HONOLULU (AP) — A 5- foot-9-inch woman tournament fishing in Hawaii waters fought a 12-foot marlin more than four hours before getting it on her team’s boat and weighing it at more than a halfton — a would-be world record.

But 28-year-old Molly Palmer is missing out on the glory and thousands in tournament prize money for one pesky reason: Her team’s honor code.

Cheating would have been easy and tempting. The Big Island Invitational Marlin Tournament runs in part on an honor system and Palmer, her captain and crewmates put up roughly $9,000 to enter last week.

But the Kailua-Kona angler said it wasn’t a question of whether or not to cheat — her team just wanted to reel in the big catch. So they disqualified themselves and Palmer’s crewmates helped pull the monstrous fish aboard.

“The question was only can I land the fish or not,” Palmer told The Associated Press. “I didn’t come here to set world records. I didn’t even really come here to win money. I came here to catch fish and that’s just what we were there to do.”

Palmer needed to reel in the fish by herself in order for it to qualify as a valid catch for the tournament, according to rules set by the International Game Fishing Association.

Palmer’s fish weighed in at 1,022.5 pounds, well over the record of 950 pounds for a woman using a 130-pound line, tournament organizer Jody Bright said.

Officials at the International Game Fishing Association were not immediately available late Wednesday.