Five-foot shark swims up river in Essex countryside Experts who have looked at the footage said they believed it could be a Starry Smooth-hound. Mr Gibbons, 27, said: "As we walked past and saw a big fin sticking up out of the water and thought 'that must be a big fish'. That thought quickly became 'that's a massive fish' and then I realised it was a shark. I really could not believe what I was seeing. We have walked along there so many times before but never had I seen anything like that before. He has given a "conservative" estimate that the Essex Shark was at least four-feet long but thinks it may have been as long as five foot. He added: "It was an amazing sight to see and I knew I had to film it, otherwise my friends would not have believed a word I was saying. The water was quite shallow where we saw it and its fin was sticking out of the water - it was like a scene from Jaws. You do get people fishing here and there is a beach further up the river but it's surprising to find a shark. Mr Gibbons, who works for Fred Olsen travel agents, informed the Environment Agency and the RSPCA of his sighting. "We got really close to it and could see it was as long as some metal railings in the water so we had a good gauge to work out how big it was," he said. I really was shocked and amazed - I did not for one minute expect to see something like that in the river. It was just fascinating watching it swimming around. The Smooth-hound Shark is more commonly found in coastal waters around the country and is not usually known for swimming further up rivers. David Warner, commodore from the nearby Stour Sailing Club, said: "We have had sharks in the lowest point of the river before but not up where it was seen." According to the Shark Trust there are 35 species of shark that can be found around the coastal waters of Britain.