Moody March weather

Olivia, the middle kid, wanted to go fishing and the other day I saw some guys fishing Lake McDonald and they were catching fish, so I figured what the heck, let's go there.

I am not, in general, a lake fisherman. I need moving water to wash away my woes. Lakes are just a place to drown in.

But enough about me.

The weather has been interesting as of late. We have these brilliantly sunny afternoons pockmarked with gigantic snow squalls that dump huge, heavy flakes.

The ground is blanketed for a brief time. The sun comes out and melts it all. And so it goes. Day after day.

So on the way out it was brilliant and sunny and then it snowed and then it was brilliant and sunny again.

We got to the Park and Olivia began to fish after I helped her rig up.

Despite the sun there was stiff, cold, wind. Olivia wore clogs, a light sweater and a vest. Her feet were soaked immediately.

"Olivia!" I said.

She shrugged.

"I didn't think it would be so snowy."

There is, easy, at least two feet of snow on the ground in Apgar.

Then I spotted two deer along the shore further down the lake. Boy Wonder and I left Olivia to go investigate.

Olivia fished. The skies grew gray and then black. The deer were mule deer, nibbling on some bushes. The skies then opened up. Little wispy flakes turned to silver dollars.

I watched those deer for about a half hour. I doubt they took more than two steps, each.

Boy Wonder played in the lake. Got soaked. Par for the course. The kid's half fish. Water doesn't phase him.

"Did you catch anything?" I yelled to Olivia.

She said no.

The lake is funny like that. You can be a quarter mile away from a person and if the wind is right, they sound like they're next to you.

The snow came harder.

Olivia was soaked. Boy Wonder was soaked. It was time to go. Olivia made a couple of more casts, just in case.

But the fish weren't in a biting mood. Even though the worms were fresh from our own garden.

We piled in the truck, cranked up the heat and headed out.

The sun was already working its way through the clouds.

Chris Peterson is the photographer for the Hungry Horse News.