Roadrunner, how you doing?
[Johnathan] Seeing a...
Got about 25, 20-footers.
There's a lot about 25.
Great.
[Johnathan] Yeah.
-Well, ah, shoot. -Yep.
[Keith] I'm not looking forward to that.
Okay.
[Johnathan] Good luck.
[Keith] There's huge tides, gonna be against the north wind.
And it's going to stack the wedges straight up.
Kamchatka front is just engulfing the entire Bering Sea.
I don't know how many more days of this these guys can handle.
Argh!
She's a roll-y son of a gun.
Big roll!
Watch yourself!
[yelling]
Whoa!
[Rick] Stand clear!
[Keith] Whoa! Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Heads up back there, guys.
We got a stack that just broke free on deck!
Hang on, guys!
[crew member] Wait, wait, wait, wait!
[yelling]
[Keith] We'll find out just how bad it might get.
[narrator] 190 miles northwest of Dutch Harbor...
[deckhand speaking]
[narrator] ...near the Pribilof Islands...
God help us out here.
[narrator] ...on theTime Bandit.
Coming up, ready.
Well, we're going deeper.
So, we've chased them from 180 fathoms out
to about 350, 400 fathoms.
We get 4,000 or 5,000 lb out of this pick,
and we're gonna...
We're gonna have a million-dollar season here.
[narrator] Charging through the 200-mile-wide low-pressure system,
Captain Johnathan Hillstrand battles 25-foot seas
for a career-topping 50,000 lb of golden king crab.
[deckhand] Coming up!
Big crab pot! Yeah!
Yeah, baby!
[cheering]
Yeah, baby! Whoo! Look at that one.
I found the right depth, 400 fathoms,
seems like the critters really love it there.
Look at that! Those are big. Holy smokes!
[yelling]
[Johnathan] Look at that one!
It's supposed to get rougher but we'll see.
-[deckhand] Big crab pot! -[cheering]
All's we need is a couple more good picks.
The crab are loving a certain depth.
All my gear's showin' up.
So I'm gonna-- in order to stay in the same depth,
I've gotta go around this pinnacle.
But if I don't set it just right with the tide,
I'll lose some gear.
[crew member] Ahoy, baby. Look at that.
[Johnathan over PA] All right, guys, go ahead. Let them rip.
Be careful.
We want to set them 400 around here.
Gonna look like a horseshoe, lucky horseshoe.
But if the tide was going like this,
these would be too deep.
I lose this part here.
If it's going that way, I'd lose these,
because they'd drift out too deep.
I feel lucky.
[narrator] $80,000 worth of gear and his season on the line,
the veteran skipper fires off a surgical strike on a thin ridge line
nearly half a mile below.
[Johnathan] I don't know for sure, but I'm going to hope.
It's like this.
This has been on the boat forever,
I don't know how it got here.
"Hope floats."
Well, no it doesn't if it's on a rock.
And I'll show you.
Well, it didn't float. Hope doesn't float on a rock.
Well, I'm puttin' my hope in the canyon,
and I'm puttin' my hope in the Lord above.
So, my hope floats, if you put your hope in the right place.
But not on a rock.
[laughs]
[narrator] 190 miles southeast...
...on the bairdi grounds...
[Keith] As this is progressively coming further and further north,
we're getting progressively in worse and worse shape.
[narrator] ...a board theWizard.
[Keith] Some of the seas have been hitting about 30-footers.
We only need, like, a 50 average or less
through the gear, and we've got our crab.
-[deckhand 1] Oh, hell, yeah. -[deckhand 2] Sweet.
And then lets the [bleep] out of here, all right?
Roger!
[crew member] Hoo-rah!
[Keith] All right, guys, I need a little bit of luck here, okay.
Roger.
[narrator] Captain Keith Colburn targets his final 10,000 lb
of bairdi crab quota before warm currents
from the south create mast-topping breakers
and unfishable conditions.
♪ Come on, crab! Come on, crab! ♪
♪ Come on, crab, yeah! ♪
♪ Let's catch some bair ♪
♪ Oh, yeah! ♪
If I can get about 12 hours of good weather,
then hopefully we can get out of here
before the storm shuts us down.
♪ Come on crab! ♪
♪ Let's get crab! ♪
♪ Let's kick some ass ♪
♪ Come on down, arrow head Catch me some crab ♪
♪ That's what I said ♪
[Jacob continues singing] ♪ Let's kick ass! ♪
♪ Whoa, yeah! ♪
Come on!
[cheering]
Good pot.
[laughing]
[Keith] Good start, man.
First pot.
[deckhand speaking]
Fifty works, man. 50 works.
I know a 50 count is more than enough
for us to hit our number.
[over PA]
Music has always been a part of my life and my soul.
While I'm out here all I hear is a song.
The Bering Sea is just a symphony,
and I'm part of the choir.
[cheering]
That might hit triple digits.
[Jacob singing]
Oh, that song is kicking ass, man.
Good way to start, you know.
Right now it's just "Be safe...
be methodical. Tie the pots down tight,
probably even throw a couple chains on, just to be safe,
because the weather is going to suck."
[Jacob singing] ♪ Bering Sea, yeah! ♪
Now we're talking!
-Whoa! Whoa, whoa... -[bleep]. What's going on?
What the [bleep] is going on with the stack?
[crashing]
Heads up back there, guys.
We think we got a stack that just broke free on us here. All right?
Stay away from the stack. Stay away from the stack.
I don't even know if there's ties on it.
[deckhand speaking]
He says it's a slipknot?
[deckhand speaking]
[Keith] We know that was Jacob because he said they were slipknots.
He ties his knot with what they call a quick release.
It doesn't do the job.
All right, okay, hey, we gotta move these pots.
We're just going to take the forward, stack them forward, okay?
Roger!
[deckhand speaking]
Our deck is a little concave, it has a little crown in it.
So we tie up our pots a little differently.
So I don't know what he's done on past boats,
but it doesn't work here.
We don't need this right now.
We need to just get back to fishing.
[narrator] 60 miles southwest...
where the Kamchatka front meets the Pacific currents.
[Rick] Oh, there's the roll.
[narrator] Aboard theAleutian Lady.
Big roll, big roll, big roll.
Hold on!
Shh...
Whoo-hoo! Ride on, cowboy!
Jeez!
Right now, I just need to get this string off the boat.
And...
Hold on, guys. Here's a big one.
The wave height is picking up.
Mother Nature's just kicking us in the face.
Crab, in storms,
end up burying themselves in the mud as protection.
So, I'm setting all of our pots
on this softer muddier bottom.
They're gonna smell our bait,
crawl in our pots.
It'll be a buffet line.
Brandon, he's out of commission now.
He's injured his back and...
I want him to be able to go home and...
get an MRI and find out what he really has going on.
If he goes back out there,
it's not worth having him have a big problem
with his back because I push him too far.
We got a four-man deck...
which is going to make everything
a little bit rougher and harder.
[narrator] Shorthanded and searching
for his last 25,000 lb of bairdi crab,
Captain Rick Shelford deploys all 130 pots in the mud
amid the storm's peak ferocity.
[Rick over PA] All right, here we go.
[deckhand] Going over!
[Rick] Buying this boat is a dream of mine,
and my brother's.
We need to make this bairdi season work
because we want to buy this boat by the end of this year.
Big roll!
Watch yourself.
Dang, that was a big one.
I just need to keep everybody safe.
Not get anybody taken out by a wave right now.
[deckhand speaking]
-[yelling] -Whoa!
[crashing]
[bleep]
Christ [bleep].
Ah, [bleep], watch out.
Stand [bleep] clear.
[yelling]
[narrator] On theAleutian Lady...
Everybody stand clear. Stand clear.
[bleeping]
[yelling]
Are we swinging the crane over to hold it in place?
I'll just jog into it.
[deckhand] Hey, hey!
-Let's run it over the port rail. -Okay.
Stupid, stupid picking hook.
Picking boom.
The boat rolled, and the picking hook, or picking boom,
popped up over the actual stay holding it down,
since it's like this.
[narrator] With the 6,000 lb forward crane unhinged,
the crew must latch the free-swinging boom in place
or turn back to town for repair.
If it breaks free and falls down on the deck,
it can kill somebody.
And good thing Cals caught it real quick
and I was able to get the bow up into the weather.
[sighs]
[crew member] Yeah.
[deckhand] That's good!
[Rick] Once it's secured,
we are gonna get these pots off
and we'll be able to actually inspect it
without rocking and rolling and screwing around.
[deckhand speaking]
[Rick] There is no stopping.
We got to get it done.
[narrator] 75 miles away, east of the storm...
[deckhand] Not good!
[crew member speaking]
[narrator] ...aboard theBarbara J...
[crew member] Not looking good.
We'd better go find a different spot
and that's going to be part of the search,
part of the hunt.
You're going to get some zeros.
[narrator] Benefitting from a short weather window,
Captains Jack Bunnell and Steve "Harley" Davidson
hunt their final 15,000 lb of eastern bairdi crab quota.
I'd like to go right here on this side of the batwing.
That's where I'd like to set them, there.
[Harley] Oh, yeah?
The depths are nice. I like that.
We caught crab, you know, nearby.
You know, this was 50. I know it was for a lot of hours but...
Ah, you know, when this weather picks up,
we'll... we'll waste our time going out there
trying to pick it up.
[Jack] You're not digging the batwing?
[Harley] No, it won't be down here.
It's gonna be pretty damn gnarly
off here to the west.
All right, last pot coming up.
[Jan speaking]
It's been garbage from start to finish.
[Harley] Well, let me lay out a couple of marks here,
and you can, uh, take that over there
and just put those about five a mile.
[Jack] Okay.
I'm gonna take a little nap.
I'll see you when I get up here.
-All right. -All right, be safe, man.
Roger.
What the hell?
Harley... Like, this is where he wants us to set these pots at.
You know, but I was thinking over here, you know.
It's a big difference, 10 miles of difference.
Okay, a couple miles, get ready to set.
[crew member] Roger!
[phone ringing]
What's up, dude?
[Teenah speaking on phone]
[Teenah laughs]
Ah, [bleep].
What's going on?
Uh, trying to catch some crab out here.
I don't know, I'm just missing them.
A little too far to one side or the other.
Why do I even call you?
I'm trying to just fill you in out here. Harley...
No, I'm not going to give up.
No, I do not want that.
Harley wants to go one way.
I don't like that plan at all, so...
I'm not going to do that.
I'm gonna go over here in the deep.
No, I'm not a liar. I just...
[Teenah laughs]
I'm not a liar. You're a liar.
"Don't suck." Roger that.
I love you too, later.
Ah, where is...
I'm gonna do it.
[over PA] Two miles and we're going to set these off
right where I want them, here.
The only thing that's going to save me
is if there's crab in these pots.
If they come up empty, I am double-[bleep].
[deckhand] Going over!
[narrator] 195 miles northwest...
on the northern edge of the storm...
Watch out, watch out, guys.
[yelling]
[narrator] ...aboard theTime Bandit .
[shouting]
It's blowing, like, 35, 40.
We got 15, 20-foot seas
are building.
It's gonna come up to 50 tonight.
It's gonna get ugly.
So we're hopin' this is gonna be a good thing.
Pullin' up on the lucky horse's string,
and I have high hopes.
[narrator] Approaching pots set on a 400-fathom ridge,
Captain Johnathan throws caution to the 40-knot wind
for a chance to reach a million dollars of golden king crab.
[Johnathan] I have a good feeling about it
'cause everything we've been seeing,
that it's showin' us, go to 400.
We got high hopes.
But we'll see what happens.
[men cheering]
That was a smokin' pot.
Look at those big ones.
Look at those big boys.
Dude, big boys.
[Johnathan over PA] Who did a count on it?
[Johnathan] Yeah, baby!
Good job. Good job, guys.
Watch out. Grab on to something.
[men yelling]
Hey, heads up. Heads up. Heads up.
[Johnathan] Watch out.
[man groans]
Here's another big one.
It's very marginal today.
We're getting it done.
Last thing I wanna do is hurt somebody.
Wow!
Hang on, guys.
Runner, runner, runner, runner!
[men shouting]
[Johnathan] Watch out.
[men yelling]
You guys okay?
[narrator] On theTime Bandit...
[Johnathan] All right. It's nautical out here.
It's definitely getting more nautical out here.
Get your nautical pants on.
I'll start racking.
Very stressful that one.
Wow. It is gettin' gnarly.
Oh, no.
I could hide behind that island.
Shut the boat down.
But, we can't stop hauling.
We don't even have half our gear on board.
At least we haven't hurt nobody.
Stack this pot, then everyone go hide in the bow,
and I'll... and I'll run up to the next pot
and I'll tell you when to come out.
[man shouting] Yes, sir!
I'm gonna have the guys hide up in the bow
and then I'm gonna run to the next pot.
Boys, that's pretty big.
[shouting] Yeah!
Back in action.
Let's go, brother!
Don't want no one to get hurt or...
green water hit 'em.
Looking good! Looking good!
Hell yeah! That's a good-looking pot.
Booyah, baby!
-Two-zero! -20. Two-zero. 20!
Whoo! 20.
Booyah, baby! 20!
Okay, run up and hide under the bow, guys.
[men shouting]
Now we're buckin' into it in between pots.
There's some big waves coming through.
Come out and throw the hook.
Okay, you hide.
Gear up and hide under the bow, guys.
It's like a chess game going on right now.
A gnarly chess game.
Chess game that I'm gonna win.
[narrator] 185 miles southeast...
[men yelling]
[narrator] ...on theWizard...
[Keith] We're racing to get our gear on.
At some point,
we're gonna have to, uh,
pull the plug and not fish,
because it's just gonna be too bad.
[narrator] Fighting the Kamchatka front tooth and claw
for every last dollar of his bairdi crab quota...
[Keith] Basically, I need a 50 average.
[narrator] ... Captain Keith leans on the last 40 pots
of a marathon string.
[man] Whoa!
That'll wake you up.
[engine sputtering]
[Keith] Damn it.
That's not what we're looking for.
Oh, boy.
How many you got?
[men yelling]
That's what we're looking for. Right on.
So far,
this string, 68, 50, 33.
[man] Whoa!
Real close to being right on the money on these numbers.
[deckhand speaking]
[Keith] Right on.
[man] Roger.
[Keith over PA]
[man laughing]
Hey, Robby, how confident are you and Jacob's knots now?
[Robby speaking]
You comfortable with him up on the stack?
All right.
We'll take you out of the outhouse and the dog house.
You're back on the stack, Jacob.
[Keith] We've had some issues with Jacob's knots,
but I think we've cured those problems.
[laughing]
So, we're gonna put him back up on the stack.
[men yelling]
Whoo!
[Keith over PA]
Six-eight. Right on.
[yelling]
I think that just did it right there.
Guys, you have officially hit your number.
And we got it on the last string.
We're going home, boys!
-Whoo! -Hell yeah!
[Keith] We hit our number with, uh,
one, two... three pots to spare.
[men yelling]
We've been struggling all season,
trying to teach Jacob to be a Wizardcrewman
and not just some roustabout that bounces from boat to boat.
Yeah!
That's what I'm talking about.
But, I think we've finally started
get him to turn the corner,
and become a pretty damn decent deckhand.
Another lesson learned.
One step close to becoming a captain.
We gotta get the hell outta here
so we don't get our asses kicked going into town.
[narrator] 50 miles southwest,
in the heart of the storm...
aboard theAleutian Lady.
We tightened up the turnbuckle on the cable stay.
We added on this line right here
as extra precaution.
That'll make it so it will get us through our next couple days.
And we'll be able to go to Dutch
and get everything inspected 100% properly.
It's time to go fishing.
We're coming up on a string
that I found this nice soft bottom
that has a good contour,
and I got high hopes for that area.
[narrator] Down a man on deck
and now a picking boom,
Captain Rick looks to his 130-pot string
to bring his season
and his purchase of theAleutian Lady to a close.
All right, guys...
Roger!
Crab hunker down
when you get storms for days and days.
So, there could be a lot of crab
right around all this gear.
I got 54,000 lb of bairdi to catch.
If I don't get it,
I won't be able to write a check for this boat.
Here we go.
[narrator] On theAleutian Lady...
Here we go.
Yeah!
Yeah, baby!
Yeah!
[Rick] Hell yeah!
Hell yeah to that.
[man] Get back, back, back.
Oh, look at these bad boys.
[deckhand yelling]
Yeah!
Four-one, baby.
Four-one.
[men yelling]
There's more.
Frickin' eh.
That's a lot of crab.
I feel good finally.
I feel relieved.
Yeah!
Whoo!
Four-six.
Forty-six.
It's time to rock and roll.
This is the point where we turn our season around.
This is the point
where I start making these guys money.
Where I start making money.
Whoo!
Such a burden relief right now.
[men yelling]
[narrator] 70 miles northeast.
All right, first one comin' up.
Mile and a half.
[narrator] On theBarbara J...
This is the one where Jack kinda went rogue and, uh,
set his own direction
when Harley wanted him to go the other way.
So, we'll see if he gets any crab out of it.
What's goin' on?
That's not where you were supposed to go.
I liked that area.
No, no.
That's bull [bleep], man.
Get-- Let me have this.
It should be right here, man.
Your tide's racing that hard,
it's holding the buoys down.
There's nice bottom all over earth
but I told you where I wanted the [bleep] damn gear.
Maybe next time, you think about
when I tell you to go a direction,
you'll go the right direction.
Hey, we're trying to find this string.
Maybe you guys can look over the portside.
Argh.
Now this should be right here.
I... I can't see nothing on this side at all.
[bleep]
This weather and tide are [bleep] up.
Come on, tide.
She's a roll-y son of a gun.
Hey, we think there-- our bags are down.
We're gonna shut down until I see a bag, so...
we'll get back up and going here in a bit.
You better have some crab in it.
That's the only way it's gonna save your ass.
This is gonna be a bitch pickin' up.
[narrator] In Dutch Harbor...
Pretty gnarly.
Not for the faint of heart.
Hey, Robby,
let's just get four lines to the dock.
Real quick.
[Robby] Roger!
[narrator] With his tanks brimming,
and his 170-pot stack acting as a sail,
Captain Keith fights for safe berth
in 45-knot winds.
Comin' in extremely hot to the dock.
I mean, here's the dock right here.
Holy [bleep].
Bring it forward.
Back up about 40 feet.
Back it up 40 feet.
No, Brick, walk it down the dock.
Walk that down the dock.
Yep. Yep.
Pull, pull, pull!
Still comin' back.
Hey, Mouse, tell me as soon as we're straight across there,
that's where we're gonna stay, all right?
Move it, boys.
Ooh!
[man] Oh, man.
[Keith] What happened?
[Teenah on phone] You're doing everything wrong.
You've got guys that can't count.
You got your rig set down wrong.
And what're you doing this whole time?
I'm looking for support, not [bleep] negativeness.
No, I'm not gonna quit.
Well, you know,
you're the one who makes the big money.
And if you can't find the crab,
then why do they have you doing this job?
All right.
Deal with my sisters
-and have to catch crab. -[Teenah laughs]
It's a pain in the ass.
You are not the nice sister.
By far not the nice sister.
[chuckles] Yes, I am!
Dude, no.
[laughing]
[narrator] Captain Jack holds down third place,
in spite of the scathing winds
blowing sisterly from the mainland.
[deckhand] A little bit more.
[narrator] On theWizard...
[loud snapping]
[Keith] What happened?
Did we just part a bow line?
No, that's a [bleep] line just exploded.
Wait a second here. Maybe back up real [bleep] hard.
I'm backing up.
Hey, let's go ahead and get lines back to the dock, okay?
Jacob, go ahead and take up all your slack.
All right, guys, be super safe with your fingers, okay?
Take that line fast, Jacob.
You gotta keep doublin' these lines up
until this boat is just piss-tight against the dock, all right?
[man] Roger!
I just realized that the danger doesn't end even at the dock.
There's nothing safe about tying a boat
this big and this heavy up at this time of night.
It is whether--
This surge is insane.
Thank you so much.
All right. Right on.
Good job down there, Jacob.
[Keith] Fortunately, we got about ten lines to dock.
Relieved to be in town
but gotta get the crab off in one piece.
[narrator] After a month-long fall effort,
Captain Keith bags all 50,000 lb
and $282,000 of his eastern bairdi quota.
-Money. -[laughing]
[narrator] Landing each deckhand a $15,000 share.
[Keith] This year on the boat,
really struggling having Jacob on here.
I... I think he's gonna be a deckhand.
At the same time,
you never get ornery with a captain.
You know, that doesn't fly.
[Jacob] I don't know if I'll be back on this boat.
I know I'll be back on the Bering Sea.
I might become a captain.
This is just one step on the ladder.
[narrator] 100 miles northeast...
[Rick] We're gonna head to the next one.
It's 5 miles away.
[narrator] On theAleutian Lady...
Hey, Pops.
[Rick] I'm hoping
I got enough crab in the pots.
I do believe we do got our quota in the pots.
It's just--
It's been pretty hard.
[Rick] But this winter, I'm coming back locked and loaded.
All right, Pops. I love you.
And tell Mom I love her.
[narrator] Determined and unflappable,
Captain Rick delivers 54,000 lb of bairdi crab quota.
[Rick] We were planning on having enough profit
to make our last payment to buy this boat.
There's really nothing else I can say on that.
But we can't have more seasons like this.
We need to catch the crab.
[narrator] 65 miles northeast...
[Harley speaking]
And hopefully, it'll start popping up here shortly.
[narrator] On theBarbara J...
Dark. Dark and nasty out. Hard to see anything.
Especially for him up there, I'm sure.
[Keith] I think I see something.
Right here.
Do you see it? Silo--
[Jack] Right there, right there, right there.
To starboard, 20 yards.
[man] Roger.
[Jack] We got her.
See if there's any crab down there.
-Holy mackerel. -Hell yeah.
Holy!
-[laughing] -You see that [bleep] pot?
Whoo!
Yeah.
[Harley] We're getting into some meat there.
[deckhand over comms]
-Sixty? -[Jack] Sixty.
-[chuckling] -Yeah!
Yeah!
-Oh, yeah. -Yeah!
[Jack] Honing in on 'em.
[Teenah's voice message box] Leave a message after the tone.
Yo, sis.
I know you're sleeping but, [bleep],
dude, I just hammered the crab.
Very time-consuming,
but we're putting crab in this.
Whoo!
[Jack] Thanks for your support.
Love ya.
Just got word that the processors are gonna quit processing.
[Johnathan] We miss that delivery date,
we might lose a bunch of crab.
It's just a bone in there that's--
How did you break that?
Whoa!
You're fighting to get the crab, number one...
Hey, listen, don't touch our gear.
[man screaming]
And then, you know, you're fighting time.