SC teen reels in a fish that looks like a piranha with weird teeth. What was it?

A funky-looking fish with human-looking teeth that likely began its life in an aquarium was caught by a South Carolina teenager last weekend in Lake Hartwell.

Drew Patrick, a 15-year-old from Anderson, reeled in a pacu, the much more docile relation of a piranha that is native to South America.

Patrick sent a photo of himself with the fish to WYFF in Greenville. He told the TV station it was a “once-in-a-lifetime catch.”

Ross Self, chief of freshwater fisheries with the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, said the species is found in Upstate lakes from time to time, put there by people who bought them as pets.

“They feed them well, and then they’re taking up too much space,” he said.

Pacu can grow as long as 3 feet, Self said, adding that only a “bodacious aquarium” could hold something that big.

“It’s hard for people to euthanize them,” he said.

So they send them out to live free. And, by the way, the dumpers also break the law.

It is illegal to put any fish into a waterway that didn’t begin there. Illegal, perhaps, but it’s unlikely someone would actually be seen doing so and therefore subject to prosecution.

There are all sorts of non-native species in the lakes and streams of South Carolina.

The most common offenders are the flathead in coastal rivers that tend to shut out the native bullhead and black bass in the reservoirs that threaten largemouth bass. Flatheads are from the Mississippi drainage basin and black bass the Chattahoochee.

Both likely eased into South Carolina with the help of some fishermen looking for a new challenge.

Also illegal, Self said.

Patrick told the TV station he will probably have the fish — about a foot long — mounted to hang in his barn.

Or another option would have been to eat it. Despite their crusty exterior, they are said to be so delicious, they are served in restaurants.