It is a terrifying skull a foot long and containing 700 razor sharp teeth.Yet rather than being a prehistoric monster from the deep, this incredible head was actually found in Oxfordshire – and belongs to the biggest pike ever found in Britain.The grisly fish carcass was found in the undergrowth next to the River Cherwell by farmer Peter Mone.Money initially thought it was a dead deer, but when he got closer he realised the foot-long elongated skull belonged to a enormous pike.Money believes the pike was washed out of the river in a flood.He measured and photographed the skull and showed it to angling expert Andrew Crisp.
Crisp has never seen a pike skull bigger than this before, and believes it comes from the biggest pike in the country.The skull is 9ins wide and has around 700 teeth.Some of the teeth are an inch long.It is thought the pike was about 20 years old when it died and would have weighed over 50lbs.
The current pike record stands at 46lb for a catch from Wykeham Lakes near Scarborough, which was caught in March last year by 20-year-old Andy O’Conner.Peter Money, 32, said: ‘I was in the tractor with my boss Charlie Gee and we were checking some of our fences.’We saw what looked like bones in the grass and I thought it was a deer or something, so I got out and then realised it was a pike skull straight away, it was massive.’I think it must have been swept onto the bank in the floods and died when the water went down.’I’m not a fisherman but I know when I have spotted something big and as I live on the river I know what is in it, and I haven’t seen anything like this before.’I measured it and then took the skull to Andrew.
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