It's nasty out. It's not fit for men nor beast.
It's called a squall.
Went from flat calm to like 20, 30 footers.
Bering sea, man. Changes every five minutes, you just never know.
It's like this with partners. Very unpredictable.
-Watch it! -Whoa, whoa, whoa!
[man] johnathan hillstrand, public enemy number one.
[chuckles]
everybody lies, so what's the point?
Both cause a lot of lows.
[cheering]
a lot of highs. Both cause pure chaos.
[man] hey, burt.
Are you ready?
[josh] pain.
Whoa!
[josh] and anguish.
-[grunting] -[man] yeah.
There's only so much crap down there.
There just ain't enough to go around.
[chuckles]
watch this one, guys, watch it, watch it, watch it.
Oh! [bleep] god!
It's like clash of the titans up here.
[narrator] 560 miles northwest of dutch harbor...
[grunts]
...On the cornelia marie.
-[man] whoa! -[man 2] wow!
I don't like these waves. I don't like it at all.
They're as tall as a wheelhouse. Huh, look at that thing.
This whole apocalypse is just not letting go.
[narrator] descending on to the northern crab grounds,
an intense but localized low-pressure system
or squall, engulfing the deep water hot spots
of captains josh harris and casey mcmanus.
I'll tell you what, we really need this right now.
Got a lot of quota to catch.
Tall order indeed.
Oh...
Yeah. I'll swap you out.
This might be a real tough one, we'll give it a shot.
-[man] whoa! -[man 2] whoa!
Coming up on our first test spot here, we'll see how this goes.
[cheering]
[man] wave, wave, wave.
[man 2] whoa! [bleep]
[josh] the waves are pretty nautical,
the temperatures are low.
You don't have good footing, they're sliding all over the deck.
It's when accidents really occur.
But we've got a limited window here
to produce as much crab as possible.
That one sucks.
-It's 48. -48...
Eh, we'll try another pot here.
This next one is going to be a lot better.
[man] go, baby!
[man 2] yeah, there.
Not looking good down here.
[casey] damn it, josh. This is [bleep]
we're putting all the pots on nonstop right now.
-You know what I mean? -[josh] yeah.
Apocalyptic, man.
[man] roger.
[josh] our great fishing is now obsolete.
We gotta go hunting again.
[narrator] the cornelia boys start their search
from scratch, but first,
they must wrest all 165 pots from the raging squall.
Go!
No, no, no. Is that in there? That's not in there.
But it back in the block.
[bleep]
jerry doesn't put the hook all the way into the pot,
that could've killed somebody.
[narrator] deck hand jeremy camas mistakenly
places the picking hook under the knot,
leaving the pot hanging not from the secure groove,
but on the one-inch metal tip, threatening to fall
into the bearing sea, or worse, on to a crewman.
How in the hell that hung on to that?
[josh] that one could've been a really big doozy.
[man] hey. Haul it, over here. Catch it!
Whoa, whoa, whoa!
Wow!
You gotta get that line off you fast, man.
When that [bleep] happens you get the hell away from it, okay?
Roger! Pretty gnarly.
Luckily it stayed in the block,
because that could have yanked him over the side so fast.
[josh] we don't want any more injuries on this boat.
We've already hit our quota for the year.
[grunting]
[bleep] come here.
Oh! [bleep]
we have to pack and move. There is no other option.
Because we have to get weight on this boat right now.
Yeah.
We're just going to keep grinding away, man.
[narrator] 135 miles northeast, on the wizard.
Come on, baby, give me a big score here.
We've been absolutely rolling here for three days.
It's hard to put together big court trips out here, but...
[cheering]
it's going really well.
[chuckles]
[narrator] with his brother keith tending
to family matters in the lower 48...
[cheering]
...Captain monty colburn leads the charge,
eager to make a dent
in their 1.7-million-pound opilio quota.
Did you count that?
Five, five, five, right on!
Yeah, we'll send it back.
You know, that last string had a pretty good stretch of 500s in it, counted 575.
You know, we're out here by ourselves, there's no lights out here.
This is about as good as it gets right through here.
[man] non-stop quotas, baby!
Yeah, that last pot was 650. That's pretty good right there--
[alarmed yelling]
-[indistinct shouting] -[beep]
okay, they're off. What's--
what's going on?
Oh, you're [bleep] kidding me.
[narrator] as the launcher shakes the crab out of a full pot,
the hydraulic cylinder blows its top,
stopping the wizard's hot fishing cold.
I've never seen this before.
I don't know how the hell we're going to fix this one.
Oh.
If I can't find somebody out here that's got a spare cylinder...
I'm gonna have to go to town, to go to saint paul
and have one shipped to the island.
But we're so far out of town,
you're not going to make it to town and back
inside of seven or eight days.
Seems like a lifetime.
Let's get the crab on here and we'll figure out what the hell to do.
We've got a long way to go.
[narrator] ten miles south west...
[man] oh! Ouch!
Oh, ay-ay. Nothingness all around.
[narrator] ...On the time bandit...
[man] pretty quick.
[man 2] that's all the crab!
It's 52.
This isn't going to do it for us. It's just...
There's no biomass here, it's just thin strips of crab.
I got no choice, you know? I gotta stalk on.
Time to go.
[narrator] after tanking 200,000 pounds of opilio crab up north...
The whole biomass is shifting.
I just gotta figure out which direction or where they're going.
[narrator] captain johnathan hillstrand's average
dwindles to a paltry 50 crab per pot.
[johnathan] I'll have to start all over again.
So we gotta get outta here.
[narration] with seven-day-old crab on the boat,
has only six more days to fill up,
or face down a light offload.
[johnathan] ay-ay-yay.
The wizard is ten miles from me.
I like the way that monty fishes, you know? Those guys.
See how he's doing.
Hey, monty.
[monty] how is it going, john?
There's nothing down here, except, uh, heartache and sorrow.
I was just checking with you
to see what you've got going on.
[indistinct shouting]
yeah, baby!
[monty] I've got a hydraulic cylinder from my launcher,
the cap came off of the barrel.
So, I can't shake my launcher without it.
We have to dump them our old style,
by swinging it over the table crate.
We're reverting back to the old-school way now we don't have our launcher.
[monty] have to physically send a man in there
to go and pick every last crab out of the web,
which is really time consuming.
Yeah, there's like ten times more crabs to take out now that we can't shake the pot.
[johnathan] oh, yeah. Yeah, I understand the pain.
How big a ram is that?
[monty] it's only like a 25-inch cylinder, you know?
It's like four and a half diameter unit.
Oh, yeah. Time bandit's got a spare ram.
Oh, you are kidding me?
[johnathan] yes, sir. I'll deliver it out to you out there. Does that work?
[monty] that would be awesome.
Okay, most definitely. Most definitely.
Everyone helps everybody out here.
Oh!
[johnathan] you know I'm good for it, but if you guys want to repay the favor...
Where are you guys going at them?
-Over there! -Oh, yeah!
Whoo! Yeah, baby!
He's no idiot. He knows something's cooking. I guarantee it. [chuckling]
[johnathan] time bandit's got a spare ram.
Oh, you are kidding me.
[johnathan] I'll just deliver it out to you out there.
So if I was gonna set, like, a couple of 35 strings...
Where should I go?
[bleep]
[narrator] captain johnathan offers a $300 part
to restore the wizard to full strength.
Yeah, roger that.
[narrator] whether the quid pro crab is worth
monty's hotspot intel, that's another question.
[monty] I'll let you know when I find something.
Okay, yeah. Thanks, just, uh...
I'd like to work with you on that one.
I'd like to stay a couple days, and then,
you know, be done, stack them all and go home. That's what I'd like to do.
Okay, buddy, good luck there and I'll keep in touch.
Alright, good enough. Thanks again, later.
I'm happy to help out another captain.
I think I might be able to get info back, but...
We're just trying to find out where to go.
[cellphone ringing]
this is mouse. Johnathan has our hydraulic cylinder,
he'll be here in 30 hours.
Don't worry, I got it figured it out.
Trust me, I already got a plan.
Alright.
Find some crab, it gets kinda crowded.
The whole fleet just will pounce.
It's a fact, and I don't fight fact.
We can't worry too much about everybody else.
Fish your own gear.
[narrator] 145 miles southwest,
at the southern edge of the squall.
It's not a very nice evening.
[narrator] on the summer bay.
[bill] the wind is cold as [bleep]
it's probably blowing 35, but the deal is
we're close to the edge,
and the water is coming out of the deep
into the shallow, so that's why you have these seas.
[excited yelling]
there was a lot of hemming and hawing about being a little light.
We're gonna kinda stretch a long bomber out from 73 and a half fathoms
to 77 fathoms.
And see what happens.
[narrator] after a smaller than expected delivery,
captain wild bill wichrowski is back on the hunt
in the depths of saint matthew's canyon,
amid the squall's powerful currents and building sea.
Do you feel like you need to go off right now?
It [bleep] hurts at the moment.
[narrator] slowing the set from the get go,
an angry cyst in a chest hair follicle
on deckhand david big bird sheets,
threatening wild bill's operation.
We all ready to go?
[bill] alright, we'll take care of that after this.
Let's go, get on deck.
[man] hey, hold it right there. Oh!
[bill] we're going to leave gear heavy baited,
run and hide for a couple of days while this blow comes.
We're gonna get up near the ice set.
Get close to the ice set, it's like being there now.
[man] yeah, baby.
[narrator] after shelling off all 110 pots,
bill turns his bow towards the flows,
using the ice pack as a shield
from the raging squall.
[bill] we're still about 50 miles away from the ice.
I'm hoping we get a sight of something.
[man] throw it over!
[bill] so, we're going to try and turn this thing around.
[narrator] 35 miles northwest...
-[man] whoa! -Whoa!
[kristjan] we got a squall rolling through,
bringing in tonight cold weather and big waves.
[sighs]
it's a little bit of a rough one out here.
That's hard nipples instantly.
[narrator] on the cornelia marie...
Oh, yeah. Wow. That was a good 30-footer.
Oh, man, there's some big ones out today.
Squall-pocalypse 2021.
See, it ain't no joke, man.
Sticks are out... [continues indistinctly]
we don't really want to hurt anybody else.
But we got a lot more here to dig out now, so...
[narrator] captains josh and casey pull their pots of poor fishing.
In their way, the squall's 30-foot seas.
[man] twenty-four, 2-4.
[josh] we've got about enough crab to make a crab salad.
Pretty much the worst [bleep] conditions right now, so...
Alright, guys.
Good job, you guys are still doing well,
I appreciate all the extra hard work.
[bleep]
-[josh] ooh-hoo! -[casey] wow.
-There's a 45-footer. -[josh] big, big boy.
That was a dandy.
Watch this one, guys, watch it, watch it!
Oh! [bleep]
watch this one, guys, watch it, watch it!
Oh! [bleep]
oh...
Everybody okay?
Yeah.
That could have killed somebody.
That wave went...
[bleep] just right into next week.
That's extreme today.
[casey] we have 165 pots, 112 pots left in it.
We've got to finish this strong.
We've got to try to start making money.
Oh!
[josh] we'll see.
Mother nature, she's always got a trick up her sleeve.
She's not done yet.
[narrator] 140 miles northeast...
[johnathan] promise is a promise.
[narrator] on the time bandit.
Well, monty and keith colburn,
they're [bleep] good fishermen,
good partners to have.
They got a ram blown.
I think I might be able to get them back.
[narrator] captain johnathan follows through on his deal with monty.
Oh, man, there was one time we gave them...
We brought their king coil, their sorting table, and their hoppers up,
and we painted it all pink.
Everything, pure pink.
[narrator] adding a twist that tickles him... Well...
[chuckling]
[narrator] ...Pink.
We know captain monty's favorite color is pink.
They'll get the nicest pink ram they ever received.
And they'll be happy to get it.
-[man] it looks good. Shiny. -[man 2] yeah.
Nice and shiny pink for monty.
-[chuckling] -oh, yeah.
[narrator] just two miles northeast, on the wizard...
We are presently 55 miles from our gear.
I traveled 40 miles east before I turned down the hill.
That's about as cloak and dagger as you can get.
[chuckling]
[narrator] using a zig-zag course to throw johnathan off the scent...
It's top secret agent stuff.
[narrator] ...Captain monty approaches the time bandit
for a boat-to-boat transfer,
eager to fix his broken launcher
to get his deck back to full speed.
-[monty] hey, john? -[johnathan] yeah, roger.
[mont] I got your five, closing in.
I'll just go by your stern and then you come up
around my stern, and we'll throw it over.
[mont] yeah, roger.
Captain monty!
Hey, you're looking good!
[yelling]
fishing with him at least seven years.
And we were like brothers.
Okay, freddy, you can let her go.
Roger!
[johnathan] alright, freddy threw it over.
Okay, it's in the water.
Come on, ram.
[monty] careful now with that thing.
Roger.
[monty] okay, we've got our cylinder.
This will definitely speed things up a notch.
What color is it?
They painted it pink.
Brand new, right out of the shop.
Fresh paint job from the time bandit.
And you guessed it, it's going to be pink. [chuckling]
we had some pink paint.
[laughs] why, of course. I wouldn't expect anything less.
Thank you for sending them.
-Yeah. -Now we can shake our launcher.
God knows they need it.
Oh, my god. That's terrible, man.
So, are you all in where you just came from?
Or you all spread out or what's up with you?
[monty] yeah, we're kinda spread out here.
No doubt about that.
It's been, uh, pretty slow going, I think, here.
Yeah.
I got some... When I left here, it was pretty good here, you know? Three parts of five.
[monty] yeah, roger. The same thing.
Comes and goes.
Comes and goes, what does that mean?
Yeah, it's hard to say.
[johnathan] okay. Hey, good luck there. I'll keep in touch, thanks.
[monty] yeah, good luck to you too.
Whatever, johnathan.
Who is he talking to?
Something is just... Seemed a little not right about that.
He didn't really tell us something, did he?
Yeah, "it comes and it goes." [chuckling]
what the [bleep] does that mean?
That's a jibby-jabba, jibby-jabba talk. Radio talk.
I know he's got crab up up the helm,
because he came down with no gear.
A guy don't come down with no gear if there's no crab up there.
I have to go find those guys and see what they're up to.
[chuckling]
we're going to find out.
[narrator] 85 miles southwest...
...On the eastern end of the squall.
50 knots with freezing spray on a full moon.
Twenty-footers.
Conditions are pretty much as [bleep] as it gets.
[narrator] on the summer bay.
Didn't exactly work out like we hoped.
With all the running we did, we never got to the ice.
We're still in wide open water here.
[narrator] failing to find the edge of the ice pack,
captain wild bill puts a freeze on his plan
to shelter in the shadow of the flows,
and must now confront shredding winds
and towering breakers.
Oh.
Coast guard doesn't fly out here.
They can fly and say hi to you going over the top,
but they can't do much for you.
I'm just trying to maintain steerage,
maintain the position.
Isn't crab fishing a blast?
Hey, can I get that first aid kit out of your room?
Clayton is going to do some surgery on the bird's cyst that he's got.
Yeah, I'll get the stuff you guys need
for this operation, but...
-Yeah. -It's on you guys.
-Yeah. -[bill] alright.
Thanks.
I guess bird's got some infection or some...
Cyst-looking thing on his... It's just gross.
[narrator] as bill braces the ship
for the onslaught outside,
the crew prepares to relieve big bird
of the pus-filled infection within.
I've got my scalpel, got some alcohol wipes.
Got some lidocaine to numb the area for him.
I'm going to lance it open, and we're going to get all that stuff out of there.
So I'm pretty comfortable doing this on him,
it shouldn't be a problem at all.
I'm not getting anywhere near that [bleep].
Nah. Nicht! Nah!
[chuckles]
[clayton] here we go.
That [bleep] is angry.
Yeah, well, after this, hopefully it will not be as angry, bud.
Okay, I'm going to go ahead, I'm going to wipe it down.
I'm going to go ahead and put some numbing cream on for you, bird.
Okay. So, I'm opening a sterile scalpel, okay?
As you can see, it hasn't been opened yet.
Okay. Are you ready?
Oh.
[narrator] on the summer bay...
My part of the procedure is, I'll supply the equipment and knowledge.
Here we go.
[bill] lance it, clean it, cover it. That's what you do.
I'm not a doctor, but I play one on tv.
[clayton] okay.
Oh.
Man!
Whoa! [bleep]
sorry, boys. That was a freight train.
There's still some big ones.
[clayton] okay, bird. One more time.
Okay.
[landon] oh, yeah.
[clayton] okay, made the cut. I'm going to squeeze.
I know that feels better already, bird.
Woo-hoo! That sucker was ready!
Oh, yeah.
[grunting]
[clayton] alright, I'm just pushing blood now, bird, so... Okay.
Hold that. Hold on.
-You keep this with you, okay? -Yeah.
Every four hours add some new on there.
Take your antibiotics like you're supposed to,
and hopefully this will go away.
And I hope you're feeling better already.
[landon] how did it feel, dude?
Like, an explosion?
[bleep]
yeah? You're feeling better already, yeah?
Yeah.
That felt really good, getting that damn thing cut open.
Because I've got to tell you, it was hell.
Just putting a shirt on, taking a shirt off.
By the time we get back to the ground, you'll be ready to go.
[bill] we're going to spin it around.
We've got about 67 miles down to the gear.
We'll see how it goes.
I don't know what is going to take to keep course.
I don't know how much spray we're going to be making.
I'm anxious to get a look at something,
and then we're gonna pound it once we see it.
[narrator] 105 miles northeast...
...Clear of the squall...
[man] yeah, get her nice and tight.
[narrator] ...On the wizard.
Alright, they got the cylinder on there.
Yeah, it's going.
Brand-new hot pink cylinder that johnathan brought us. He painted it so kindly.
Alright, give her some shakes.
[narrator] with his hydraulics repaired,
thanks to a special delivery from the time bandit...
It's on there, seems to be working.
We're back in business.
Right on. Good job, guys.
[narrator] ...Captain monty slips onto his secret
northern grounds, ready to attack
the 700,000 pounds he needs to bank his quota.
We're going to [bleep] a pile of [bleep] here.
-Yeah! -Take it!
[man] got the new ram installed. We're able to shake the pot.
Game changer.
We're getting through 'em quick, which is good. It's what we need.
Got a bunch of crab on the tank at the same time.
Things are going extremely well.
In fact, quite frankly I don't think things could be going much better.
450s, 500s, 350s. We're out by ourselves.
You gotta be careful, you know?
Because you could find all the big fishing you want.
You drag 20 boats along right behind you...
You ain't going to be on big fishing for long.
[narrator] just three miles off monty's stern,
[johnathan] alright, time banditos.
Is there any time bandits on here?
[man] roger!
-Whoo! -Yeah, baby!
Yeah, baby! The time bandit booming in, baby!
We're gonna set a 25 string, and then...
Whoo!
[man] roger that.
[man 2] ready, baby! Their bag is a [bleep]
[narrator] captain johnathan follows the wizard's a.I.S beacon
to see if the younger colburn is holding out on him.
The old dog might know a few tricks.
I hate doing that,
but you've got to do what you've got to do. Oh, there's a pot.
Gotta feed this beast, this beast is hungry.
It might not be the right thing to do,
but I could hit big up here.
And if I don't hit big...
[chuckles] god help us.
Okay, guys, let's go ahead and dump the first one.
-[man] let's go! -[man 2] yeah, going over!
Whoo!
Throw it over.
Whether it's right or wrong... [bleep].
We're gonna spy on ya.
We'll have a 24-hour soak on our string we got up here.
And then we can start pulling gear, find out what we got.
[narrator] on the time bandit...
Okay, mr. Ice desk. Ice desk andy. Just ask ice desk.
You know, these guys don't have internet. I don't got no internet.
I'm just [bleep] caveman johnathan.
We're still fascinated by electricity.
We don't have no lights.
We got a candle on a big clay box
to light up the crab fishing at night.
Yeah, prehistoric crab.
Crab are like, you catch one and load up the boat. Yeah.
[narrator] while johnathan searches in vain for giant,
prehistoric crab, monty loads on their smaller descendants.
[narrator] 530 miles northwest of dutch harbor...
[bill] we've just been out there in this weather.
It's cold.
Yeah, I can tell it's cold
because the ringer is freezing on the outside.
[narrator] back in the squall, on the summer bay...
[bill] creep around the canyon.
And right now we're in 74 and a half,
so I'm anxious to get a look at something,
and then we're going pound it once we see it.
[man] let's go!
Yeah.
Good start.
[narrator] after a failed attempt to find shelter
near the ice edge, bill plunges into the teeth
of the low-pressure system, near saint matthew's canyon,
ready to test his set in the 70-fathom range.
We only got so many days. I want to try to make every pot count.
We'll see what this has.
[man] whoo! Come on! Bring it on, come on, crab!
Come on, crab. Come on, crab.
[man 2] there we go!
[bill] nice.
Yeah.
Man, where's my crab at?
I've got my fingers crossed on the next one.
Yeah, baby.
Ay-ay-yay-yay-ay.
No bueno.
[mutters indistinctly]
[man] hold the door!
[bill] we haven't seen squat out here yet.
We gotta get these pots on something, that's for sure.
We're going to find them.
I guess the best way to find a place to fish is ask somebody.
[chuckles] but everybody lies, so what's the point?
Guys that are really on it probably aren't talking.
[narrator] on the wizard...
[monty] here comes the time bandit, boiling down in here.
You're kidding me, right?
He doesn't have his a.I.S. On.
[narrator] johnathan may not be broadcasting his position,
but captain monty's short range radar
still picks up the approaching skull and crossbones.
-[man] boom! -[man 2] yeah!
[man] how is the effort with the fleet around you?
Well, they're closing in.
I've got johnathan bearing down on me.
Crawling up into that spot.
[man] um, okay.
[bleep] pisses me off.
You know what I'd do, mouse?
Try and go further at the helm,
and I'll give a thorough ice report, okay?
Okay, roger that. Call me back.
Do it as soon as you can, would you?
-I've got to get busy. -[man] alright.
I sure appreciate that, johnathan hillstrand.
Public enemy number one.
[cheering]
[johnathan] yeah! Get it! Get it done! Get her done!
What do you think you're getting out here, buddy?
[shouts indistinctly] close to four!
Yeah, baby. Yeah, baby.
We [bleep] did it.
Yeah, I monty, pretty quiet with the information there.
But we found the motherlode, man. We did it.
I'm here, I'm there, I'm everywhere.
[man] holy [bleep]. We got a couple.
Yeah, you know, mother nature can give it
and mother nature can take it.
But I'm very thankful that she's being really nice today.
We could actually go out and just plow though some gear.
Let's get the last pot coming aboard.
[casey] damn good feeling.
Our pot haul log has a bunch of zeros on it.
And we're picking 'em up and moving 'em.
That's all you can do. Just happy nobody is hurt.
[josh] we'll live to fight another day of the season.