[dramatic music playing]
[man] Get your bearings!
Oh, yeah, what do we got?
Oh, man.
[Jake grunts]
[phone vibrates]
[tense music playing]
[bleep].
[phone ringing]
Hey.
Hey, how's it going?
Well, I'm ready to go,
but I'm waiting on Clark here, he's at the clinic.
So, how's it going for you? I mean, is there still life?
Well, we gotta get out of here
and we gotta get fishing, and stay fishing
because the fishery is gonna close on Wednesday.
You've got to be kidding.
That gives us about six days to fish and deliver.
Oh, man.
[Jake] It's like a race,
who can haul the most pots.
Heads up! Heads up! Heads up! Heads up!
[Bob] Got pushed out about an inch, it makes me nervous.
I just don't want anybody to get hurt.
[man] Yeah, boy!
Yes. Yes.
-Whoa! -Oh!
Last one.
Hang on, hang on.
[man] Watch out.
[narrator] In Dutch Harbor.
[Sig] The fleet has been catching a lot of fish
and things are moving fast, so time is of the essence.
[narrator] With Fish and Game announcing the end of the Winter Cod Derby,
Captain Sig Hansen needs to catch and deliver
two more tanks to reach his $100,000 target.
I mean, if I lose Clark,
that's a catastrophe because you're starting over.
He did mention to the guys
that he was feeling kind of cruddy.
Any time you got blood on your stool,
it's never... It's never good.
It's taking a while, so I'm getting a little antsy.
[seagulls cawing]
Clark is right there.
How'd it go?
[Clark speaking]
Yeah, come up.
[Clark speaking]
Come up here.
How'd it go?
They wanted to do a blood test just in cast,
but bottom line's good, I'm good to go.
Well, what was it?
Uh, it could have been a virus,
or bacteria, or parasite,
or something like that,
but something foreign got in there
and just wreaked havoc.
Well, that's good news, you know, and, uh,
next time, just say something sooner.
Yeah.
We got the permit,
-so we can get going. -[Clark] Perfect.
Let's go!
All good?
[man speaking]
[Sig] Okay.
[dramatic music playing]
[Sig] All right. We're finally underway.
Both engines are up and running,
we have all the parts necessary to get us going.
So, I feel real good about it
and, uh, you know, just try to forget that last trip and move on,
and go pull some cod pots.
[narrator] Eighty miles northeast,
on the Barbara J.
Jack had to go take care of some family business,
so they dusted me off and pulled me off the shelf, and here I am.
Now, the pressure is building.
So it looks like the quota is gonna be caught up by about Wednesday morning.
[narrator] With his co-captain, Jack Bunnell,
heading home for the memorial of a lifelong friend,
Skipper Steve "Harley" Davidson turns his sights
to a 30-pot string, eager to catch their share
of the 12-million-pound gray cod derby.
They're trying to maximize our production here,
so hopefully, our numbers pick up.
[Harley] Jack set this up,
let's see what we're gonna get here,
we're just pulling up to the first one.
All right, guys, first pot coming up.
[man] Here we go.
[tense music playing]
[Harley] Coming up over the rail.
Come on.
I see fish.
Well, I just see a few.
[man speaking]
You'd expect the damn thing to be half full.
Huh.
We'll have to do something different here.
[phone ringing]
[Jack] Harley?
What's going on, man?
We got out here, I found... I found the [bleep] pots. I mean...
I'd think I'd have more fish in them than this.
Well, who's in the area there?
I seen the Saga go by earlier.
[Jack] We should give Jake a call and see what he knows.
Really? Why would we call him?
[Harley speaking]
Hey, Harley, I still don't understand
why you bring that guy in your wheelhouse.
I played you like a fiddle, boy.
[Jack speaking]
[Harley] That's him, right?
He's just like three miles off my port side here.
Let me try him.
Let me give him a call and see what the [bleep] is going on.
You just fish the way you're gonna fish
and I'll get ahold of Jake.
Yeah, okay.
I'll be, uh, standing by. Keep me posted, okay?
[Jack] All right.
[narrator] Just three miles west.
On the Saga.
Hey, how many's in that?
[man speaking]
[bleep] dammit.
What I need to do is I need to look north and south,
I've lost this thing.
If I don't come in with a big offload right now,
I'm starting bairdi in the red.
[narrator] Aiming for two deliveries before the cod derby ends,
Captain Jake Anderson hauls and stacks all 100 pots,
scrambling to find productive grounds
and keep hopes of a million pound cod season alive.
There's nothing to the east or west,
and these numbers aren't gonna suffice.
[tense music playing]
[phone ringing]
[bleep]
[bleep] dammit.
[Jack] Hey, Jake.
How you guys doing?
Hey, uh, I'm just ripping through here.
[Jack] Yeah, roger that.
I don't wanna waste your time.
You know, I have a really good friend,
basically my brother, passed away
and, uh, I'm heading home right now to go speak at his service.
Guys on the boat, they're in a pinch,
if there's any info you can share,
the guys would really appreciate it.
I mean, you're putting me in a tight spot.
[Jack] All right, man, thanks for the time.
Thanks for considering.
Talk to you later.
All right. Later, Jack.
[sighs]
I just, uh...
Yeah.
It's frustrating for me because I know I could stab Jack
in the back right now,
he's vulnerable,
some of me wants to.
[man 1] Hey!
[man 2] This is not good.
But I still have to move all this gear
and figure out where these fish are.
[narrator] One hundred sixty miles northwest.
On the Wizard.
The rougher it gets, the harder it gets to find your gear,
just because they're hiding behind the wave, and the next wave, and the next wave.
[narrator] Captain Keith Colburn fights through 50-knot winds and 25-foot seas,
looking to make a dent in his 91,000 pounds of quota
before the cod derby fleet switches to bairdi season and heads his way.
I don't know if we can even haul this gear anymore.
The weather's going to hell on us.
If I get this string, we'll get our almost 60 pots
rebaited, reloaded.
It should be coming up any second now,
I should be able to see it.
I got to clean those things, [bleep] dammit.
[man] All right.
-Oh. You got it, OJ? -[man] Yeah!
[Keith] Right on, Eagle. Good job, Eagle.
This guy has the best eyes in the Bering Sea.
Now, they're a little skewed,
but OJ has the best eyes in the Bering Sea.
You're gonna find something heavy
and put it in your pocket.
We don't want you blowing away,
you need some weight in your pocket.
[tense music playing]
[man] Looking a little weak.
Come on, man!
How long we got until showtime... 3:45, so a good 48 hours.
[man speaking]
All right. Good job, guys...
Let's see if we can get them one at a time, okay?
[man] Roger.
...well, so be it.
I'm turning a little bit starboard to grab the pot
and now I got to pull it back to port.
[tense music playing]
I like to keep the weather on the bow as long as I can
and let the weather push me down to the next pot.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Keith] Watch yourself there, Robby,
coming right behind you. Right behind you!
Whoa!
[man 1] We're up on it.
[man 2] You good?
I got to turn to port here real quick,
the weather's gonna be really ugly for about 60 seconds,
you guys just stay sharp.
[tense music playing]
Whoa.
Hang on! Hang on! Hang on!
[man] Watch out!
[suspenseful music playing]
[narrator] On the Wizard.
Whoa.
-Hang on! Hang on! Hang on! -[man] Watch out!
[waves crashing]
Everybody good? Everybody good?
Let me know, let me know.
Everybody's good. Roger. Everybody's good.
[Keith] Let me know back here. Where's OJ?
OJ's good. OJ's good.
All right. Okay, guys. You know what,
just hang on for a second, let me finish this turn.
[tense music playing]
[Keith speaking]
I drifted on a set of bags,
I was gonna [bleep] put it in the wheel.
[man speaking]
[Keith speaking]
The crab aren't cooperating,
the weather's not cooperating, nothing is cooperating.
Everything has gotten worse out here.
I really wanna get this gear hauled
and we're gonna push through this
until we can't haul gear anymore.
[man grunts]
Not even close to having the season done
and I already need a vacation.
I just need a vacation from the Bering Sea.
[narrator] Six hundred miles east.
[Bob] We had a little accident.
Uh, this boat came across my starboard side,
and then cut me off.
[narrator] In Kodiak, Alaska.
There was nothing I could really do,
so we ended up colliding.
I'm really surprised it didn't cause more damage than it did.
[narrator] Just 40 hours after a collision with another vessel.
[bleep].
Oh, my God.
Dude, are you [bleep] kidding me?
Oh, my God.
We're just lucky that nobody was hurt.
It's still not very cool though.
[narrator] Captain Sophia "Bob" Nielsen prepares for a damage report
on her 81-year-old wooden vessel, Victory,
and word if she can proceed with her inaugural Kodiak bairdi season.
I mean, it scraped the paint all the way up there
and it pushed this whole board in.
The whole covering board has to be replaced.
You can't just do a small section of it.
You have to do the whole thing.
If we're taking waves, you know,
over the bow or over the house,
a lot of water's gonna be coming in through there.
It's always a pleasure to see you.
-[assessor] Yeah. -[Bob laughs]
[assessor speaking]
[Bob] Yeah. Worst times, you're telling me.
Okay. So, this one was clearly shattered
and this one probably wasn't as old,
but it got pushed out about an inch.
If you could just replace it,
maybe from here down
at least this plank got cracked.
[assessor speaking]
[Bob] Yeah.
[assessor speaking]
But, uh, this should hold for a while.
Honestly... [laughs]
Honestly, on my end, I thought it was a lot worse.
I'm glad I get to go fishing.
I get to go fishing.
That's good.
Anyways, I'm gonna go fire up that generator.
You ready?
[man] Sure!
[Bob] Whoo!
It's a huge relief,
but I already knew that I was gonna go fishing
whether the surveyor said not to...
I have a lot of people counting on me not to [bleep] this up.
Now, we gotta make up for lost time.
[narrator] Four hundred seventy miles southwest.
On the Northwestern.
We gotta get the gear on the boat
and get in on time for our delivery.
Switch over, and then go fish some crab.
Hopefully, we'll get a good price on the bairdi.
You wanna be first in the door there.
It's all about the timing.
[narrator] Looking to wrap the cod derby
and beat the competition to the bairdi crab grounds,
Captain Sig Hansen and co-captain and daughter,
Mandy, target a 20-fish per pot average
to push their season into the black.
Mandy, come over here for a second.
I'm gonna get outta here for a little while.
She's all yours.
[tense music playing]
[Sig] All right, it's ripping,
so you gotta go slower on the bags,
be careful.
[tense music playing]
[man] Clear.
Hmm. What would you call that?
[dramatic music playing]
[men vocalizing]
[man speaking]
[Sig] Might be a little... A little fast.
Well, just... You gotta just adjust it
when you see how backed up they get.
[grunts] [bleep]
[Sig] He got it?
[man] Oh, dude.
[Sig] He doesn't have it. You see that?
I got it. Here it goes.
[Sig] So, down below, the water is going one way.
On top, the water is calm
and the wind is holding the bags this way.
So, it looks like everything's normal
and it's easy to get it in there.
That's the problem.
Eight fish.
-Eight. -Eight fish.
-Eight.
How'd that one look, Mandy?
-Five, seven. -[Sig] Huh?
Five, seven fish.
Oh, so, it's getting lower?
-[Mandy] Yeah. -Oh, yeah.
[Sig speaking]
[Mandy] Yeah.
He got it.
-[Sig] He got it? -[Mandy] Yeah.
It's not that hard.
I'm just kidding. I'm kidding.
I know.
[machine whirring]
-[cable snaps] -Oh, [bleep]!
Uh-oh. [bleep].
[man] Are you okay?
[narrator] On the Northwestern.
[machine whirring]
-[cable snaps] -Oh, [bleep]!
[Mandy] Uh-oh.
-[bleep] -[Sig] What?
[Mandy speaking]
[bleep]
Is he okay?
-Yeah. -Yeah, roger.
[narrator] Fighting the tidal surge,
Mandy throttles up,
putting 1,800 pounds of tension on the line.
Snapping it free of the block...
Oh.
...and slashing Clark right in the face.
[Sig] You're putting everybody in danger.
[Mandy speaking]
Your husband especially.
[Mandy speaking]
Came out of the block.
Somebody was towing on it.
-Is that what you said? -Yeah.
Didn't know she was towing on it.
Shouldn't have been that close to it.
-[laughs] -You were towing on it.
Let me see. Did you get a booboo?
[Sig] Wasn't paying attention.
Oh, you're fine.
You need some ice on that?
So, I wasn't looking.
Those weren't as big as the last three.
-Was the deeper string bigger? -Yes.
So, they're bigger when they're deeper.
Yeah, we got big--
-[Sig] Double the numbers? -Double.
[Sig] We screwed up again.
I should have put my pots down here.
You still can.
We gotta do something.
I'm telling you, man, if they're coming through,
that's the place to be right there.
All right. So, we gotta get 'em in the water.
-[Mandy laughs] -Good team, do it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[Sig] Right now, I think this risk is working.
I sure hope so.
We don't got a lot of time left.
[narrator] Sixty miles southwest.
[man] What we got?
[narrator] On the Saga.
Not good.
[man speaking]
[Jake] The only number that he gives me is two.
It just dropped off.
Start stacking the gear.
[man] Roger.
[Jake] I just have to pick a direction
and I don't have enough pots to do that
because I need to know what's in the north
and in the south at the same time.
So, at this point, I don't have a choice.
I feel bad waking the guys up
'cause you know they're tired.
[narrator] On the Barbara J.
They've been working their ass off out there for you
and I think you got no heart.
You know, what the hell does it matter with that guy?
But be honest with 'em,
I'm sitting there thinking to myself,
I have a lot of heart 'cause I laid there for an hour
before I woke them up.
-I gotta get something on this scoreboard. -[phone ringing]
Hey, what's up?
[Jake] Hey, Harley, what's going down?
I've been missing Jack right now
and I'm just up here scrambling around
and it's not going all that great.
I'm willing to help
because I need your help too.
There's a big school right around here in 44 fathoms.
I lost them when I started setting east to west.
If you look on the bat chart,
you're gonna see there's a bat line
that goes down at 44 fathoms.
Yeah, no, I see what you're saying.
[Jake] I'll just make it easy.
I'll go north. You go south.
They're here. Trust me.
[Harley] Okay. I'll go down there.
[Jake] I just can't get there.
I don't have enough gear.
[Harley] I got a deck load on right now.
Really appreciate if you'd help me out here.
[Jake] All right, Harley.
It's gonna be good.
Thanks.
I don't know, maybe it'll work.
[tense music playing]
[narrator] On the Wizard.
It's the worst weather we've seen this season for sure.
Some of the worst weather we've seen in a long time.
These last four or five pots,
we're gonna be setting really slow.
So, just get that pot into the rack.
Get it ready. Get away from the rack.
There's gonna be some waves come over the starboard side,
so everybody stay safe.
All right. One time in here.
All right.
Safety, one, two, three.
-[all] Safety! -Right on.
Just remember what I said, man, brace your feet,
lean back, and hang on.
[man] Roger!
We saw some crab out deep but not enough to work on.
We're just trying to set it up in the general vicinity
of where we had our best pot.
All right. You guys ready to go?
[man] Roger.
[man] Okay. Here we go.
[man speaking]
Something's gotta happen. Something's gotta give.
I know they're down there.
Whoa! [exclaims]
Well, I'm doing my best to get the gear on fresh bottom,
but in order to do it,
I've gotta just go straight into it.
I mean, I'd much rather set with weather a little bit
more on the port side, but right now,
I'm unable to do that.
Whoa.
Heads up! Heads up! Heads up! Heads up!
[narrator] On the Wizard.
[Keith] Whoa.
Heads up! Heads up! Heads up! Heads up!
[man] [bleep].
[man] Everybody good?
[Keith] Everybody good?
Roger.
Just in the last hour, it just stacked up even worse.
Start to get into weather like this,
whether you're on deck or sitting in this chair,
it's always a little bit unnerving.
[man exclaims]
[man] Going over.
We've only got a handful left of them on the other side here.
[man] Going over!
But I tell you what, fishing in the Bering Sea,
it's never given to you.
All right, you guys, go ahead and come in.
That was not the set I wanted,
but the gear is in the water.
That's the important thing.
I'm proud of my guys.
They just worked through hell.
Hopefully, we'll get a bunch of crab.
[narrator] Six hundred and twenty miles east.
On the Kodiak tanner crab grounds.
[man speaking]
Five minutes until we gotta set gear.
-[man] Roger. -How you guys doing out here?
Good.
-Beautiful [bleep] day, boys. -[man] Yeah.
Dude, stuff those bags
like you're stuffing your girlfriend.
[man laughs]
-[man speaking] -[Bob laughs]
Get the pots in the water, get them soaking.
Get some crab on the boat, hopefully. So, that's the goal here.
[Bob] There's gonna be a lot of competition in our area.
So, I have some extra bait and I'm gonna drop the gear.
[narrator] Despite the damage to the Victory,
Captain Bob slams her entire pot load
on productive grounds near Adak Island.
Counting on her 2,000 pounds of hard-earned bait
to draw in the crab and edge out the fleet.
-Let her rip. -[man] Roger.
-Roger. -[Bob] Roger.
When I left the Fish and Game building,
there was 90 boats registered for the east side district.
And if all 90 of those boats equally caught the quota,
then it averages to about 44,000 pounds each.
Now, we gotta make up for lost time.
I hope that my father is looking down
and I hope that he would be proud.
I didn't do everything the right way.
I made a lot of mistakes and the boat got neglected,
the business got neglected.
But I'm still trying,
so at least I get an A for effort.
I hope he's watching over me.
I need it.
[man] Oh! [bleep].
Hold on, boys!
[laughs]
[narrator] On the Northwestern.
We're on our last trip of the cod here.
Um, we're gonna transition over to bairdi.
This derby is winding down and when it's winding down,
that's when you really put the pedal to the metal.
You want every last fish you can catch.
Hopefully, the tides changed enough right now
that the bags are popped up,
you can actually haul.
Trying to get on this good rotation
and a rhythm with the tides right now.
[man] Oh, boy!
[narrator] Tracking the school into the deep,
Captain Sig banks on gear set in over 360 feet of water
to stuff his tanks
and pay out a $40,000 profit.
[man] Ooh.
First one's coming up right now.
[man] Come on, man.
Going up.
There's life in it?
[man] Come on.
[man] Robby's got breakfast for you.
We gotta eat, though.
-It's a grand, full one. -Oh, nice.
I'm gonna eat it right now, man. Are you kidding me?
I wanna have the shell at least.
Yeah. I'll take the dirty side.
You take the nice bright side.
[man] What is that?
Scallop, man. Breakfast.
Gets no fresher than that.
Oh, yeah. Wow.
[laughs]
You know, the mantle here is edible.
There you see the guts itself?
Oh, man, this is gonna be [bleep] good.
Bon appetit.
-Bon appetit. -[laughs]
-Cheers. Yup. -Cheers. Right on.
-Oh, yeah. -[laughs]
Can't get any fresher than that.
He's a little bummed out about losing his muscle.
-[laughs] -[laughs]
[narrator] Hoping to oyster-size,
the rest of the fleet from the bairdi grounds,
a shellfish Captain Keith clams up.
-[man] Make way! -[narrator] On the Northwestern.
Come on.
-[man] Yeah, buddy! -[man] Oh, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
How do we look?
-[man] Oh, yeah. -[man] Yeah!
-[man] Whoo!
[man speaking]
-Two-one? -[man speaking]
[Sig] That's what we're looking for right there.
I'll take it all day long.
They do look good.
-[man speaking] -Two-zero.
[man] Yeah!
[man] Whoa!
[man] Twenty-one.
[Clark speaking]
[man] Wow.
-[man] Yay! -[man] Yay!
[man] Yay!
[Sig] Okay. You got your last pot coming up, guys.
Is Clark doing the finances here?
So who's tossing it?
[Clark speaking]
He's back, baby.
Yeah, I'm back, baby.
You're gonna risk next season
on a Matt Bradley flaming hook toss?
[laughs]
[chuckles] Are you ready?
I can't watch. [laughs]
I appreciate you, guys.
You want a little extra juice?
[man] Yeah!
Oh! [laughs]
[exclaims and cackles]
Well done.
All right.
Couple hundred thousand pounds under our belt.
We're gonna transition over to bairdi
and start fishing crab.
You know, we made some money
and it was fun to get back out here.
Let's make like a log and roll out.
He took the north and I get the south.
Okay. Well, here I am.
[man] Whoo!
[narrator] On the Barbara J.
[Harley] Here's pot number one.
Let's see if he sent me up on something or what the hell.
I pray... I need it, man.
[man] First pot.
Okay. What the hell we got?
[man] This is it, man! This is it!
Pretty light.
[man] Ah!
[man] That's like five fish.
That [bleep].
[man] Yeah.
[man speaking]
[man] Nothing, man.
They sent me over to this, it's all the same [bleep] I had right where I was.
Big school of fish my ass.
[narrator] Just 12 miles north.
-[man] [laughs] -[man] Well done.
Hey!
[man] Whoo!
[man laughs]
[man] There we go.
[man speaking]
[bleep]
[Jake] We're on them. That's 800 pounds right there.
We're to the north.
It's exactly what we want.
We just need more pots like that and we'll fill this baby up.
[man] You got it.
Whoo!
[phone ringing]
[producer speaking]
It's Harley.
[phone ringing]
It's so [bleep] right now.
-[phone ringing] -[Harley] Seriously?
Seriously? Come on.
[phone ringing]
[Jake] Hey, Harley.
[Harley] I'm five pots in, and it's bones, man.
Skins and bones. It's no meat.
Start loading your strings up. Start heading this way.
[men shouting]
You gotta get up here pretty quick though
because I'm getting a 20-pound average.
[Harley] Roger. All right. I'm coming up there, Jake.
See you then.
All right. Bye.
That's what partnerships are for.
So, I gotta believe he's bringing me in on it now.
Okay, you guys.
Let's just stack them on and we'll flip it up to the north.
He's on them up there.
[man] Oh!
I feel good about it.
Harley is my elder.
I've known him since I was a kid.
Me and Jack have our problems,
but we're probably more alike than different.
He's had to climb the ladder the way I did
and if I do this right, we both can win.
[narrator] Five hundred miles northeast.
[Bob] Bags coming up.
Hopefully, I dropped it in a little bit better spot.
Trying to keep a hundred average.
If we can get more than that,
that would be spectacular.
Dammit!
That was like the most skimpy pot we pulled out of here.
[bleep]
Unless I just fished it out too hard right here.
Dammit.
I predicted that one was supposed to be really good,
but it turned out to be a dud.
Hmm.
Let's see what this one has.
Kinda weak.
Ah, gee-whiz, that's not good.
I know where the crab aren't.
[man speaking]
[Bob] Nada. Not a single keeper.
That's my first blank, blank.
Worst pot of the season just hauled up.
Pretty well fished out in the spot.
So, hopefully, uh, I make the right move
with stacking this gear
and hopefully, I can drop it on some crab.
-[man] Oh, yeah. -[man] Oh, yeah, baby!
[cheering]
-[man] Oh, there we go. -[man] A lot of crabs.
-[man] Whoo! -[man] [bleep].
[man] Team Wizard, baby.
[man] Yeah, boys!
[Keith] A mountain of that stuff on the table,
God, I love it when I'm on good fishing like this.
Yes, yes, yes!
I'm pretty proud of my crew working through this weather.
Better than I had anticipated.
[man] Whoo-hoo!
[man] On the way.
One-zero-eight. Right on.
I tell you what, these crab are starting to go on a bite up the hill.
Things are going well.
Yes! [laughs]
[waves crashing]