[man] Whoo!
[Keith] We all think we're impervious to pain.
But at some point, you start
to wear down.
[man] Ah.
[Keith] I am struggling to find crab.
[man groans]
[Keith] And every single wave is getting heavier and heavier
on my mind.
There's literally no help out here.
Not in this weather.
[Sig] Hang on!
- [man groans] - [Rick] Watch yourself, guys.
[crew yelling]
[bleep]
It's all the way through the skin and through that nail.
[man] Watch out, watch out! You got this!
You're only capable of so much.
Oh, hang on! [bleep]
Heads up, heads up, heads up! Watch out!
[indistinct]
[Keith] The suffering has to end.
[narrator] 230 miles northwest of Dutch Harbor.
All right, when you guys are ready, I'm on course, OK?
Just stay serious and stay on point,
because you're gonna get [bleep] hammered out there.
[Freddy] Aye!
On the Wizard.
[Freddy] Whoo!
[Dakota] Whoo! Big 'un!
That was pretty crazy.
[Keith] They're up to 30 footers now.
Some of these might even be 40 foot.
It's an angry ocean right now.
Based on the water temperatures, I set the gear
right here on the edge of this depth-- 600 feet.
We've had some really hot fish in here before.
Let's go get 'em, boys.
Burning $5,000 in fuel per day, forcing a path
between towering breakers,
Captain Keith Colburn scours the edge of the restricted zone
for his final 360,000 pound, $2.2 million
bairdi crab quota.
Come on, buddy.
[Freddy speaks]
[Dakota] This is it.
All right guys, let's get some crab on this boat right now!
- [man #1] Oh! - [man #2] Oh, no!
[Keith] That's not good.
[man #1] Whoa!
Oh.
[man #1] There it is.
- [Freddy] OK. - You roped?
[Freddy] Ah.
[Keith] I'm getting nothing.
Oh, man. I had high hopes for this gear.
[Keith speaks]
Oh.
Hit after hit.
I'm gonna turn a little bit.
Come on, baby, come around. Come around, come around.
Whoa, hang on! [bleep]
Heads up, heads up, heads up! Watch out!
[crew yelling]
[man] Oh!
[bleep]
Give me a heads up. Everybody OK?
Head check.
Count heads for me, Soper.
[Keith speaks]
[Soper speaks]
Oh, what the [bleep]?
[Keith speaks]
Everybody get off deck.
Let's go. Everybody in.
[crew groaning and talking indistinctly]
[Lynn speaks]
- [bleep] - I gotta check on the guys.
Move! Move!
[bleep], man. [bleep]
[Keith] That came out of nowhere, man.
[Freddy] Right. Tell me about it, man.
- Did you get knocked down? - ...so hard.
Yeah, [bleep]. That much water come rushing
through that corner by that crane base.
- And? - [Freddy] He got smacked too.
- [Lynn] Yeah. - [Keith] How you doing?
[Keith] You're all banged up on the right side, though.
Looks like you got a [bleep].
- [Lynn] Maybe. - [Keith] Contusion or something.
[bleep]
You know, I don't know what to say.
[softly] OK, here we go.
[coughs]
[Keith normally] I'm having like flashbacks right now.
You know, I took that wave years ago and I couldn't see my crew.
Heads up on the bow. Watch out.
Hang on! Hang on!
[bleep]
[Keith] The last few days have been hell.
The crew's getting hit on deck, wave after wave.
I'm just doing my best to continue the hunt.
I just...
I need to compose myself.
86 miles east.
[Rick] Dear Heavenly Father,
I just pray you'll keep us all free from harm.
Keep us safe. Nobody get injured.
Amen.
On the Aleutian Lady.
[man #1] Whoo.
All right, guys, first spot coming up.
Whoo!
So we're on day four of this weather front.
This storm is just wearing us down.
It's kicking our ass,
to say it lightly.
We're spot checking our string we set to the north.
We were seeing a lot of sign, really big crab,
and a lot of 'em.
So I'm hoping we'll run into a good biomass.
After shuffling 60 pots above his best fishing this season,
Captain Rick Shelford bets on remote grounds to point him
to his remaining $1 million
of Northern red king crab.
To get our quota done, I got a lot of work I gotta do
and not a lot of time to do it.
[man #1] Oh, my gosh.
[Rick] That's not gonna cut it.
I'm starting to feel the pressure.
[man #1 speaks]
[Rick] Not good.
Big wave. Watch your rail.
Watch your rail.
- [bleep] - [man #1] Watch out!
Go, go, go, go.
- [man #1 yells] - [man #2] Oh!
Just be careful, guys.
[Rick speaks]
- [man #1] Come on, crab! - [man #2] Crab come on,
come on, come on!
[man #1] Whoo-hoo-hoo!
- Boom-gah, boom-gah! - Oh, damn!
Good pot.
Well, that one's a lot better.
[man #1] Yee haw!
[man #2] Whoo-hoo-hoo! That's it!
[crew cheer]
[man #1] Here come the Papa.
[man cheers]
We'll take that, we'll take that all day long.
[crew continue cheering]
Whoo!
Showing good sign the closer we get towards
the pot storage area.
Back when there was 400 of us crab boats fishing king crab,
over half of them would bring out 100, 120 pots
and store 'em in the pot storage area.
And sometimes, when guys would do that, they'd haul up
their open door pots with no bait and get a bunch of riders
on it. And then they would know,
"Hey, there's crab here."
Kind of a free, cheating way of prospecting.
[man #1 speaks]
It's getting tight?
[Rick speaks]
OK, well, I guess we're hung up on the bottom.
Hey guys, keep an eye on the starboard rail as I pull.
I'm gonna open it up just a skosh.
[man #1] Roger!
Damn it.
Oh, [bleep]
There's a big wave. Watch yourself, guys.
[crew yell]
On the Aleutian Lady.
Oh, [bleep]. There's a big wave.
Watch yourself, guys.
[crew yell]
[man #1] Watch out, watch out, watch out!
[man] Whoa!
[bleep]
Everybody good?
[man #1 speaks]
[man #2] Roger!
Good thing they were all hidden up front.
That thing would have hurt somebody.
- [man #1] Oh! - [man #2] Whoa!
[man #1 speaks]
It's free?
[man #1 speaks]
[Rick] Being in a storm, hung up on bottom,
is not what we wanna do.
Watch the rail. Watch the rail, guys.
[man yells]
Here we go, pot's up.
[man #1] What the [bleep]?
[man #2 speaks]
- What the [bleep]? - [man #3] Another pot!
What's up?
[man #1] Oh...
[man #2 speaks]
What the [bleep]?
[man #1] Bring it forward a bit!
- [man whoops] - That pot is mangled.
[man #2] That's [bleep] gnarly, right?
I've never seen the [bleep] like that, look at it.
[Rick] So I guess we weren't caught up in the mud.
We must have been caught up on another pot.
[man #1] Money on the floor! Money on the floor!
Well, I guess there's crab in the pot, though.
[Rick speaks]
- Try to clear this area out. - [man #1] All right.
[Rick] We're gonna rig up that junk pot we just hauled up
and we're gonna set it.
Let it hit the bottom and right along the path I wanna set,
we're just gonna drag that pot and try to clear away.
That way, when I set my pots, I know at least that path,
it'll be clear of any pots.
All right, we're just about on course.
All right, let her go. Let her go.
I know it sounds nuts, but, man, I wanna get these crabs.
42 miles west...
[man #1] Yeah, buddy!
...on the bairdi grounds...
Uh, hang on.
...aboard the Northwestern.
The weather's getting pretty bad.
The sea's getting big.
OK, set it when you're ready.
[Clark] Dropping low.
[Karl] Setting [bleep] weather and the pots are moving.
- A little nerve-wracking. - Going over.
[Sig] We're gonna set within this ridge here up in this gully,
but I'm in a ditch here, so boat's awful rolly.
I'd like to get it north.
We're trying to set for crab, not for weather,
so they're just gonna have to hang on.
With 30,000 pounds of bairdi still to catch,
Captain Sig Hansen prepares to set on an underwater cliff line
that runs perpendicular to the weather,
gambling he can keep his crew safe
from the 20-foot swells.
We've got to get the pots off the deck immediately
before this thing really picks up.
[man] Whoo!
[groans]
I'm not sure how much more we can do this.
[man #1] Whoo!
[man #2] Whoo.
OK, it's getting stupid.
[man yells]
[Sig] Hang on.
[man groans]
[Clark speaks]
- [Clark] Get out of here. - [Clark speaks]
[groans]
- Is he OK? - [Clark speaks]
[Sig speaks]
Norm, come up here and watch the wheel.
- I wanna see what's going on. - [Norm] OK.
Swap. [groans]
- [Clark] Sig. - [Clark speaks]
[Sig] [bleep] Yeah.
On the Northwestern.
- [Clark] Oh. - [Clark speaks]
[Clark speaks]
[Sig] Can you move it?
[Karl speaks]
[Sig groans]
Look at the nail, man.
We're gonna need antibiotics.
I mean, it's all the way through the skin
and through that nail.
We've gotta get him on something.
[Karl speaks]
[Sig & Karl speak]
What happens if you take it?
- That's all you know? - [Karl] Yeah.
Augmentin is a go-to antibiotic,
but it contains amoxicillin,
high risk for anyone allergic to penicillin.
[Sig] Let's see what we got.
[Sig] But what's-- what's this?
But I don't know if this is in the same category as that one
that he's allergic to.
We gotta make a couple of phone calls before we, uh,
give you anything, OK?
OK.
It's not good, Norm.
No, he's out.
Just tell the guys, take a break.
OK.
[Sig] So, I'm gonna send a photo to Mandy
and see if she can help track down
what we're looking for.
[Clark speaks]
[Sig] Heading to town, that's just gonna cost us time and money.
Another 20 grand out the window.
Realistically, I should probably take him in
if I can't get these antibiotics.
45 miles southwest...
...on the Wizard.
[indistinct yells]
Now it's gonna be tough out here with the weather conditions
not being real optimal.
[man #1] Lower away.
[Keith] I'm just beating my head against the wall.
We're not making money.
We're just making ourselves miserable.
Everybody's battered and beaten.
With the Bering Sea's savage northern waters
taking a toll both on deck...
[crew yelling indistinctly]
...and on a skipper still recovering from
hospitalization last season...
[coughs]
...Captain Keith Colburn shells off 50 pots in the teeth
of 25-foot breakers.
[tense music builds]
Heads up! Heads up!
Coming at ya!
Guys!
[faint yells]
I don't-- I just-- you know what?
I gotta just get through this.
Then I calm down and think about my own heart rate.
[sighs]
[man #1] Get her in! Get her in!
[man #2] Whoo! Moolah.
[indistinct]
Woah.
I don't think I can do this right now.
I don't think I can drive this boat.
[Keith speaks]
[man #1] Yep.
Whew. That's all I got.
Whew. Enough's enough.
I'm taking this boat to town.
[soft, eerie music plays]
[dial tone ringing]
- [Monte speaks] - Hey, Mouse, you got me?
Hey, can you give me a minute?
Mouse,
I need you up here.
48 miles east.
[phone buzzes]
- Oh, hey, Mandy. - [Mandy speaks]
Did you tell him about the allergy issue?
Azithromycin?
I just gotta go look in the chest and see if we have
that, all right? I'll keep you posted.
Thank you.
All right, I'm out.
Clark?
[Sig speaks]
- [Clark] Roger! - OK.
We were setting gear, pot came loose, and it landed on
Karl's toe, and it is bad. Karl's got an allergy, uh,
you know, for some of these antibiotics.
If we don't have the proper antibiotics on board,
we're gonna have to go in and cut the trip short.
It's just, we will be taking two steps back
going in early like that.
[Sid exhales]
Yeah.
I mean, we're gonna have to probably head in here.
- [Clark] All right. - All right.
- All right, thanks, Clark. - Yep.
[sighs softly]
Unless we can find somebody else that's got that stuff.
[Nico] Apparently, we are the Bering Sea garbage men.
We're out here hauling junk pots out of the ocean.
[Rick speaks]
I gotta get out of here.
I can't waste any more time hanging up.
[man #1] All right.
[Sig speaks]
Yeah, Sig, I got you. What's up?
Karl got a foot injury. I'm looking for an antibiotic.
It's called Azithromycin,
[Rick speaks]
I'll go look and see what I got.
[bleep]
[Rick] This thing took a spill and a half.
I'll be here in the storage area all night.
If you wanna come up and meet me, we can transfer it over.
Perfect, Rick. I appreciate it.
All right. I'll chat at you here later.
[Sig speaks]
[Sig] He's not gonna come to me. I gotta go to him.
That's just gonna cost us time and money.
The pots are soaking and hopefully picking up
all the crabs that are here.
It's a lot of things that need to line up here still.
In Dutch Harbor.
[faint yells]
It's amazing what little things get into your mind.
I haven't been this beat up in a while.
We've got about 25,000 pounds on board.
We're talking the worst trips I've ever had, not only for
fishing, but also for weather.
I almost took out my entire crew with a wave.
Mental exhaustion. It's overwhelming.
[Monte] How's it going, bro?
[Keith] Welcome aboard.
I haven't been this beat up in a while.
Right now, for me, the right call
is to hand off the boat to you.
- [Monte] I'm with ya. - Mouse, I'm not giving up.
[Monte] OK, I get it, man. Hang in there.
- Take care of my girl. - [Monte] I will.
And the guys and everything else.
All right.
[Monte] I'm proud of him for
seeing the-- the signs that he, you know, he needs to go home
for a bit.
It's not easy.
We have a good-looking squad on here.
And we're gonna go fishing and hope for the best.
220 miles northeast...
...on the Northwestern.
Hey, Rick, I see ya. We're coming up to you now.
[Rick speaks]
Y'all have the guys
get ready to throw the case over.
Uh, stand by.
Well, Karl got his toe smashed, so we're in dire need
of antibiotics here.
Rick happened to have that "arythmiacin" or whatever
it's called on board.
Yeah, guys, let's get ready to go.
Sig's coming up.
Ready when you are, Cap.
[Rick] Roger. Let her go.
- Let her go. - Whoa!
OK, it's in the water.
- [Sig speaks] - [Clark] I see it.
- You got it? - [Clark] Yep, I got it.
OK.
Get him his drugs.
[Clark] All right.
[Sig speaks]
I know you'd do the same.
[Sig laughs]
[Clark] The antibiotics.
Are you fishing here?
[Rick speaks]
I mean, I've drug up so many pots connected to ours.
Yeah.
I think we gotta pack out.
Just like a pot graveyard here.
[Sig] There's a bunch of landmines in there, you know?
They start snagging up.
I mean, I've got marks from way back.
Every obstacle is on my plotter.
[Sig speaks]
I can lead the way.
- It would be a huge help, man. - [Sig] OK.
[Sig speaks]
[Rick speaks]
All right, guys. Hey, change of plans.
Let's get ready to set, load the launcher.
I don't need to be losing any pots doing this.
At about 200 feet, set the first one.
And three, two, one. Set it.
It's over.
[Sig] The next one, starboard, hard over.
Just keep turning. Just stay on me.
[Rick] Roger.
- [man #1 speaks] - Yeah, [bleep].
[bleep] there it goes.
Three, two, one, go!
It's over.
[Sig speaks]
All right, port following you, coming around.
It's a little bit more difficult trying to stay close
to Sig when it's choppy out.
I have to stay as close as humanly possible,
without putting my bow into his stern so I don't set in
the wrong spot.
Three, two, one, set.
Go!
No, I'm wrong. Don't set.
Don't set.
- [buzz] - [bleep]
[man #1 yells]
- [Rick speaks] - I'm kicking it out of gear.
On the Aleutian Lady.
[Sig] Oh, no, I'm wrong. Don't set.
Don't set.
- [bleep] - [man #1 yells]
- [Rick speaks] - I'm kicking it out of gear.
Let's go. Let's go.
- [man #1] Got it? - [man #2] Yeah, right.
[Rick speaks]
[bleep], come on!
[man #1 speaks]
[Noah speaks]
Copy that. We're clear.
- [Nico] Hey, nice save. - [Noah] Yeah.
Whoo.
[Rick speaks]
I'm sorry, I thought it was time to put it in the water, but...
All right, we'll get it back ready to rock, and let's do it.
All right, we're gonna pick the pace up a little here.
Just stay with me.
And now!
[buzzes]
[Sig speaks]
- [Sig] Now. - [buzzes]
[Sig speaks]
- [Sig] Right now. - [buzzes]
[man #1] Going over.
Getting the rhythm here.
[Sig speaks]
one. OK, starboard set.
- [buzzes] - [man #1] Going over.
- [Sig] Go. - [buzzes]
- Set. - [buzzes]
All right, Sig, that was the last one.
Thank you for the help.
- [Sig speaks] - [Sig] That's the maze.
Now you got it on your plotter, so keep it in your back pocket.
[Sig speaks]
[Rick] I hope this works out. I can't lose a bunch of gear.
[Sig] We got what we needed.
Let's just go see if there's some crab in this gear.
Fingers crossed that, you know,
Karl doesn't have any issues.
Karl's toes already look weird enough.
I don't need an infection on top of it.
[Monte] OK, we'll go here pretty soon, as soon as they got that
[bleep] put away. - [Freddy] Roger that.
We're ready, Captain.
[Monte] I just pulled this up.
This is a closed, [bleep] hard area.
So he just hauled these [bleep] crab out of there.
And there's still some here. You know, I can't--
I can't just go [bleep] yank those.
[Monte] There's a closed area up here.
It's very defined.
You cannot go in there.
Those bearings are in that log.
Fish and Game presently has their hands on 'em.
[Monte] Well, am I gonna stick my [bleeps] neck out
for this [bleep]?
[Monte speaks]
Realizing that Keith set 50 baited pots
in an out-of-bounds area,
Captain Monte's personal favor for his brother is
starting to look like a personal liability.
[Monte] Hey, bro.
Give me a call as soon as you can.
It's important.
Pick me up?
OK, get my thruster going, and we'll get out of here.
[Freddy] We're going fishing, baby.
[Monte] You can see that this is the closed area,
that orange line.
Not only had my brother hauled
and set and retained crab in that closed area,
but there's still gear in there.
They're illegally set, soaking up crab.
We got about probably close to 350,000 pounds to catch.
And we'll just hope that, uh,
there's some leniency.
[Rick speaks]
[Rick] Bad weather.
I mean, it's just been kicking our ass.
We're gonna find out if this path Sig led me on is gonna
get me some crab, or I'm gonna catch a bunch of lost pots.
Come on, baby. Come to Papa.
[crew whoop and cheer]
Ooh, that's a good pot.
[crew continue cheering]
[Keith] Ha ha!
Good morning! Whoo-hoo!
Wow!
Yeah!
[man #1] Yeah!
Holy king crab, baby! There we go.
[man #2] Whoo!
Oh, the whole door is full. Going up the sides.
[crew continue cheering]
[man #1] There we go, baby.
Oh, my gosh. Hell yeah!
[man #2] Wow!
Oh, thank you, Lord. Hell yeah.
Whoo!
[crew whoop]
Yeah, baby.
Cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching.
It just keeps getting better.
I mean, there's a lot of crab in that table.
That looks really good.
[man #1 yells]
[man #1] Yeah, baby!
Sig actually showing us a path was really, really helpful.
We got the meds for Karl so we can get him on
that antibiotic, and...
all we gotta do is get to our own gear now and see if
there's something in it.
[man #1] Whoo!
[music builds]
[man] Whoo!
[Clark] Yeah!
That looks good. That's what we need.
Oh, yeah. It's a nice bairdi.
[man #1 speaks]
Oh, yeah, we're in 'em.
[crew cheer]
[Sig] That looks good. That's what we need.
Deep was the right move.
I can try to go out there, I just don't wanna let them
haul shorthanded when the weather is bad.
Yeah, we're back.
[Clark] [bleep] yeah, dude. Let's go.
- [all] Yeah! - Just be careful.
[Karl speaks]
[man #1] Oh, yeah!
I was a little out of the way to help out Rick
but not really.
It was worth every minute, you know?
He helped us out.
That's how it goes around.
[crew cheer]
- [man #2] Oh, yeah! - [man #3] Oh, yeah!
[Sig] But we've got a long ways to go.