An exceptional Pike in bow fronted case by Cooper

Click here to see Errol Fuller discussing this lot

This enormous pike equalled the size of the largest that was ever stuffed by any of the famous Cooper family so celebrated for their fish taxidermy.  It is featured in Fred Buller's almost legendary book 'The Domesday Book of Mammoth Pike (1979).  In the book Buller named the fish 'John Bourne's Pike' and records its weight as 42lb with a length of 48 and a half inches and a girth of 25 and a half inches. It was caught in 1908 at Lough Arrow, Ireland and soon after its capture articles were written on it in the Angler's News and the Fishing Gazette; these were produced because the catch was considered so remarkable. More recently the fish was featured in Barry William's book 'The Domesday Book of English Fish Taxidermists (2020).

Curiously, John Bourne, the man who caught the pike had no interest in having it stuffed and he gave the fish to a man fishing nearby, a Mr. Thomas Phillips, a public house owner from Birmingham. Phillips immediately dispatched the specimen to Coopers in London, and it arrived two days after its capture.  After the fish had been preserved it stood for many years in the bar of the Crown pub in Ladywood, Birmingham.

Taxidermy