Catch of the day in Priest Lake: an orange bowling ball?

Hannah Opal wasn’t sure what was bobbing on the surface of Priest Lake on a picture-perfect Sunday afternoon.

Was it a severed ginger head à la Ed Sheeran, or an optical illusion?

“I thought it was one of those Walmart bouncy balls,” Opal said Wednesday while on vacation. “You know, one of those balls you play with at Walmart but your parents never let you buy.”

Opal, 22, was shocked that it was an orange bowling ball.

Wait, bowling balls sink, right? After Tony Soprano killed Ralph Cifaretto, didn’t the greatest dramatic character in TV history drop a bowling ball into a bag to weigh down the mobster before he was dumped in the river? Yes.

However, big bowling balls sink. But bowling balls that weigh less than 12 pounds, which are more dense than water, actually float. Who knew?

“One of the first comments on Facebook was by someone who did the research,” Opal said. “Bowling balls apparently do float.”

So what do you do with a floating bowling ball, and do you name it Wilson, after Tom Hanks’ best inanimate friend in “Castaway”?

“Wilson was considered as its name, but that was rejected since it’s not a volleyball,” Opal said. “The bowling ball is in my Jeep. I posted what happened since my first thought was to let the world know so its owner could get it back.”

How in the world did a bowling ball end up in the middle of Priest Lake? Opal, a Chattaroy dental professional, thinks she may have an answer that is strange but possibly true.

“After researching this, I found out there is a guy who lives next to John Stockton, who shoots bowling balls out of a cannon on Priest Lake. It’s uncertain whether he fires them onto the lake or into the forest.”

Finding objects on or in Priest Lake runs in the Opal family.

“My dad once found a male wedding ring while scuba diving in Priest Lake,” Opal said. “Who knows what we’ll find next?”