It took Delynn Jacquard just over an hour, strapped into a fighting chair five hours off the west coast of Nova Scotia, to boat a bluefin tuna that weighed 711 pounds at the Wedgeport wharf. She is 13.

Pending ratification by the International Game Fish Association, that fish becomes the female junior world record for Atlantic bluefin. The previous mark - 618 pounds, set by Nova Scotian Jenna Gavin at Ballantynes Cove in October 2014 - falls by close to 100 pounds.

Jacquard was not confident in the middle of it. "I was thinking to myself, 'I don't think ... I might not be able to do this,'" she told CBC. "But then I did it and I was just proud of myself."

Asked how it actually works, she was matter-of-fact. "It's a lot of work. You're hooked on to the rod and to the chair. Once you see the tip of the rod start coming closer to you, that's when you start twisting the line and pulling it in."

To Kathy Johnson of the Tri-County Vanguard she called it "a workout, for sure" and said the effort "was all worth it in the end because I broke the world record." Junior records live or die on who touches the tackle, and she was clear on that: "I was the only one allowed to touch the rod and the line. When the leader was right next to the boat, they could touch that and they put a gaff in the tuna."

It was her second attempt. The first, last year, ended badly. "I went last year and tried to break the world record, but the last five minutes of the fight, a shark took huge big bites out of the tuna so it didn't count. It wasn't intact," she said.

There is a weighing wrinkle. Brandon Doucette, a board member of the tournament, explained that the IGFA counts a fish before it is gutted, while Wedgeport weighs after partial gutting. Jacquard's tuna went 711 pounds fresh and 635 after. Doucette expects certification but says it may take six months.

A FAMILY THAT HAS ALWAYS FISHED TUNA

Jacquard is a fourth-generation tuna fisher. Her father Camille captains the Pelagic Predator and has been part of the event since it was revived in 2004.

"I've won as a captain, but never as an angler. I go every year," he said. His wife, Falon LeBlanc, took the tournament's biggest tuna in 2011 with a 626-pounder aboard the Ol' East Sider.

"My father Eric, still to this day, fishes tuna. Right straight through as a child with his father," Camille said. "After the tuna disappeared in the 1970s, he took a break, but when the licences started to come back, he always stayed with this fishery up to what it is today."

THE BIGGER FISH BELONGED TO THREE BOYS

The heaviest tuna of the week came aboard the Lucas & Noah, captained by Brent Pothier, and was fought in turns by Lucas Pothier, 12, Noah Pothier, 11, and Remi LeBlanc, 10. It weighed 801 pounds, the first over 800 in the modern tournament's 22 years, beating a 796-pound record set in 2014.

"They each took turns. It took them about an hour and a half to fight it," Doucette said.

"When they started yelling the weight out, the excitement was unbelievable," he told CBC. "We were just so excited to have not just one world record, but also a Wedgeport Tuna Tournament record."

Twenty boats landed 52 tuna across the week: 18 bluefin for 9,561 pounds, nine bigeye for 1,117 and 25 yellowfin for 1,132 - the highest yellowfin count since 2004. Colin Babin's Sea Devil had the heaviest aggregate at 1,695 pounds. The bluefin come out of a slice of the South West Nova Tuna Association's commercial quota that the association allocates to the tournament each year, enough for roughly 10 fish.

"It's going to end up either in a restaurant or on somebody's plate in their house," Doucette said.

Wedgeport ran the International Tuna Cup Match from the 1930s to the 1960s and still trades on the title of sport tuna fishing capital of the world. "We're able to come out, celebrate our culture, and it's really such an incredible event for our community," Doucette said. "It's amazing the support we get each and every year."

Jacquard, a Grade 8 student at Ecole secondaire de Par-en-Bas, has not committed to fishing it again next year.