Freaky fish with a mouthful of ‘human teeth’ shocks fisherman but says his daughter wants to put them under her pillow for the tooth fairy

A crazy fish with a mouthful of ‘human teeth’ has broken records with its staggering size after being caught by a shocked fisherman.

Brian Summerlin, 38, was fishing in Tangier Sound, near Maryland, when something huge snagged his line.

The sheepshead – a fish with eerily human-like gnashers – is known for stealing bait and being difficult to catch.

Brian said: ‘They are amazing fish that have adapted to the food they eat. They have front teeth that can bite off barnacles from any underwater structure. They also have molar-like teeth at the top and bottom of their mouths to crush crustaceans.

“My daughter wants to save the teeth to put under her pillow for the tooth fairy because they look like human teeth.”

Brian Summerlin, 38, holds the record-breaking fish. The sheepshead – a fish with eerily human-like gnashers – is notorious for stealing bait and being difficult to catch

Dragging the fish from the depths of the ocean was no easy feat.

“Sheepshead is a very difficult fish to control,” Brian said.

“They want to get back to the bottom – often you can lose them because they want to go to a structure on the bottom where your line can be cut.

“Luckily my friend, Kris, told me to back up the drag so the fish wouldn’t pop out of the line.

“A few times he was pulling about 25 pounds of drag under the boat, so it was a little stressful.”

When Brian saw the monstrous fish, he knew he had landed a record breaker.

Weighing a whopping 16.6 pounds, it broke the previous Maryland record of 14.1 pounds from August 2020, dwarfing the average sheepshead weight of 3 to 4 pounds.

Oddly enough, he already had a hook in his mouth that Brian recognized as his, which had been lost when a fish broke his line an hour earlier.

The fish was then weighed on certified scales at Kool Ice and Seafood Company in Cambridge, Maryland.

Now the record has been officially recognized by the state’s Department of Natural Resources, which holds the crown in the Chesapeake Bay Division.

“I’m pretty excited about it,” said Brian of Princess Anne, Maryland.

‘I always knew there was a possibility to break the record.

‘My family also liked to eat the fish. Sheepshead is one of my family’s favorite fish.”

It comes after another Chesapeake Bay fisherman, Todd Elder, broke a world record with his sheepshead catch in May.

Elder claimed a spearfishing record with his 17.4-pound sheepshead, as recognized by the International Underwater Spearfishing Association.

Weighing a whopping 16.6 pounds, it broke the previous Maryland record of 14.1 pounds from August 2020, dwarfing the average sheepshead weight of 3 to 4 pounds.

Oddly enough, the fish already had a hook in its mouth that Brian recognized as his, which had been lost when a fish broke its line an hour earlier.