A group of fishermen were able to rescue several striped bass that somehow became trapped in a landlocked lake.

Little Silver Lake in Point Pleasant Beach is currently undergoing dredging. The fishermen say that they did not know how the fish got there, just that they were going to save them.

“I saw them all lined up just setting next to each other…30-40 inch fish and I was like, ‘These are big fish,’” said fisherman Chris Schlegel.

“You’d see stuff flopping around in the water and when it got down to where it looked like maybe a foot of water or so, we thought we should probably do something at least to try to get out there to see if we can save something,” said Dave Miles.

Fisherman Tyler Spader said that he was able to see some of their dorsal fins pop out of the water.

“From there it was game on,” he said. “Everyone in the neighborhood was running around grabbing plywood, 2x12s, anything we could use to displace our weight.”

The group says that getting into the middle of the lake wasn’t easy and that mud from the dredging project threatened to suck them in as well. They were able to get the fish out of the lake using a small net and come containers. They were able to release the bass safely in nearby Lake Louis.

“There was five in total and they ranged from about 30 inches to 38 inches,” Spader said. “The heaviest of which was every bit of 30 pounds.”

After the guys posted their video on Instagram, they say the received about 60,000 views in a little over one day. They say that they received many comments from those supporting their efforts from around the country.