"My dad caught his first tuna at 13, so it’s kind of been a competition between me and my brother," Zelck said.
It took Devin 10 hours to reel in the fish on Friday. To put that into perspective, the average time to reel in a bluefin tuna is about two and a half hours.
"Every 45 minutes we were switching off," she told WFXT. "Dad would cramp up, and he would tell me that I had to be on the rod next."
Finally, after dragging the boat eight miles from its anchor, the massive fish was caught.
"It was just so exciting," Zelck said. "Like you have to be there; like you have to catch it yourself to know how exciting it is."
The catch is enough to make any dad proud, but for Steve Zelck, a commercial fisherman, it's a moment he's glad his daughter had.
"She was just instrumental in the whole fight," he said.
Bluefin tuna sells anywhere between $6 to $12 per pound. Devin doesn't know how much it sold for yet but says she plans to use that money toward her college education.
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