Beachgoers caught a rare glimpse of an endangered smalltooth sawfish on Florida's gulf coast.

The sawfish, a specie of shark sometimes called a carpenter fish, was snagged in Naples, Florida, off of the Naples pier.

The massive animal was too large for the unidentified fisherman to pull up.

Instead he towed the line to the shore and with the help of other fishermen, pulled the sawfish to shore as a crowded looked on in wonder.

A smalltooth sawfish (pictured) was caught in Naples, Florida, on Thursday. An unidentified fisherman had to pull the enormous animal to shore before setting it free

In a video shot by Alex Pino, the massive sawfish, a specie of shark, thrashes as it is towed into the shoreline

Alex Pino, of Naples, recorded the entire encounter after he saw a crowd forming on the beach.

'I knew somebody must have caught something interesting so I headed that way,' Pino told the Naples Daily News.

Once the massive sawfish was on shore the men tried to pull the hook out of its mouth, avoiding the row of razor-sharp teeth around its rostrum.

At one point the sawfish came completely out of the water revealing it's truly breath-taking size.

'That's when we all got to see how huge this sawfish is! I've never seen anything like it in person,' Pino told NDN of the Thursday catch.

A crowd gathers to watch the incredibly rare fish pulled on to shore as the fishermen fight to free it from the line

Finally, the sawfish is pulled fully from the water so the fishermen can get the fishing line out of its mouth

Once the fish was freed, it pushed its way back into the clear gulf waters swam away.

The crowd cheered as the safely rescued fish was freed.

Sawfish can grow up to 18 feet long and weigh 700 pounds, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

The smalltooth specie of sawfish is only found off the coast of Florida and is a year-round resident of the state's shallow coastal waters.

In the spring larger specimen are found shallow waters but live in the deeper waters the rest of the time.