch of ducks and waited for her to rest and get back up. When she finally came back the ducks had found hiding places that we could not locate them. I called her down and fed her a too big a chunk of duck breast.

We skipped the 17th and yesterday we decided to go to the Lake to see if we could find some ducks without their Goose escort over there. She took her place over the Lake and when we topped the hill there were both ducks and Geese on the pond. I gritted my teeth and walked far enough that they flushed off the pond. She came down and tapped a Mallard, but didn't knock him to the ground. She then flew over to the bank and landed. There were still ducks on the Lake and she had not flown long enough to be tired. We waited for her to get back in the air, but she just wasn't that interested and wanted her meal given to her. Well this time I was ready and I put a duck leg on the lure with no fat or skin on it, and called her down to that. When she finished that I offered her only the outer part of the ducks wing. There was a little bit of meat on it, but not enough to maintain her weight. She flew to the fist and I snapped her jesses and started back to the truck. She tried to fly off with the food and I let her have control of the food. She hung upside down and basically threw a fit. I kept walking. She regained the fist only to try to fly off again. Now she knows better than this. For the most part I ignored her and continued walking to the truck. She continued to hang there and be a butt. I continued to ignore her and she in one of her snits lost her wing. I continued walking. She regained the fist and I put her hood on and put her in the truck.

Today she was quite a bit lower in weight than I have been flying her. We again picked up Grace and went back to the Lake. She took a good pitch right over the top of the lake. The ducks appeared to be Scaup and when they flushed she was too eager and smacked one into the chest high reeds at the end of the pond. I was pretty sure that we had no chance to recover this one. She had gone down into the reeds, but came back out before we got there, and took to the air again. The dogs and I tried to find it, but to no avail. We did finally flush it out of the reeds and Jessie who was screwing around down low, tail chased it out of sight. I looked for her, hoping that she had managed to catch it, but ended up calling her down to the lure. This time she didn't screw around and ate every morsel that she could.

If I can find some ducks tomorrow, she will do better. She will be very tired of being hungry.