The ocean is full of unexpected surprises.

Two anglers spent hours reeling in a fish only to discover that something was wrong with it. Apparently, it had somehow gotten a rope stuck around its face and its mouth was tied shut.

sawfish mouth tied shut

Peter Deeks and a friend spent two hours trying to reel in a large sawfish during a fishing trip on the Indian River Lagoon in Florida. (Peter Deeks)

Peter Deeks and a friend spent two hours trying to reel in a large sawfish during a fishing trip on the Indian River Lagoon in Florida, Fox 35 reports. As the fish came closer to the boat, however, the two anglers noticed that it had a rope tied around its long, razor-sharp mouth.

While the anglers tried to free the fish, it was too dangerous.

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"It wasn’t on there very tight but it was still tight enough where we tried to get it off a few times and then it just wasn’t safe for the fish, wasn’t safe for us, so we went ahead and let it go," Deeks told the news outlet.

According to Deeks, the sawfish was pretty big.

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He described it as, "Probably 12 feet, maybe a bit bigger. So, its saw, itself, was about five feet long. That was the first sawfish that I’ve ever seen so it was really cool."

The anglers theorized that the rope had accidentally become wrapped around the fish’s mouth, as opposed to being something that someone did on purpose.

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"The more we looked at it, it was the same type of palmer rope that’s used on crab traps," Deeks explained, "so what I think happened was – you know because it swims around on the bottom – that it got tangled up in a crab trap rope and then kinda set itself free."