Monster pike takes the bait

SEELEY LAKE – "What do you need a 10-in auger for?" asked the salesman when Randy Teague was shopping in Missoula. "I said, 'Well you never know if you are going to get the opportunity for a big one that you need to have that big hole to get them through.'"

Despite continued critique and editorial comments from the salesman, Teague relied on his experience. He remembered when his father was ice fishing in Seeley Lake with a six-inch hole years before northern pike were introduced. He hooked into a rainbow trout that they never landed because its head was too big for the hole.

"There are fish i...