Okay, Joe, I'm gonna take this pot, put it right here.
Then what we do is cut the top off of it.
[man] Yes.
[Jake] Yup. Hey.
Let's get some bait chopping.
We're trying to create a bait cloud.
This will be one supersized bait bag.
Twelve feet high.
All right.
Get ready to set this pot.
[bleep] Leaning Tower of Pisa right there.
[sighs]
[Jake] You're keeping a massive amount of bait in one area
to keep 'em drawn to it.
[man speaking indistinctly]
[man] All right. Whoo!
Good work.
Good job, guys.
Bait pot, baby.
[Jake speaking on PA]
I'm proud of you. Thank you.
We'll see what happens.
[machine beeping]
[beeping speeds up]
[men chattering indistinctly]
[man 1] Calm down, man.
[Jake] Listen, go get Joe and everybody else up.
[man 2] All right.
[alarm ringing]
Help me.
I have a hose down there.
I can't tell if it's the clutch or...
the head.
[Jake] The head.
The head catches fire. That's a magnesium fire.
That means were making a call to the coast guard...
shutting down the engine room,
everybody goes to the top of the house,
and turn on the CO2 system.
I can't see. There's too much smoke down there.
I mean, even at this rate we wouldn't make it to the dock.
What you got, Mason?
-[Jake] So it's the gear box that got all wonky, -[man] Yup.
[Jake] ...caused the clutch to smoke
and catch fire.
[man] Yup.
[bleep]
[bleep] gearbox.
[Jake] We now have a mechanical.
Absolute [bleep] nightmare.
Hopefully we can get that fixed.
Then we'll go pick up the bait pot.
We'll find out if this thing even works.
[Rick] I'm getting thrown all over.
It's like a washing machine out here.
A full moon affects oceans, right?
I mean, it makes stronger tides,
stronger currents and...
It's gonna be ugly.
[narrator] On the Aleutian Lady...
All right, guys. Here we go. Tides are coming.
[Rick] We're at the abyss at about 88 fathoms.
This is not a normal area
for people to target for maritime.
So if we actually find something out here,
You gotta roll the dice to win.
[narrator] Facing powerful seven knot tides,
heightened by the full moon,
Captain Rick Shelford reaches
a remote, far western, 90 fathom hole
determined to sleuth out
this six figure quarry.
Here we go.
First pot don't look anything special.
Need some love.
[man] What do you think?
[man 2 speaking]
What the...
Oh, come on.
Somebody has, freakin', a string here.
Hey, guys. We got some buoys coming up
on the starboard side.
Can any of you read what the buoy says?
[man 1] I can't really make it out from here.
-[man 2] They can't? -[man 1] Yo.
-What... -[man 3] 30602.
[Rick] 3060...
Freaking Northwestern.
Are you serious?
[narrator] Just a few miles away...
Well... Oh, thank you.
-How long did this sit around? -It didn't.
-It's cold. -It's not.
It's not cold?
[Mandy] Your coffee machine is like 18 years old.
[laughs]
That's room temp.
[Mandy] Just drink your coffee.
-[man 1] Yeah! -[man 2] Whoo!
[narrator] On theNorthwestern...
[chattering indistinctly]
[Mandy] That? Good numbers.
See, there's a little volume right there.
Yeah, I think it's worth sticking around here.
I say you reset it.
Guys, I wanna grab this one
and bump it up. Then we're gonna send it back, okay?
There's little sign of life that way.
Roger.
[man] Throw it over.
[phone ringing]
Go ahead.
[on radio] Hey, Sig, it's Rick Shelford.
How you guys doing?
[Sig] Shelford. Ah!
[on radio] Oh, you know...
Your uncle and I go way back.
Towed us off the beach one time.
Yeah, I've heard about that.
That was a pretty cool story.
I see you have a string in the area.
I thought I'd give you a shout
and see how you guys are doing,
so I'm not wasting my time out here.
Well, we...
started off pretty good.
[man] Big draw!
But I'm not seeing anything right now.
[Rick] Roger.
[Rick speaking]
you give me a shout
and if I see any, uh...
I'll... I'll give you a shout.
[Sig] Well, I mean...
Honestly, you know, I'm on bad fishing
so we are gonna make a big move here.
Can't get out of the area
and so, you know, we just gotta do our thing.
[Rick] All right, man. Good luck.
All right, I'm out.
Say hi to your uncle.
So, I didn't wanna be evasive.
[man] Whoo, that's a good one.
Yeah, yeah!
But I do wanna be evasive right now.
So we're gonna turn around and settle it back.
Get, like, 30 pots in there. Something like that.
We'll hit that sliver of crab.
At least, that's my hope.
[Rick] You know,
two boats are better than one.
You can cover more area.
[laughs] This guy...
Sig just told me he's stacking out.
He spun around.
He's not running.
That right there was
a textbook blowoff to get me out of this area.
There ain't no way I'm gonna fall for that.
All right, boys.
[on radio] We're gonna be moving this stream to the east.
[man] Roger.
This could be what changes...
our very last season.
[narrator] On the golden king crab grounds...
[man] God, dagnabbit!
[chattering indistinctly]
Yeah, we'll stack that one, guys.
Stack it. Stack it, stack it.
We get nines, and eights and tens
and still, just, it's not gonna work.
[narrator] Aboard theTime Bandit...
[Johnathan] Full moon.
Big tides.
Weather's very dangerous.
[narrator] Charging into swift king tides
and the building sea,
Captain Johnathan Hillstrand loads on all his gear,
eager to change locations and his fortunes
as he hunts his final $300,000
of golden king crab.
[chattering indistinctly]
We'll just stack it, brothers.
Let's stack it.
Ready to stack it.
Make sure and stack it.
Stack it.
-Stack it, brothers. -[man] Yup.
Stack it.
They're big, big, big, big, big, big.
[man shouting indistinctly]
[Johnathan speaking indistinctly on radio]
Get nautical, brother.
[man] Got it.
Big wave, guys. Big wave, big, big, big, big.
[man] Oh, my God.
[man] Got it.
Big wave, guys. Big wave, big, big, big, big.
[man] Oh!
[man laughing]
[man sighs]
[bleep]
[laughs]
Get low, sailor.
[man] I can do nothing about that one.
The tides are getting stronger and stronger.
[all cheering]
[Johnathan] No way! What the hell!
Wow, we're out in the middle of nowhere.
-Whoa. -[chattering indistinctly]
[man shouting indistinctly]
-[cheering] -Whoa.
This little... This little bump here
is just full of crab.
[man] The biggest pot I've ever seen.
Well, like a ten, 12,
eight and then all of a sudden, that pot.
[laughs] That might be 100.
Man, that's a whole tableful.
Whoo!
Wow.
Yeah, let's get a count on that.
And...
-[man] That is 87. -[Johnathan] 80... 80...
Eighty-seven. [laughing]
No, way.
[vocalizing] Whoo!
No, way.
[laughs] Unbelievable.
Whoo!
We'll see what the next one's... See what that's got.
Hope it's got 80.
[man speaking indistinctly]
[man laughs]
What the hell!
Oh, [bleep]. Is that all?
I thought it was gonna be more than that.
[man groans]
[Johnathan] We gotta figure out what to do here.
Eighty-two crab was right there,
top of that hill
We had tens coming out the side, so...
I think I know how to skin this cap.
Who made that up?
At the helm, when you skin a cap.
I have no idea.
Whatever it takes, it's on Sam.
I can either put a bunch of pots,
and keep making a pass,
something like, four, five, make another pass, four, five,
or I can just do a spiral string.
Cover the whole top of that hill.
The problem is, when I retriece them,
I gotta reverse and pull 'em out one at a time.
That's with the quick tide.
It's not a conventional grab,
but if it works they'll all have crab in 'em.
We'll find out.
Stand by.
First one's coming up.
This is king tide.
Oh, boy.
Guess it got its name for a reason.
[narrator] On the Northwestern...
[Sig] Got a late night last night.
We've got a lot of gear to move.
West of us was dropping off.
It seems like there's movement to the east.
When you look at the plotter, I mean, it's pretty obvious.
I don't get it.
This guy is on the screen again.
I know when I'm being followed.
I've been doing this a long time.
[radio beeps and static buzzes]
Guys...
they've been trailing us like a shadow so...
I'm gonna slap 'em right now.
[chattering indistinctly]
[Mandy speaking]
I don't care who was first.
If you're gonna be that quick about it, you're stalking.
Do you understand what I'm saying?
That's not a coincidence.
You know what?
Watch this.
Ten degrees. There's 340.
320.
All right, now it's 270. Straight left.
Okay? And I turned as hard as I could
that way it was very noticeable on the radar.
Soon as we turned, I pulled back my speed,
now, I'm at seven knots.
So that's a typical speed to set your gear.
-Right? -Yes.
And now they're gonna think we're setting.
Only we're not setting.
Not one pot.
Let him dump his load.
Let him shoot the bullets out of his gun...
and they'll be empty of pots in the wrong spot...
and then we'll go about our business,
turn around and go the other way.
-Get it? -I get it.
[Sig] Give it a couple of seconds there,
and if that guy turns,
we got him.
[Rick laughs] This guy.
Sneaky, sneaky, Sig.
He just turned around.
He's going too slow to be running.
He is setting.
I... I'm flipping around.
All right, boys.
Get ready to set.
Bait 'em heavy and set 'em tight.
Roger.
[Rick] Yeah.
Sneaky, sneaky, Sig.
You didn't wanna partner up, well, now you got a neighbor.
Let's rock and roll, guys.
[man] Whoo-hoo! Going over.
[Sig] Just watch the radar.
He's actually changing course.
-See, right... [laughing] -What?
No way.
-Watch. Watch. -He didn't even wait for us to leave?
[Sig] Watch, watch, watch.
-[Mandy] That is so bad. -It's so bad. Now watch.
-How's he falling for that? -Watch the speed.
-I already know his speed too. -No.
-Wow. -Seven knots.
What does that tell ya?
Can't trick an old dog.
Well, that and you... I... Well, thank you.
[both laughing]
[Sig] You guys ready?
-[man 1] Oh, yeah. -[man 2] Oh, yeah.
[Sig] About half a mile here.
[Jake] Clutch heated up,
caught fire.
Started to catch the gearbox on fire.
We're all right, but we'll just be left
with our starboard generator for hydraulic power.
[narrator] On theSaga...
[Jake] It's 3,200 pounds of steel,
2500 pounds of bait.
The gearbox is held together by duct tape and spray paint.
Tides are ripping in.
It's running like a river right now.
Set the bait pot in the water.
Joe'll pick up the gear and hopefully it's full.
[narrator] Combating the deluding effects
of the lunar tidal surge,
Captain Jake prepares to haul a string
set near his bait pot.
Three tons of steel and concentrated fish guts
designed to ensnare his 100,000 pound quota.
[Jake] This pot, it will draw and take
my area of fishing
from this small...
to this big,
'causing the surrounding pots around the bait...
to start catching.
[man 1] Come on, baby.
[man 2] Here we go. What do we got?
[man 3 shouting] Come on down.
-[man 2] Yeah, baby! -[all cheering]
That's not even 24 hours.
[man 3] We got some. We got something on here.
-[man 1 laughing] -[Jake] Got a nice one right there.
-[man 3] Yeah, baby... -[all cheering]
-[man on radio] 72. -No, way.
[all cheering]
[men cheering]
-Nice! -Whoo!
[woman] Yeah! All right, guys.
That's a good one, right there.
[Jake] Eighty-four, eight-four.
Oh, my God, that's probably the biggest pot of the season.
Look at that.
Yeah, whoo!
It's official, the bait pot worked.
But I'm greedy.
And I wanna fill this boat.
We're gonna pick it up, reset it,
double-bait, so it's getting the bait cloud on a big ball,
having it emanating.
The bigger the ball,
the easier it is for them to go to it.
-[man 1] You guys ready? -[man 2] Ready.
[man 1] Let's do it, Jake!
[Jake over radio] Currents are running real hard.
I'mma go slow on it so you can take it straight.
[man] All right, Jake!
[Jake over radio] All right, guys, it's time to do it.
[man 1] Yeah!
-Oh, you got it. -[man 2] Here you go.
[man 1] All right, let's roll!
Bait pot's in the block now.
Hear the strain on the block?
[whirring]
It's 5,500 pounds
down a generator,
and I've never lifted anything this heavy out of the water.
Oh [bleep]!
Oh!
-Oh, [bleep]. -[man screams]
-[man] Hey, hold on. -[Jake over radio] Hang on, hang on!
Whoa, whoa, whoa!
What? I got... It's not in the coiler.
I'm just trying to keep tension on it. It started to roll up.
All right, keep the tension on it.
Popped out of the block.
The block's pulling it but it's the coiler, right here.
We need it to pull more
so it stays wedged in the block.
You have to have tension.
If there's slack in this line
or if the coiler's not pulling hard enough, it slides, slips.
[man shouts]
[man over radio] I can't get past the knot!
Not gonna happen!
-[bleep]! -What do you want to do?
What do you want to do?
[Jake over radio] Damn.
All right.
Let it go, guys.
[man] Do it. Do it real fast!
Bags out!
[sighs] So sorry. I was doing the best I could.
It's not your fault. I overloaded it.
Start setting these back.
[man] Put away!
[Jake] At least go through this twice.
Hopefully I will make this profitable.
[Johnathan] Let me set on course for adventure!
All right, the 17 coming around.
[narrator] On the Time Bandit...
[Johnathan speaking]
See if this works.
Don't try this at home.
Only theTime Bandit can do this kind of stuff.
Let's do this!
It's gonna suck all these crab up here all on one pick.
Twenty pots, boom.
Going over.
[man] Whoo!
[Johnathan] Lot of tides.
You can't drive through this.
There's just no doubt about it,
get in line, I will.
I'm doing the circle.
I'll be circling out like this.
[narrator] Rather than pack his gear
in a traditional north-south grid...
They need to get one over every tenth of a mile.
So they're gonna really have to hustle fast.
Push, push, push, push!
[narrator] ...Captain Johnathan deploys a spiral string.
The goal? Harvest from the outside in,
avoiding the web of lines at the center.
[Johnathan over radio] Now we can't do this quick enough, guys.
Okay, going over.
D-42.
Hey, you guys got to be a little bit faster.
Go, go, go, go, go!
Okay, dump it. Go ahead, dump, dump, dump, dump.
Dump it, dump it, dump it.
It's gonna be a lot of pots here.
Okay, going over.
There we go.
Coming around.
[man] Wow.
There you go, boys.
Okay, going over, going over.
Hit it! Whoo!
Uh-uh-uh!
Hooyah! Baby!
Let's go!
Good action, brothers! Good action!
It's not gonna be easy to pull 'em.
[Johnathan laughs]
This could be the smartest thing I've ever done,
could be the stupidest thing I've ever done.
We'll find out.
[narrator] On the eastern side of the abyss,
aboard theNorthwestern...
Ooh, that's not good.
Not even half a dozen crab in that whole pot.
We got to stack this string.
[narrator] After faking a set in the west
to keep Captain Rick of his secret spots, in the east...
Whoo! Four.
[narrator] Sig finds his secret...
Not looking good.
[narrator] ...isn't worth keeping anymore.
[Sig] We know there were sign of life to the east here earlier,
so I don't know what's going on.
And the thing that's bugging me, is that Aleutian Lady...
I mean, we had 'em on a decoy set,
but the guy is still there.
[narrator] Three miles west...
[man shouts] Whoo!
Oh, hell yeah.
[man] There it is!
We'll take a 26 over single digits any day of the week.
You weren't seeing a sign, Sig? Yeah, right, man.
Boom, crabber chain.
[man over radio] Crab count, 3-4.
Wow.
-[radio beeps] -[Sig over radio] You got me here, Rick,Aleutian Lady.
This is gonna be interesting.
Hey, Sig, how you doing, man?
Oh, we're doing all right.
Uh, I know I'm seeing you on the radar quite a bit.
At the end of the day, I was thinking
maybe we can stop all that
and share a few numbers.
[Rick] I'm very skeptical.
So now you want to partner up there?
There's something sneaky going on.
[Sig] I was thinking
maybe we can stop all that
and share a few numbers.
So now you wanna partner up there?
There's something sneaky going on.
Hey, man, it's hard for a zebra to change its stripes, okay?
But I'll just swallow my pride a little bit
and maybe we can see how it goes? What do you think?
[laughs]
You know, Sig...
These crab are moving around quite a bit.
So I'm game as long as we, um,
we actually team up and make it a real deal here.
[Sig over radio] Okay, well,
I've already got these east,
so why not... Let's just make it simple, you know?
Why don't we just head towards each other,
see what's going on in-between,
and we'll just kinda split the difference here. Is that fair?
Roger that, man, let's find out what's in between us.
[Sig] Okay.
We'll catch you when we get around here again
and get through the pots, all right?
[Rick] Roger that. Sounds good, man.
I mean, if he can help us out getting on 30 and 40 counts,
hell yeah, I'm down for that.
[Mandy sighs] Now we want to partner with him?
It's quite simple, we need both pieces of the map,
you know, to find the X that marks the spot, right?
I got no shame.
[narrator] On the golden king crab grounds...
-Operation Corkscrew. -[man shouts over radio]
[Johnathan] The hair's standing on my neck. Whoo-hoo!
[narrator] ...aboard theTime Bandit...
It could be blowing, from really good reeling gear,
and suck all them crab up in one whack.
Pretty proud of myself here.
Put 20 pots under one little spot
with half a mile square, I'm gonna have 20 pots.
See there's a pot in the center.
There's three layers,
so every 562 feet, we have a pot spiral down.
Problem with this is I got to pull on the outside first,
down current... I got to be down current.
So many pots there, I mean, you can't even drive through it.
[narrator] In peak tidal conditions,
Captain Johnathan attempts to unravel his spiral set,
hopefully without binding the 1,600 feet of floating line in this propellor.
[Johnathan] I gotta get this one. I got to make sure I back out this way.
And I don't get over here or here.
These are literally just 500 feet away.
Here we go.
[man] He's got all of our gear in this corkscrew maneuver
and in such a small area.
Whoo!
Hopefully we don't get all tangled up
and we catch some crab on it.
Oh, we're getting... We're getting too far in here.
Sucking me right into the gear,
so I gotta be real cowboy here.
It ain't gonna be easy.
Okay, throw up, Freddy, throw up.
Okay, I'm gonna back up
and then I'm gonna tell you to start roll 'em in.
[man] Let's go!
Okay, guys, bring it aboard.
-[man 1] Let's go, man! -[man 2] Yeah, baby!
-[man cheering] -[man 2] Yeah, baby!
[cheering indistinctly]
See what we get out of this, here it comes.
[cheering continues]
Big load, big load!
Give us a big load, baby!
-Big one, big pot! Whoa! -[Johnathan over radio] Yeah, baby!
Yeah, baby! Yeah, baby! Yeah, baby!
[man] Whoo!
[man 1] Yeah, muchomale and female.
-[man 2] Muchofemale. -[man 1] Muchofemale.
How many did we get in that one?
-Thirty-eight! -[Johnathan over radio] Thirty-eight!
-Three-eight... -Thirty-eight, John! Baby, yeah!
[all cheering]
Thirty-eight! Thirty-eight crabs!
Whoo-hoo, it's working.
Get ready, we're gonna... We're gonna go back in
and grab another one.
Let's go!
Whoo-hoo. That's a good use of the pot there. Wow!
[exhales] Thank you, God. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Nineteen laps to go.
Just gotta go slow here, come around.
Don't freak out.
This pot here is certainly 500 feet over.
Then I got to throw on the brakes right now.
Okay, don't miss, Freddy. You gotta get this.
Whoa, big boy!
Big golden crab. Muchonumber.
[indistinct]
Okay, we got it.
We got it, we got it, it's in the block.
We gotta go back, back the [bleep] out of this.
Start bringing it in.
Let me get my coat back on.
Ay-ay-ay.
Yeah.
Pucker factor, the pucker factor is real.
[man 1] Oh, no!
[man 2] Watch out, hold on!
Huh.
[man speaking]
That's not good.
[man speaks indistinctly]
[Johnathan over radio] Pull her in.
Gotta get this thing in, whatever you do.
[man] Going down to grab it.
[Johnathan over radio]
I gotta put it in reverse.
When you feel that tension release, yank on that thing.
-[chattering indistinctly] -[man groans]
-Yeah, baby! Come on! -[man groans]
Come on, guys.
-Come on! -[man] Come on!
[man] Tug of... Tug of war!
[groans]
Yank on 'em like the boat depends on it.
[man grunts]
[narrator] For thousands of years,
what simple joy has every captain shared?
Grossing out the new guys.
[Rick] You know, the greenhorn one time,
he asked me how I was so good at fishing
and how I could always find what I'm looking for.
I go, "You know, my grandpa passed on the secret. He said,
'Your nutsack is really sensitive.'"
I go, "All I do is, I go out there.
I take the deck hose and I put it into a bucket
and I dip my nutsack in this bucket.
And when it tingled, I knew where there was cod."
And this kid was like, "Really? You do that?"
I go, "Yeah, man. Do you wanna go set the bucket up for me?"
[laughs] He went out there, set the bucket up.
I just wanted to slap him. Dude, don't be an idiot.
[laughs] I mean, come on.
So, yeah...
I can imagine my kids listening to that like, "What?" [laughs]
[narrator] Rick Shelford, ladies and gentlemen, having a ball.
[Johnathan over radio] Come on, guys!
[chattering indistinctly]
Yank on it like the boat depends on it!
[grunting]
Yeah, baby!
Come on, come on!
[man screams]
[Johnathan over radio] We good?
[man cheering]
[Johnathan] He got it.
Ay-yay-yay.
Almost ran over.
[exhales]
Can never get no rest around here.
Ugh, never get a break.
[man] Come to papa.
[Johnathan over radio] Keep that thing coming up.
Okay.
Come on, baby.
Let's see what we get out of this, here it comes.
[man] Oh, baby!
[Johnathan] Oh, yeah, look at that one!
[laughs] Wow.
Jackpot!
[all cheering]
These are big pots.
[all cheering]
Big pot, a big pot!
[screaming]
[Johnathan] It's a lot of crabs.
[laughs]
That's smoking, man.
[all cheering]
[Johnathan] That little corkscrew is working.
Know your mama!
[narrator] On theSaga...
[man] It's coming up.
What do we got?
[man groans]
[man] What is this trash?
No, not good.
Not good at all.
[man] Oh, man.
[man vocalizes sad music]
It's looking pretty washed out, Jake!
[Jake] It's gonna take me a long time to recover
from losing that bait pod.
No good.
[bleep] damn it.
It's like we had the genie in the bottle,
and we asked for infinite wishes.
But then I lost the [bleep] damn genie and the bottle.
[groans]
Where's all the crab at?
[Jake] We gotta start all over now.
[bleep] bairdi. [bleep] damn it.
[man 1] Some crab in there.
-[man 2] We got something. -[man 1] All right.
Twenty-six.
You say 26 in that one?
[man speaking]
We'll take a 26 over single digits any day of the week.
[man 1] We got some, we got some, baby!
[man 2] We're okay!
[man 3] Crab count 2-9, 29.
Two-nine?
-[man 1] Two-nine. -[man 2] Yes, sir.
The last pot had 29 in it.
[man] Oh, hell, yeah.
[man cheers]
They're talking about how big the crab are and how nice.
[call ringing]
Hey, what's going on?
What are you seeing? What kind of numbers?
[Rick speaking over phone]
How you doing?
So...
We're seeing a little better than that, uh...
[man cheers] Yeah!
There we go!
Got 'em!
Right now, on that 16-hour, uh...
I'm seeing up to mid-60s.
[Sig speaking over phone]
[Rick] Haul into the east,
we started seeing good counts at about 69 fathoms.
[Sig] It's an edge. It's all it takes, right?
Well, right here, right now,
you know, they're cooking, so, come and get some.
[Rick speaking over phone]
Let's get this partnership on a roll
and it's... It's going good.
So, thank you much
and hope you keep me posted on what y'all think.
Roger, Roger. All right, pal, I'm out.
He'll keep moving in. He's gonna find 'em
and then we do have a little intel.
We're all good. Everybody wins.