[strong winds blowing]
[sig] it's not gonna take long to off load that.
It's not what we planned on but I mean...
We've got some fuel, the gear
so we can go back out and we can start over.
-Okay? -Roger.
[sig] okay.
You know, we worked together for fall season.
The fishery was on the line.
Everybody did come together.
And, we can't stop now.
The quota's up by 30%.
And so, this winter's gonna be tough.
Thought he was my buddy.
[whistles]
wow.
I'll have to go find those guys.
Don't be running around like that.
You're scaring the [bleep] out of me.
[groans]
ow.
-Right there? -Yeah.
[siren blaring]
[sig] everybody's trying to work together here
because if we don't...
We lose.
[narrator] two hundred and sixty-eight miles
northwest of dutch harbor...
[johnathan] I should write a little handbook, 101 crab fishing,
but no one would wanna buy it.
[narrator] ...On the time bandit.
If the skipper gives you a cup of coffee
be very suspicious.
One time I gave my whole crew hot cocoa
and it had ex-lax in it. [laughs]
I got you guys all cocoas.
Just to see if ex-lax worked very good
and I watched them all
dancing, [bleep] trying to go to the bathroom.
[narrator] ever ready to motivate the deck
with his unique style of leadership...
[johnathan] thirty years ago, andy brought us up here.
We found the motherlode.
We're headed south right now,
so try it again. [chuckles]
[narrator] ...Captain johnathan hillstrand
tracks the opilio biomass into the shallows
hoping his family honey hole
delivers twice over.
See what we get out of these.
Come on, baby, come to papa.
Give me something.
[deckhand groans]
not a very good pot. [chuckles]
the first pot's not looking good.
Thirteen, fourteen. Ouch, ouch.
Only 14.
Fourteen.
[deckhand] nothing!
This is not looking good, my friend.
Owie, ouch.
Ouch, ouch.
[deckhand] boo!
[johnathan] yeah, it sucks.
Trying to figure out what to do here.
Save that cod.
I usually see a lot more crab down here.
[coughs] but it's been a few years
since I've been out here, you know?
I'm not going up by the russian line.
[narrator] his herd vanished
the skipper must decide
whether to either grind on low numbers down south
or stack on his gear and follow the fleet north.
Just gonna figure this out.
Dangerous to go up to russia,
you gotta have some big balls.
But there's nothing down here
except heartache and sorrow.
We're just gonna keep moving our gear around.
[narrator] back in dutch harbor...
[sig] this was not...
The start that I wanted.
This was not how we had envisioned it.
But, I have to look at the bright side.
We got a few crab out of the deal
and we got started.
[narrator] captain sig hansen,
wraps up his paltry first offload.
Anybody need anything else?
[narrator] eager to get the 125 foot northwestern,
back in the game.
[sig] we got a dutch harbor medic here on board
so he can take a look at the guys.
[medic] it'll feel like this.
[sig] get a clean bill of health.
Then we can start on the right foot
for the next trip. That would be nice.
I took a little tumble
and I think I pulled my toe-nail back too far
so it's been throbbing. It's all swollen.
[narrator] and for deckhand clark pederson,
starting on the right foot
is easier said than done.
Oh, yeah.
[nick chuckles]
there you go, there's [bleep] in there.
-Oh! -[groans]
-[bleep] -oh, god.
Ew.
[nick] that's ugly looking.
That's gross.
[medic] you see how it's cleared up under there?
-[clark] yeah. -Getting all that blood out.
So, that's it.
Thank you, appreciate it.
[sig] I'm glad we got that done.
The crew is whole and safe and sound and healthy.
So, we'll just, uh,
put this one behind us.
Hopefully, we can get back underway here.
[narrator] five hundred eighty-three miles northwest,
on the cornelia marie.
[josh] up here all by, a little lonesome right now.
All our gears right here.
All of it.
You know, we really have to know
if there's crab here.
[narrator] after a five day round trip to town
burning $15,000 in fuel,
captain josh harris and casey mcmanus
see whether committing
all 230 pots to the russian line
doubles their winnings
or nyet.
[casey] you like apples?
How you like them apples?
[deckhand cheering]
[josh] look at that one. Wow.
You can't get another crab in there.
Look at that. [bleep]
-like, you cannot... -[man] oh, my god!
You cannot get another crab in there.
I gotta get a picture of this [bleep].
[machine whirring]
looks like the crab fairy came, and whamo.
Whoo!
Oh, god, this feels good.
This is how you fill the tanks today.
Making some money. It's nice and cold.
What better way to spend the day?
[whistles]
wow.
[deckhand] whoo! Yeah.
We're gonna turn her around
and set her back out
but stay closer to the better numbers.
[cell phone ringing]
hello.
[johnathan] hey, man. Johnathan.
Hillstrand.
-[casey] hey, buddy. -Yeah.
So, we're down here by magoo,
and it sucks.
That's five, see.
Twenty, dude. Twenty crab.
It sucks.
Yeah.
It's frustrating.
Anyways, what you guys doing?
How far up did you end up? Did you find anything?
What's going on?
[casey] let me call you back. Just two seconds.
Uh...
[josh] you wanna tell hillstrand about this?
I don't think hillstrand will come up here.
I really don't.
If he puts a stack on to come up here
he's gonna be a ice cube by the time he gets here.
It's just like, in... We don't know if we're on them.
We know this strings on.
You know what I mean?
Like, if we get into five or six strings
there's just a massive ball.
We'll, you know, slip him the note.
"hey johnny, hightail it up here."
[phone clicks]
hey, buddy.
We're all the way up to 60-20 line.
We're getting little sniffs here and there.
We're a long ways up here, dude.
Crab pots up here have a little sign in them.
So I'm hoping I'm getting close to something.
So...
Just searching away.
Really?
If you wanna come play,
I'm sure we'll find something at some point.
[johnathan] yeah, I'm not gonna come out that far.
You're too far away, dude.
We'll just find them down here somewhere.
[casey] what's what?
-What did you say? -[casey] johnny, johnny.
Let me call you back.
Take care, bud. Bye.
[josh laughs]
[bleep]
oh, I don't know if he heard that last one.
I can hear it from over here.
Yeah, I know it.
[deckhands cheering]
we found this spot. Now we gotta kind of protect it.
And make sure we really know what we're dealing with
and, you know, put food on our own table first
before we invite guests over to dine with us.
[johnathan laughs]
I heard 550 on the loud hailer.
I gotta call you right back!
They didn't have to tell us 'cause their crew did.
I heard it on the loud hailer.
Those guys...
But I guarantee you josh would come clean.
Josh won't be able to do that.
Casey just said say.
He didn't say yes or no. He just didn't say.
[deckhand] let's bring it in.
Come on.
I thought he was my buddy, though casey was my buddy.
I'll have to go find those guys,
see what they're up to.
All right, guys. We're gonna stack it and move it on.
We're gonna head north.
[deckhand] good. Yeah. Whoo!
Gonna go find a new home.
I'm keeping everyone honest here.
Truth will set you free.
[narrator] two hundred ninety-one miles
northwest of dutch harbor...
Hey!
Can you hook up that chain, please?
[narrator] ...On the time bandit.
[johnathan] those guys...
Call them back and have decided to have them come clean
'cause I heard 550 on the loud hailer.
He goes, "I'll call you right back!"
[narrator] after overhearing a high pot
on the cornelia marie...
[johnathan] got these pots on.
Be a 36-hour run.
Two hundred fifty miles north.
Blaze towards russia.
See if we can see any of our friends up there.
[chuckles]
[narrator] captain johnathan
does a little light reconnaissance...
[johnathan] time to go.
[narrator] ...Steaming 100 pots over 256 miles
to where casey said,
well, where he said,
"it wasn't very good."
I'm gonna do a power nap.
Aha!
I think I see a cornelia marie pot right here.
Yeah!
Okay, guys. Whoo!
Hope they got something 'cause I'm up here with them.
We're gonna make bait, baby.
We're gonna make bait!
[johnathan] don't have ais on.
So, no one can see me.
I don't want to tell them yet I wanna make them sweat.
Let them sweat,
for a couple of days.
[narrator] as the time bandit,
and the cornelia prowl the russian line...
A third ship,
joins the far northern reaches.
[harley] I'm up on province ridge
and this is where I'm gonna make my living right up here.
There's a nice gully this whole way
from here to the russian border.
Opilio just love it.
[narrator] captain steve harley davidson
readies his first set of the opilio season.
Selecting the muddy canyons
of the bering sea's upper latitudes.
All right. It's a new season for hiring got everybody on the boat to do except for me.
I'm fairly new myself, I've been here a season but we're all new here so
let's have a real safe... Set here, and most importantly a [bleep] top the gear.
I care about lives. Mind what you're gonna be doing today.
It's gonna be a tough week, munsey.
I'm gonna fill this boat up without you, pal.
[narrator] for the first time in 15 years, harley's short his right-hand man,
michael "munsey" kennon leaving his new squad, light on leadership.
He had an opportunity to go run the boat for cod fishing.
Doing this trip without him.
Steven's my one season guy. I'm gonna just have to rely on him.
I don't know how it's gonna go.
As soon as he brings the bags out, you go right in there.
-You're gonna put the bag. -[announcer speaking]
-roger that. Point 21. -Hoo-rah!
-Going over. -[indistinct shouting]
can you show him how to throw those bags properly?
I don't want that line behind him.
Do not do that.
[bleep] me.
Don't be running around like that. You're scaring the [bleep] out of me.
Roger.
No need to run.
They're going into the rail. Do you know how long it takes me to turn around?
You plop over, in the dark, nobody can see you over there.
I miss munsey.
[narrator] back in dutch harbor...
We've got the crab off the boat. We got the delivery done with.
But now we have concerns for nick.
If you push on it...
I feel pain. I feel pain.
Pain.
[sig] it's the same thing nick was complaining about earlier.
They thought it was getting better but there is someone coming down to the boat
to check him out. Hopefully to scratch it of the list
and then we can go forward.
Still don't know what it is but he definitely needs to get it,
you know, diagnosed soon 'cause it could be something bad, you know, so.
Any tenderness over here?
-Ow! Yeah. -Right there?
That's, that's not good.
No back pain, any back pain?
-Beside normal back pain. Okay. -Just normal.
Have you had kidney stones before?
-No. -Okay.
Right there, right? Might have appendicitis.
[bleep] yeah.
Okay. All right. I'll do what I gotta do.
Yeah. All right.
Sucks. Really sucks.
I gotta hope for the best.
So that's why I wanna... [bleep] yeah.
-Just keep me posted. -Yeah, I got you.
-Got your stuff? -You ready?
-Yeah. -All right, good luck.
-I'll be back, hopefully. -All right, see you in a little bit.
I just hope nick's all right. That's the thing I'm worried about.
I'm not worried about fishing. I just hope he's all right.
[sig] I am concerned for nick.
This could really put a wrench in the works.
Right now, it's just a waiting game. We'll see.
[narrator] 576 miles northwest of dutch harbor,
on the time bandit.
[johnathan] I found you, son of a [bleep].
Cornelia marie gear.
Oh, casey.
[laughing]
[narrator] captain jonathan hauls his first pots in the north.
To find out if his supposed partners have been on the up and up.
They want to come clean with me because I gotta gear down now.
-[man screaming] -okay.
Drumroll, please.
See what we get.
[men yelling]
holy [bleep].
-[man screaming] -what the [bleep]? What? What? What?
Yeah, yeah. Unbelievable.
-Holy moly! -[men shouting indistinctly]
that's what they're getting, right there.
That's what the... [laughs]
[indistinct shouting]
five hundred. Five hundred. Here we go.
Oh, yeah. Yes, ma'am! Yes, ma'am!
Yeah, baby! That's the pot there!
Whoo!
Wow. That would've been nice to know that this was here.
I am proud of those guys for finding this.
But they got some explaining to do.
[narrator] while the time bandit plunders russia's doorstep...
Just 20 miles west...
-Look at this one, case. -Holy [bleep].
[narrator] ...Unaware that the jig is up.
-That's a big pot there. -[laughing]
-yeah. Whoo-hoo! -Wow.
[narrator] josh and casey are halfway to filling the boat
and starting a second run through their gear.
Whoo!
Hands down now, brother.
Remember, if anybody calls wondering if there's crab up here,
lie your [bleep] ass off.
Got to tell hillstrand now.
-I know he can't come up this far but... -No, no.
He'll tell everybody, 'cause he wants to be friends with everybody.
All right, well, you want to take over?
700, whoa! Kicking ass, brother.
I know.
[indistinct shouting]
[laughing]
casey.
-What's that? -You got to check the block.
Gear oil's pouring out of the back side of the ship.
Oh, [bleep] how much?
Like [bleep] pouring. I don't know,
I'll check the bolts and make sure everything is tight still.
[bleep]
that's not good. We do not have a spare block.
Not looking good.
I'll go down and check out the crab block.
Finally getting on a roll, we have chance to fill the boat.
Can't fix this block then we'll have to go back to dock.
It has to be the seal in between the hub,
on the hub itself. I mean, it's gone, dude.
We're at a standstill until this is fixed.
They got seals down there, they don't know if they have the right one.
We really need this right now, more than ever.
[bleep]
this [bleep] sucks, dude. We don't have the right seal.
The problem is we only have one crab block on this boat.
-Usually those crab blocks are pretty tough. -Captain, roger.
Well, we started off with such a bang.
Now we're left drifting and dreaming.
[narrator] fifty miles south...
All right. Here we come, man.
You're ours. This is where you're gonna come to get the big ones.
[narrator] captain harley puts his hunch to the test
seeing if the opilio are actually lurking
in the 70 fathom depths.
Go do your throws, marco. Why not?
Why the [bleep] not? That was four knots, dude.
[narrator] assuming his inexperienced crew can hook a pot.
-Harley is going to [bleep] kill me. -Time to get a new hook guy.
Every one, every single one.
Okay. Pot number one.
Come on. Show me some crab now.
It's a good depth for me. It's a good depth.
There's a nice gully the whole way from here to the russian border.
[man] sounds heavy!
-Oh yeah. Oh, baby. -Oh, there we go.
We got crabs.
[man screaming]
ooh, ooh! [laughing]
oh, we know.
Good, good, good, good, good.
[harley] big armful is going in.
Love it. These crab are special up here.
Oh, yeah.
That will do some damage.
[cell phone ringing]
what's up, casey?
I've been better.
The shaft seal on our block border, blowing gear oil out of our crab block.
-Blew the seal? -Yeah.
-Do you have a spare block border by chance?
-Yeah. -Huh.
[men yelling]
oh, I'll call your other one. Sorry, I got them mixed up.
5256. Roger.
5256.
[cell phone ringing]
mr. Mcmanus. In need.
-[cell phone ringing] -mr. Silverspoon is gonna need something from us.
[laughing] oh, yeah.
[narrator] 580 miles northwest of dutch harbor.
I am trying to get that [bleep] done right now.
So he doesn't get all pissed off. 'cause he's the type of guy to get pissed off [bleep]
you and walk away. [bleep]
[narrator] their blocks spewing oil, josh and casey need a spare one stat,
to avoid a costly trip to town.
-[cell phone ringing] -and there's only one skipper in range to help.
-We'll make them stress on it, so... -[cell phone ringing]
definitely have some fun.
Yo, yo.
-Okay. How about now. -Yeah, I got you fine.
I got you fine. Uh, all right. So anyway,
I just need the motor.
-So I have this extra block. -[men yelling happily]
we're kinda busy right at the moment.
Yeah, we're up above you by about 15 miles.
Yeah, I don't know.
Okay.
Do you want to come over
and we'll just bash in the block and see what we can make of it.
Okay, sounds good. I am headed your way.
-I'll check with you when you get closer. -All right.
[laughing] casey, the things we do for you, buddy.
God, I hope it's the right [bleep] pot.
Wow, it's pretty cool. We might have a chance.
Harley has got a block to give us.
Harley's our last hope. If this doesn't work,
we could very well end up doing a thousand-mile round trip.
Right now we need a miracle.
[narrator] back in dutch...
Hey, sig, you got a second? It's bryan.
[sig] yeah. Come on up.
Just got back from the clinic. Um,
after some evaluations and blood draws,
it's looking like appendicitis.
His white blood cell count is
triple of what it should normally be.
So... Once this weather breaks,
the doc wants to get him out on the first medevac
out of here. Not just a civilian ride,
he's gonna be actually medevac-ed out
up to anchorage.
-So... -A medevac?
Yeah. If it continued to grow,
and burst while you're out there,
then he'd become septic,
and now you're looking at a life threat right there.
Luckily, we were at the dock.
-Somebody's watching over you. -I think
-somebody's watching over us, yeah. -[bryan chuckles]
-yeah. -Thank you, sir.
I'd shake your hand, but--
-no, covid. -[both laugh]
-[sig] thank you. -Yes, no worries.
Oh, my god.
Nick is one of my best friends.
And I'm really afraid for him.
But for right now, he's in good hands.
[radio static]
[casey] yo, harley.
How are you doing?
Harley, you're gonna be close to us a stopping point there
in a minute, or you gotta go for a little while?
No, I can get this over with.
[narrator] amidst 15-foot rollers,
josh and casey attempt to save their trip
by securing a spare block
from the southern wind.
If this doesn't work, we don't know what to do.
Harley's our last hope right now.
I'm making a trailer-wide target
for them to throw at.
I've never seen anything like this either.
But it's happening.
Throw it over.
[harley] we'll pull that over,
and we'll slap that hook
on our... On our block.
[harley speaking]
seven, eight hundred pounds.
[josh] all right. We see the buoys.
All right. Hook's thrown.
Bag's going to 'em.
[deckhand 1] watch it, watch it.
[deckhand 2] up the launcher.
Okay.
[harley] watch out.
[deckhand 2] yeah! Pull it up!
[men cheering]
thank you, brothers!
Thank you, guys!
Love you guys, too!
[laughing]
hoo-rah!
Good to work with you, guys. Thank you, guys.
Guys, be safe! Catch a [bleep] of crabs!
Well, that's the first time I've ever seen that done.
Yo, we appreciate it. Thank you very much.
So...
[harley speaking]
I gotta give you my spare block? Dude.
You want my wife and my dog, too?
[casey laughs]
[narrator] with the goods on board...
All right. We'll pop that off,
and let's get that register measured
and let me know. All right, thanks.
[narrator] ...The cornelia must now connect
their hydro line to harley's brand of block.
We can't mount that whole new block
to what we have.
Our davit system is different than his.
So we have to figure out a way to adapt the motor
off of that one on to ours.
This is... I can't have a lot of slack in this.
This stuff needs to be tight.
It needs to be machined. It needs to work together.
It needs to be the right motor.
Please, please, please. [chuckles nervously]
[deckhand speaking] [bleep]
[bleep]
[deckhand 2 speaking]
[deckhand 1] no, no.
[bleep]
-[deckhand 2] hey. -Yeah?
Theirs is a definite four and quarter pattern.
And ours is like four and three-eighths.
So, I mean, it's a no go.
It's different on the bolt-pattern,
different on the flange, different on the shaft.
[bleep]
[narrator] this week on salty takes...
Tide's turning, and the wheels are turning,
and the earth is turning, and the moon's a-turning,
and it's all a-turning.
The moon's a not turning.
It's the dark side of the moon all the time.
I just can't believe I never heard about that.
You're never getting to see the dark side of the moon.
I thought that the moon did, like, one orbit per year.
Like, maybe it just goes around the earth
1,200 miles an hour.
And the sun is doing like, 20,000 miles an hour through the universe.
If the earth was ten percent bigger...
[overlapping]
some crazy stuff going on up there.
I'm very suspicious of what's going on
on that backside of that moon now.
Aah.
[narrator] meanwhile, back on earth,
the trio of boats up north finds full pots
while sig's season wanes with each passing day.
[deckhand 1 speaking]
[bleep]
[narrator] on the cornelia marie...
Yeah?
Uh, theirs is a definite four and quarter pattern
and ours is like four and three-eighths.
So, it's a no go.
It's different on the bolt pattern,
different on the flange, different on the shaft.
[bleep]
[narrator] with their pots stuck on the sea floor,
and their block down for the count,
josh and casey struggle to mount a spare motor
from the southern wind.
[casey] I'm gonna go down there and take a look at this, josh.
We can make this happen.
[casey] [bleep] we're out of height there, dude.
That ain't gonna [bleep] work. This is way too tall.
What you thinking there, d-boss?
[casey] no go.
It's not looking good.
We got a block that don't work.
We don't have spare parts
to fix the one that we do have.
The new block that we got, we can't build a mount for it.
This is gonna be the first time
that I can't fix something on this boat.
-So we're going to town. -[casey] yeah.
Six thousand gallons of fuel.
That's about $15,000.
We got gear that's up here that's over-soaked already.
It needs to be picked. We have no way to pick it.
[narrator] besides fuel costs,
and lost fishing time,
after an 1,100 mile round trip to town,
there's no telling where the biomass will be
when the boys come back...
That's the biggest setback we've had in a long time.
[narrator] ...Putting them at square one
and squarely in the red.
[phone ringing]
[josh] hillstrand.
Hey, what's going on? It's josh, cornelia.
[johnathan] hey, you got me?
Hey, josh, josh, josh, josh.
Johnny, johnny.
Hey, what's going on?
I think I'm pissing just northwest of you a little bit.
I was just checking in on you guys.
[casey] dude.
Where the hell did he come from?
[johnathan] I...
I sent two strings right back
'cause they're all three hundred-pluses.
[men cheering]
-[deckhand 2] yeah! -[deckhand 3] yeah, baby!
[johnathan] what do you think?
If my buddies were on top of something good,
they'll tell me, you know, they will.
[casey] I feel kinda bad.
[casey] yeah. Uh...
You know, we really have to know if there's crab here,
and... Right now,
we're in it for sure. We just...
Our block just busted.
And you know, I don't have the seal on board to fix it.
I gotta run into st. Paul,
possibly dutch harbor, I don't even know yet.
That sucks.
I think I might have an old marco motor
up in my bow.
[casey] it's a vickers motor is what we need.
Yeah, this one's not gonna work.
Um, can you... Watch our gear while we're gone?
Can you, you know, go through it and...
I just need to get the crab out of the gear,
and, you know, I don't want it to sit in there that long.
I don't know how long I'm gonna be gone.
[johnathan] uh...
Um...
Yeah, I'll help you guys out.
Then we're gonna take care of each other,
when it comes down to it.
That's what this one does.
See, we don't say one thing and mean another thing.
We say what we mean.
All right. Thanks, johnny. We love you, buddy.
-Thanks, bud. -We appreciate it.
All right, man.
We're just a couple miles away from you here,
so I'm gonna head towards you and start printing
these pot sheets out.
-Okay. -I'll get you a little bundle
ready to go, okay?
Okay. Sounds good, guys.
Okay, buddy. Love you guys.
You have a good night, bro.
Love you, brother. We'll see you in a bit.
Thanks.
-All right. -Bye, johnny.
-[indistinct] -all right. Bye.
Okay.
[josh] cool. That worked out good.
At least we got that going for us.
[johnathan] what a terrible blow for them.
So I'll take their old crab
'cause I'll be going to town in a week anyway.
I'll even do a step better than that.
I'll stack their gear,
and set it on the best crab I see,
'cause I got pots right here.
I'm seeing five hundreds and stuff,
so when they come back out they have a good pick.
That's what partners do.
So... We'll turn this partnership around.
And hopefully... Have one of the best partnerships
you ever [bleep] seen.
I'll show them how to be a partner.
I'll show them how the best partner
they ever had is gonna be me.
All right. We'll see how this works out.
[sig] well, I'm heading out here.
We're gonna try a trip without nick.
They're loading him up on a medevac plane.
I'll see you again soon, brother.
[nick] I'll be back.
I'm afraid to go out to sea without him, quite frankly.
I didn't think this day would ever come.
All you really need is someone to help push crab, help sort,
-and bait. -Roger.
[sig] you know, knowing that he's gonna head out
on the same plane that I've been on,
and my brother norm, is not a fun deal.
He's right there.
Easy, nick.
[siren blaring]
[karl] he was a big part of our boat.
But the show goes on.
We gotta catch our crabs still, nonetheless.
He just left.
[indistinct radio chatter]
thank god we got him out in time.
It means somebody is watching over us.
If we were out there, he would've never
said anything until it was too late.
I know him.
That's all scary.
So scary.
Fragile.
It's very important that everyone's on the same page...
[casey] we're doing a little paperwork tray
to johnny.
[sig] ...That we all work together,
share information together,
and learn from each other.
But you gotta look at it on the big picture,
and we gotta set that precedent.
The game we're playing is too big.
We've got too much at stake.
That's the bottom line.