[johnathan] we haven't had a nap on here
in three or four days I don't think over four hours.
I set away from the ice to be safe, but, uh...
[chuckles] don't you think it's safe to go back in the water?
[man] going over!
[johnathan] it's not safe to go back in the water.
Murphy's law.
If anything can happen, it will happen.
And it works twice as good on the water.
[man speaking]
ah!
Today, someone will be hurt
on one of these boats out here.
Watch out!
[johnathan] something's going to happen.
They're going to fall.
[man] look out!
Get the [bleep] off the rail.
[johnathan] you're gonna smash your fingers.
Come on!
-Keep up the [bleep] -[man shouting indistinctly]
[johnathan] shoulders are gonna hurt.
Ankles, knees are gonna to hurt.
[man] ah!
Watch out!
Is everybody okay?
[man] eddie, are you okay?
[johnathan] nobody said it was going to be easy.
Heaven and hell is this close on the water.
But I can't freak out, I have to get this gear out for crab.
[narrator] 589 miles northwest of dutch harbor
[casey] we got 2.2 miles.
Yep.
[casey] hey, patti, this is casey
on the cornelia marie.
A crew member, my deck boss,
he's got a lot of bright, red blood
in his stool this morning.
It was sudden onset.
He never had a problem with it.
[patti speaking over radio]
he's got a good bruise on his leg,
kind of on the inside of the thigh right above the knee.
Okay.
[casey] all right, thank you very much.
Bye.
[josh] can't be having a situation like this happen.
It's crazy.
We got three times the amount of quota.
Now we've got ice coming down,
and pushing us out of here at a really rapid pace.
[narrator] threatened by the 225,000 square mile southbound ice pack,
captains josh harris and casey mcmanus
race to stack out their gear from the north.
[matt] man, it hurts [bleep]
[exclaims]
[narrator] but the deck boss, who should be leading the charge,
is still benched for bloody stool.
We got crazy weather.
First it's matt and his leg,
now it's matt and blood coming out of his body.
Turn around, drop them. Elbows on the table.
Come on, dude. How about the leg?
You coulda wiped better.
-I'd rather-- -no, it's got to be the butt.
A little poke.
[matt groans]
[josh] ice will be covering up two thirds of the fishing grounds.
It's going to come down hard and fast.
Nothing ever comes easy out here.
[casey] all right.
We're going to stack it on and move it down to a place where we have no idea
if there's any crab or not.
Just off to the west here,
the deepest we've ever fished on this boat.
All right, guys, we'll try this spot here.
[narrator] despite their success in the north,
the skippers plan a taxing move
to 100 fathom depths out west.
[man groans]
what the [bleep] are you doing?
Dammit.
Come on!
[narrator] but, shorthanded, the crew shows signs
of tiring just halfway into the retreat.
[josh] these guys are shorthanded, man.
[casey] that's why I'm stressing out.
Without matt out there, dude, they're struggling.
Dammit.
Matt being down and out
is just absolutely killing us right now.
And we need him back.
[narrator] 54 miles southeast...
On the summer bay.
-[man] hey, how's it going? -[wild bill] oh, I don't know.
He moved my delivery date up by 24 hours.
I got about two days,
so this is where we need to capitalize.
We have to use this time as efficiently as we can.
[narrator] their timeline tightened.
Captain wild bill wichrowski and deck boss landon cheney
must increase their pace or risk heading in light.
We've been obviously adapting since nick's gone,
but now that you got the reins,
we need to get you another you.
We need to get somebody trained to be the number two guy.
Yeah, I kind of feel the guys come up to me,
privately to talk to me about it.
[wild bill] physically, he's a strong kid.
We'll give him a shot.
But there's a couple things he's going to need to do,
and one is step up on the rail.
Yeah.
[wild bill] you know, he's, he's a crabber,
he [bleep] grab it by the horns and do it,
or maybe he doesn't want to do it. I don't know.
[narrator] bill's number one candidate for landon's right hand man,
30-year-old clayton gore.
Hey, clayton, this is gonna be a tough string.
I'll give it as easy as I can,
but we got to run hard, man, we got to get them on deck.
So focus, buddy.
It's on you.
Let's go, guys.
[wild bill] the pace is advancing, so we have to shuffle
the gear down the hill.
I ran to the southeast.
I'm really hoping this one is our grand slam.
[man] come on, crab! Come on, crab!
Whoo!
Yeah!
A little crab in this one.
[man cheering]
-[man 1] yeah! -[man 2] oh, yeah!
Okay, we're close to a hundie.
Getting there.
Roger.
Yeah.
Oh, [bleep].
[wild bill] clayton missed. Not great.
[landon] confidence is key.
You got to go to the rail and own it.
Oh!
Ah!
Clayton, get the hook and get on the rail,
get your head out of your ass.
Roll through the [bleep] trailer
and get it in the block.
Now get the [bleep] off the rail.
That's my motivational speech.
The job got to be on point, otherwise it's just [bleep].
He obviously doesn't have confidence in his throw,
because he does the same thing every time.
Throws for the middle and too deep.
I'm almost coming to a stop.
Did you get it?
[wild bill] he ain't cutting it.
I'm not dealing with this [bleep] right now.
I've got five guys.
So, one of them is a rock star.
Landon's there,
I need to get one of the other guys to step up
and really want to be the best that he can be.
Step up if you want the job, step aside if you don't.
[narrator] 281 miles southeast.
[johnathan] six hour nap.
The only thing separating you from a six hour nap is these pots.
[narrator] on the time bandit...
[johnathan] I'm going to town.
We have to go in tomorrow, or we'll miss our cannery delivery date,
and then the next one is in ten days.
Okay.
Whoo!
[narrator] also battling the cannery's tight schedule,
captain johnathan hillstrand races to deliver
in just 56 hours, or risks ten days of deadloss,
waiting for the next available appointment.
[johnathan] this is crunch time for the time bandit.
We have 350 for the season,
I'm trying my best to do this,
get every last crab I can on this boat.
The further south we go, the further away from the ice we are right now.
Yeah, let's see what we get.
[men cheering]
that looks decent. That's decent, dude.
Whoo! Yeah, baby!
Pot number one.
Let's see what we get in the next one.
[johnathan speaking]
phillip hillstrand.
He's getting a load of crabs for us
on a full-share guy, deckhand abilities.
230.
Wow.
Whoo! Yeah, baby!
2-0-0.
200. Thank you.
God's watching out for us.
We got a lot of quota to catch.
There's no gear or boats here.
Change of plans again.
Bait the living hell out of them, too.
Yeah.
There's nobody within 14 miles from us right now.
I wanna try to get through all the gear
one more time before we got to go.
The clock's ticking.
We're gonna keep working, no point in just sitting around.
We don't need to sleep yet.
[narrator] to take advantage of hot fishing,
john gambles on a quick setback,
but, if he takes too long, the veteran skipper
could lose thousands in deadloss.
We'll see that pot in 12 hours.
That's the way you load a boat.
[shouting indistinctly]
[johnathan speaking]
phil, he's still bent over, [bleep]
[narrator] on the time bandit...
[johnathan speaking]
[groans]
phil, he's still bent over, [bleep]
hydroman, you got to take your time,
you don't wanna end up killing somebody.
I pulled the pot up
over the rail on the wrong roll
and the pot kinda went out of control
and sent phil flying across the deck.
[groans]
[neal] something you got to learn yourself, kind of.
You got to go with the feel of the roll of the boat and everything.
It's all about timing.
I feel like I got my [bleep] broke.
I don't know, you ever tried to stop
a [bleep] 800-pound piece of metal
going like 20 miles an hour?
[sighs]
[johnathan] phillip didn't know how to swing a pot
or hang on to a pot so that was poor on-deck.
This is all family.
Phillip hillstrand.
He's going to be a natural, he just doesn't know it yet.
Okay, guys.
Yeah!
[johnathan] got a long ways to go. Not long to do it.
Make it work.
[cheering]
clock's ticking.
[narrator] 274 miles northwest...
[man speaking]
I mean, my long-term goal is to be able to move up one day.
Man, you're already moving up quick.
Bill seems to like you a lot.
[narrator] ...On the summer bay.
[wild bill] landon and I are trying to figure out clayton.
We'll move him up the ladder,
make him the next landon...
But clayton lacks confidence...
We're gonna have to... We'll make another go at it.
See how he does coming up here.
[narrator] now, just 60 hours from his new offload,
captain wild bill looks to aspiring rail man,
clayton gore, to keep his operation on pace...
Let's go, bud!
[narrator] betting that experience now,
will mean speed and efficiency later.
[wild bill] I got to deliver it a day early, which...
Is not a whole lot of time.
But, to me, throwing the hook is the most important job on the boat,
and I want him to be good at it.
Here comes the layup, buddy.
[bleep] you!
Oh, man!
Dammit!
-Let it go! -Get it over the rail.
Get it over the rail.
Get the buoy over the rail.
Clayton, he doesn't have the confidence on the block and he just...
He hesitates.
Come on, keep it steady here.
[clayton] help! Help! Help!
[man] pull it up. Pull it up.
Get out of there, clayton. Get out of there.
I got it.
Oh!
I brought the first one right there on the rail, I don't know.
[narrator] as clayton reaches for the buoy,
the line slips,
pinning his hand against the steel block.
Is he all right?
I can't bend it.
-It's bruising already. -[wild bill speaking]
yeah.
We got it.
[wild bill] he hesitates,
and he ended up, the line slipped 'cause he takes a long time,
and he pinned his hand on the rail I guess.
It sounded like it was painful.
-[landon] frozen berries. -[man] frozen berries.
Every time.
Put it on the wound. As good as gold.
[wild bill] helluva test for clayton.
[landon] scary.
[wild bill] pretty tough dude.
I'm really scrambling 'cause they moved my delivery date up
by 24 hours, so...
I'm playing catchup right now.
I'm trying to run [bleep] as fast as I can.
The bottom line is we still have crab to catch.
[narrator] 111 miles southwest,
on the cornelia marie...
[josh] what's going on there?
Yeah, you're black right in here.
Yeah.
It [bleep] changes colors every day, dude.
[casey] we got like 67,000 left to go then we're heading in.
I don't need you to do the physical work yourself,
I just need you to lead these guys,
let those two kids out there bust their ass.
And just tell them what's wrong, okay?
Well, don't, 'cause you're going to mess yourself up,
but we're gonna need your leadership skills.
[casey] you're the deck boss, you know, if we don't have you out there,
we're in deep [bleep], all right?
All right, now.
[narrator] their operation faltering
without matt simpson in the lineup,
captains josh and casey tap the veteran deck boss
for light duty.
Their goal?
Set all 230 pots in deeper western waters.
Hoping a full crew will aid
in their hunt for a opilio bounty.
Getting too old to push it this hard.
But I can't leave my boys hanging,
so it's time to get out there.
[josh speaking]
-[man 1] yeah! -[man 2] yeah, baby!
[man 1] yeah, baby!
[matt] hey, boys!
All right, bitches.
[casey] my initial hunch that the crab are deep,
turns out it's definitely right.
Fortunately, with the ice coming down,
we couldn't leave the, leave the pots on the ground.
We're way out to the west now.
It goes, actually, there's a little gully here,
it actually gets a little bit deeper in front of us,
then shallows back up to this depth again.
This is deep deep.
90 fathoms deep, that is.
It's the deepest I've ever fished.
[casey] we had to add four shots to get here,
and that's always kind of sketchy
'cause the current will pull the bags down harder.
But I think it's gonna be good.
I just got a feeling.
[narrator] the risk of setting in the depths?
Additional strain from ocean currents
on the now 800 feet of line,
could drag the buoys below the surface,
making their pots impossible to find.
How deep they go?
We don't know, but we're about to find out.
Roger.
Hey, let's go, boys.
You guys ready? You packed them tight?
[casey] matt's back out on deck.
We don't have him anywhere near 100% capacity,
but he can run the crane.
That will make everybody's life a lot easier,
'cause he is an absolute, rock-solid deckhand.
[josh] this job is not for the weak.
[matt] everybody be careful.
Watch your fingers, watch your toes.
Wait till I get the pot close to the rack.
We're going to be using it for a while, so...
85 fathoms, here we come.
[man screaming]
is everybody okay?
Did somebody get hit?
[narrator] on the cornelia marie...
85 fathoms, here we come.
[man screaming]
is everybody okay?
Did somebody get hit?
No! I'm just pissed off with [bleep] up!
Is everybody okay?
So who's screaming "[bleep]?"
I [bleep] hit the wrong lever!
[casey] okay, let's get the spare cable out.
At least nobody got hurt.
[josh] yeah.
[casey] that right there was just plain scary.
[narrator] after snagging one 800-pound pot on another,
josh and casey's newly-returned deck boss, matt,
pulls the wrong control,
snapping the cable
and sending the pot into the sea,
never to be retrieved.
Oh, that was a massive [bleep] on matt's part.
Give me this.
Hold that.
Go.
He knows he screwed up.
He's... Oh...
He just sent my stress level through the [bleep] roof.
Wow.
[casey] his head ain't in this game right now.
The way he was screaming, it sounded like somebody was dead.
All right, jeremy, take it down to the bow, whatever.
Get the [bleep] out of here.
Never had that happened on the boat before.
One odd way to start off.
Going under.
[narrator] 318 miles southeast...
[johnathan] all right, time banditos.
Go ahead with the first one.
[narrator] on the time bandit.
[wyatt] today is get the heck out of dodge day.
[johnathan] I'm telling you, I don't need no coffee.
We baited up well,
put some more cod in there,
just try to get as many pounds for this trip.
That's when the big bucks start rolling in.
[narrator] his delivery fast approaching,
captain johnathan looks for lightning to strike twice
on his hotspot, south of the ice edge.
[men shouting indistinctly]
that's nice looking crab, dude.
117.
117!
-Whoo! -Let's go, baby!
Those old decks make everyone happy.
I got to kick her into high gear.
In ten hours, we got to go to town,
so we're back on the boat.
Got one guy down right now.
Phillip took a bad dive and hurt his shoulder.
He couldn't work through the pain,
so we just got to keep going here till we're full.
When you tell the cannery
you're coming in on a certain day, you got to do it.
[narrator] his nephew, phillip, on the injured reserve list,
john's remaining crew must haul with machine-like efficiency,
or risk missing their offload
and losing thousands of dollars in deadloss.
Yeah. Yeah!
Whoo!
[johnathan] there's crab down there.
All right.
[man] this is better.
They're getting better, we're getting some crab.
187.
[man] eddie, are you okay?
Are you okay, eddie?
[man] eddie, are you okay?
Hey, eddie, do you want to come up here?
[narrator] while locking the sorting table,
deckhand eddie jr. Trips,
slamming into the deck, injuring his groin.
[eddie] I'm all right.
[johnathan] I see that you're in pain, buddy.
I'm gonna put you down.
Stay inside.
Don't go outside for a day.
Let's see how you feel.
I usually can tell when one of you guys is hurt
just by the way you're walking,
'cause I know you guys so well.
Don't worry about it. We got you, okay?
Okay? Got you.
Okay.
See it in his face?
Can't even walk up and down the stairs.
It's obvious he's in so much pain,
he's too tough to tell me.
I just wanna be out there with the guys.
I want to work, you know, that's what I'm here for.
I love crabbing and I love crabbing with my family.
It sucks when I can't pull my own weight
or have to get pulled off the deck.
Walk of shame, it feels like.
It sucks when you got to sit on the bench.
So...
[johnathan] we're gonna just fall back and regroup.
I'd rather do that than hurt somebody.
Get to town.
I can't afford to have any more injuries.
Wanna play it safe.
We've got a long season ahead of us, let's go lick our wounds.
Send him to a doctor,
come out and he'll live to fight another day.
Lordy, lordy, lordy, take us home.
[narrator] 524 miles northwest of dutch harbor,
on the summer bay.
[wild bill] hey, buddy.
What's up, boss?
So, I wanna have you throw the string,
and you need to concentrate really hard on every throw.
[landon] one thing nick taught me, you know,
just go in there like you own it, you know?
Do it like you know you're going to do a good job.
And throw it like it's your last.
Yes, sir.
[wild bill] it's kind of the way it has to be.
-So get the hell out of here and throw the hook harder. -All right.
[narrator] approaching his final string before delivery,
captain wild bill triples down on clayton at the rail,
betting the high pressure can forge him
into the full-share mariner he needs.
Honestly, I want him,
I want nothing more than to have him
go string after string without a miss.
[clayton] climb up.
[wild bill] oh, yeah, baby.
I guess you could say he's 100% so far.
That's what we're looking for.
Another good shot, another good placement.
Yeah.
[wild bill] clayton's definitely not getting the...
The kid glove on this one.
It might take some pretty decent hook work to pull this off.
I'm hoping it holds up.
[narrator] 112 miles southwest...
[casey] how does the butt feel?
[matt] the burn finally went away,
whatever that was.
[casey] okay.
[narrator] ...On the cornelia marie.
[casey] how's the knee looking?
Now it's getting more purple.
Yeah, 'cause I'm standing on it all day long,
it's just draining down towards the knee.
All day long? What the [bleep]?
Dude, you get five hours off a day,
you [bleep] whiner.
[casey] looks pretty good to me.
I mean, physically, he's got good color,
the bruise looks like it's going away.
Look, you know, he's on antibiotics,
so if there is an infection in there,
that amoxicillin is gonna knock it out.
First pot's coming up.
Josh, you got eyes on it?
Wow!
Yeah, I can't really tell with all the whitewash.
[casey] we should start being able to see these little bastards.
[narrator] navigating a building sea,
captains josh and casey struggle
to find their first pot
on the deepest set of their career.
[casey] where is the pot?
[josh] we've got wave and currents
going against us right now.
This is, pissing into the wind right now, I think.
-I don't see [bleep] -[casey] all I see is whitewash.
With the line we have on, this is a little difficult.
[narrator] even with added shots,
the mid-ocean currents
push against the 800 feet of line,
pulling the buoys below the surface.
[josh] I think it's right up there, casey.
We're dead ahead.
[casey] how far out?
[josh] uh, 50 yards.
-[casey] I got it. -[josh] right there, dude.
I got it.
Whoo!
Here we go!
Come on, come on!
-Pots up. -[josh] how does it look?
Checkered.
No, I'm just kidding. Like 500.
Whoo!
There you go, boy.
505.
I'd say that's pretty damn good.
Get it, get it, get it.
You had it, you had it. Don't [bleep] around!
[bleep] you!
Watch out, a.J., move!
Dropped it off.
It's under the boat now, it's gonna pop up back there.
Right here, right by the launcher.
Where's it at?
Right there.
Did you get it?
Yeah.
Okay, go.
Pull this.
Get the clip ready.
Ready to roll.
[casey] easy. Easy, easy.
When you got it going under the boat like that,
you got to go slow, or you'll rip the bag off.
Hey, hold it on there.
Take it real slow.
[casey] nice, good job.
[josh] matt, he's actually doing really good,
but absolute straight from hell here.
[casey] matt's trying to haul this. It's a big pain in the ass.
[narrator] thanks to deck boss matt simpson's fast action,
the skippers retrieve a pot
despite one of the two buoys being submerged.
I don't know, my [bleep] stress level's
through the roof right now.
[narrator] but after 30 minutes,
just two pots have been recovered.
[casey] I hadn't realized the current
was this strong right here.
Guess what. There's crab down there.
Guess what. Can't get to them.
We got 120 pots up here
and they're all being held under.
This could be a $150,000 mistake...
Pray to god the tide lets up long enough
for us to get as many as we can up.
[narrator] in dutch harbor, on the time bandit...
Imagine having to wait 14 more days to offload.
I would [bleep] hang myself.
So, we made it to the dock...
Made it by 45 seconds to spare.
At 2:00 we were right here.
Did pretty good. We got 146,000 pounds.
But our first trip didn't go as well as we planned.
Eddie and phillip are injured.
We got a call back from the clinic,
and eddie's definitely got to go home.
Something's really wrong.
-Get better. -I will, buddy.
[johnathan] I'm gonna miss him dearly.
So, I'm waiting for phillip to get back from the clinic.
Hopefully they'll say he can stay out on the boat and fish.
[narrator] while captain johnathan
makes his $450,000 offload,
he may lose not one, but two deckhands,
depending on his nephew phillip's prognosis.
[johnathan] I worked through two hernias
and two groin injuries, so...
We'll put him in a sling
so he doesn't use that damn arm.
But, I mean,
it's not a life-threatening injury or nothing.
This is a family operation, you know.
Hopefully the doctor says he can stay out here
and get to finish this season with us.
We never had this many injuries so quick, ever.
Welcome back, hillstrand.
So, what's, what's the verdict?
What'd the doctor say?
He said it's an ac separation,
it's not just a dislocated shoulder.
It's also the rotator cuff--
so you're not supposed to use your arm
for a while and you'll get better?
Yeah, it's a four-week, there's a lot more.
It's a four-week injury.
Well, I'd love to have you stay and finish the trip.
Finish the season.
And the four-week recovery will happen
right here on the boat.
I'm telling you you don't have to leave.
But...
It's up to you, you know.
If you wanna quit, go ahead and quit.
[narrator] on the summer bay...
Buoy inflators...
Good for buoys...
Good for men.
It feels so good, dude.
[man] such a diva right now.
[narrator] ah, yes. Bering sea dementia.
It's a thing.
It's starting to set in.
[narrator] on the time bandit...
Well, I'd love to have you stay and finish the trip.
Finish the season.
And the four-week recovery
will happen right here on the boat.
I'm telling you you don't have to leave.
But...
It's up to you, you know.
If you wanna quit, go ahead and quit.
-I'm just gonna go home. -Just gonna go home?
-Yeah. -[johnathan] okay.
Then I probably won't ever hire you again.
If you go home.
I was, this was probably my last season anyways.
[johnathan] okay. Good luck.
-I love you, man. -I love you too.
[johnathan] I knew this was coming. I could see it in his eyes.
But, you know, if a guy is hurt,
I'm not going to make a guy work that's hurt.
But, usually, unless you got a bone sticking through your skin,
you stay on the boat.
But he chooses to go home and quit
and leave the boat down a guy.
You know, so, that's his choice.
He wants to fly home and get paid.
All right.
This is a family operation, you know.
It hurts my feelings.
So, there's no cure for that.
Doctor says no cure.
'cause I got a fever.
Doctor says I got a fever, it's called a fishing fever,
and there's no cure for fishing fever.
I got to go fish.
And I got to find another guy now.
[johnathan exclaims]
[wild bill] coming up.
Okay.
Yeah, ron.
Okay, coming on.
Oh, got it!
[wild bill] yeah, nice throw.
Just where it needed to be.
I guess he listened to what I said,
because he's, he's hitting the trailer line
where I told him to throw.
A couple feet behind the buoy and two or three feet deep.
[clayton] oh, yeah!
Oh, yeah.
[wild bill] just like I told him.
I don't know where the hell you've been up until now,
but I take back about half of what I've said about you.
My methods have worked for people before.
You have to be a little nicer
in your motivational techniques.
And I'm really good at that.
Yeah.
I bet he gets this last one.
[clayton] yeah, baby!
I came to work.
I did what I was supposed to do.
No more lectures, no more none of that.
It's a hard job, but you got to do it.
You know what? We might have broken his bubble
of not having the confidence.
And if we did that, that gives me one more guy I can trust on the rail
that's worth a lot of crab.
I was spoiled having nick and landon for the longest time.
I hope you're watching, nick.
Oh, happy days.
[josh] we're on retrieval mode right now.
[men cheering]
[casey] we're digging them out now that the weather's nicer.
That could've been a $150,000 mistake.
Oh, yeah.
Whoo!
[matt] we've hauled deep, and everything looks good.
-Looks like we're gonna fill the tank. -[casey] 400.
Roger, roger! 400!
It's great to see matt out on the deck.
[casey] the great pot hunt of 2021 is over.
Today is a good day.
Start of a new era.
[narrator] still to come on this season
of deadliest catch.
The hits keep on coming, baby!
[man] hydro, hydro, hydro.
Oh, smash. Smash.
Oh, yeah. Whoo-hoo!
Whoa, whoa, whoa!
[all] yeah!
Move, move, move, get them off.