Teen Returns From Spring Break with Fisherman's Tale and the Photos to Prove It

When Scott McLaughlin finally fought his fishing line up from the depths of the Sea of Cortez during a spring break trip in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, things got weird.

The Oak Brook teenager, his father and their boat captain looked at the catch, a sea creature with a plump, swollen belly, pasty ping and white sandpaper skin and completely black eyes.

The captain, Jamie Rendon, said in his 25 years of fishing there, he’d never before seen anything like what Scott, 18, had reeled in.

The Hinsdale Central senior was also mystified. An avid fisher since the age of 6 and a member of his school’s bass fishing team, McLaughlin had fished in lakes, rivers and whatever waterholes he could find — but rarely in the ocean.

“There was a piece of bait on the line, and we were bottom fishing 370 feet down,” he said. “I had a cut piece of tuna on the hook dangling there, waiting for bite. I hear the reel kind of click and I started to pull out the line. I fought it up, maybe for 10 minutes or 15 minutes. It was an absolute pain to reel this thing up. It fought for first two or three minutes before it wore out.”

The small group took photos and posed with the strange animal before throwing it back into the sea.

The morning McLaughlin and his family returned home from Mexico, he saw pictures of his weird fish on the news online. The story gained popularity as scientists and fishermen swapped theories about what animal the fish might be. Likely conclusions say it was an albino or leucistic swell shark.

McLaughlin said he’s happy he decided to let the shark go free. And after the excitement of the mystery catch, the small fishing party caught two flapjack tunas and three groupers.

Just about every day in school, people still ask McLaughlin to tell his fisherman’s tale, and other parents have even reached out to his parents to talk about it.

“Every fisherman has a fishing story they’re really proud of, but almost none of them have anything to back their stories up,” he said. “There’s always that one fish that got away, but I actually have proof of my crazy story. Otherwise, who would believe me?”

Photos courtesy of Scott McLauglin.