The Wilson Art Gallery and Museum

The age of the fish was initially estimated at up to 30 years, but in 1968 a scientific examination of one of its gill-cover bones by staff at the Freshwater Biological Association concluded that its likely age was nearer 13. They also noted that its rate of growth during the first three years of its life was normal, but that it grew exceptionally fast thereafter. This would seem to support a theory that the young pike was inadvertently introduced to the newly constructed Reservoir, which occupied the site of a small fish pond, at the time of its construction in 1883-6. The pike was then supplied with an unlimited source of food, as the Reservoir was stocked with trout so that it could be used for fishing by members of the Corporation. Indeed, in the years before its discovery, there had been ‘fishermen’s tales’ of an enormous pike seen chasing – and eating – the Corporation’s fish! The pike may have gone blind, which would have prevented it from catching its prey, resulting in its death by starvation.

By late 1896 the stuffed fish was on display in the Public Library and in 1899 it became part of the town’s embryonic museum collection (Museum number: 1899.7), being transferred in 1908 to the newly-opened Museum, where it has been on display ever since.

As well as the uncertainty over the pike’s weight, a lingering doubt remains as to how it got into the Reservoir; after the results of the 1968 examination were published, a local resident wrote to the investigator claiming that the Pike had originally come from Liddington Lake at Leckhampton and that it had been secretly introduced to the new reservoir by an angler who was angry that the fishing there would be the exclusive preserve of the Town Councillors!