[johnathan] wind's blowing hard enough to make white water everywhere.
The seas are catching up to it.
A big storm is coming.
It's going to get worse before it gets better.
This boat's gotta make money, though.
[man 1] just like a chess game, you've got to think ahead
five or six moves or else you're gonna lose.
You gotta grind on what you find.
It was such a small little sign.
[sig laughing]
got to push as hard as we can push. Nothing's easy about it.
[man 2] watch yourself. Watch out.
The only possible way to haul it is to drift down the string sideways.
[man 3] watch out!
Everything is trying to stop me.
-[man 4] watch out. -Whoa!
Oh!
Damn it! Ah, ha!
[man 5 speaking]
hang on!
[johnathan] there you go, guys.
There's two down the clip.
-Yeah! -Ah!
Yeah!
[narrator] five hundred and sixty-six miles northwest of dutch harbor...
On the northwestern.
[sig] this whole season has just been one catastrophe after another,
it feels like to me.
You're scratching your head going, what's next?
[man 6] here we go.
We lost a lot of time and a lot of good fishing because of the crane.
And we are starting all over.
We don't have a choice.
[narrator] after six days delayed at dock,
and his first trip back out of bust,
captain sig hansen is back to square one,
on the 772,000 square mile bering sea.
[sig] we've got to go find some crab.
Problem is the weather.
There's a large front that's coming in from the west, southwest,
and we can't afford another delay.
[narrator] fueled by warm air from the pacific,
a 995 millibar low pressure system tracks north,
making a beeline for the fishing grounds and the dutch harbor fleet.
[sig] we gotta try to stay away from the weather and the waves.
Up a little farther northeast.
I haven't been up there since 2004.
It's a long time ago.
That's 17 years ago, isn't it?
Yeah.
[sig] see. Look.
Yeah. I do have some old tracks here.
See, it's a deep gully, you see that?
[mandy] yes, sir.
But what's nice about this spot is it's just super soft muddy bottom
and it's just a nice big funnel.
[narrator] the battle plan, set gear before the tempest hits,
betting the crab will seek shelter in the deeper,
less turbulent waters.
[sig] this stuff gets down in a 130-plus fathoms.
And so we're adding shots, 15 fathoms plus the 33.
And I'm going to try much, much deeper.
If there's any kind of life back in this hole, it's mine.
Hopefully, this is where the money is.
Maybe we'll get lucky or maybe it's a waste of time.
Only one way to find out.
Set it if you're ready.
[man 7] we're ready!
-Here we go. -Going deep!
I got my fingers crossed that this will hit, but there's no guarantee.
That's the one thing about fishing.
You always get your high hopes and it's like, spank!
You know? "sorry about your bad luck.
You should have been there last week."
[man 8] throwing over.
[sig] we're gonna see what happens.
[narrator] five hundred and sixty-six miles southeast...
[man 9] is that big enough?
[man 10] open it just enough to get your hand in.
[narrator] ...In dutch harbor.
We're not throwing up.
Oh, come on.
[monte] well, the offload's complete.
Came in with 379,500 and change.
We've got just over a million pounds landed, so we're closing in.
[narrator] on the heels of a record breaking delivery,
wizard captain, monte colburn, still needs 700,000 pounds to put a pin in his season.
My brother's coming back.
It's always better to have more brains when it comes to sitting in this chair.
[indistinct yelling]
my brother has arrived.
[narrator] after leaving for a family emergency,
captain keith returns to push the wizard over the finish line.
[monte] what's up, old-timer?
Man, you've gotten gray in the last two weeks.
-[bleep] man. -[keith] holy smokes, man.
I know. It's about time to get out the kit.
[keith] okay, imma give you the chair,
changing of the guard yet again.
Let's go and throw lines.
Time to go fishing, baby.
-Whoa! -Next stop, hopefully good fishing grounds.
Good to go!
[man 11 on radio speaking]
[keith] all set?
Look at that.
[monte] another storm coming, huh?
Bering sea is a wicked place and when you get a storm like this,
it gets even worse.
But right now, we need to finish this season.
All we can do is just charge, get the boat, crew and the crab home safe.
Onward.
[narrator] five hundred sixty miles northwest...
On the time bandit.
Oh, yeah.
Nothing worse than a salty coffee.
[man 12] come on, baby. Keep moving. Keep moving.
I don't mind the caffeine, don't need no salt.
[man 13] not good.
Aye, aye, aye.
Trouble. We got them.
It's going to be a long day.
The southerly is coming.
It's already blowing like 45. It's not helping my cause.
Should I go out there and help them?
If you want to.
Why would you say that? You're supposed to say "no".
I would think that you're quite an adventurous person.
[heather] why would you even let me out there?
[narrator] battered by building seas,
captain johnathan hillstrand...
Aye, aye, aye.
[narrator] ...With wife, heather, riding shotgun...
There's no biomass here.
Just these thin strips of crab.
So we got to get out of here.
[narrator] ...Pulls up stakes on a hundred pots set in northern latitudes.
[man 14] oh, no.
[johnathan] I might be jumping the gun,
but I want to stack on a hundred pots, get above the fleet
and then we'll hail mary towards russia.
Don't want to pester anybody else who's already pissed.
[narrator] rather than hunker down on scratchy fishing amid a crowd,
john steams into the storm's path betting on fresh grounds
to deliver a season ending payday.
I think we're going to get that [bleep] beat out of us.
But we have a good boat, we have a good crew.
Hoo, aye, aye.
That was a [bleep] 30-foot wave we just rolled by.
Watching my boys.
[johnathan] these guys are definitely in harm's way.
There's another big son of a bitch right there.
Evil bastard.
With a 35-footer wave behind it.
But I can't freak out and I can't panic, and do something dumb,
and get somebody hurt right now.
Just a funny thing about being out here, I don't like roller coasters.
[laughs]
there are some big waves coming.
Look at that curler.
That's hawaii 5-0 coming. That's a 30-foot wave, dude.
Hey, wyatt. Hang on, wyatt.
[wyatt speaking]
[johnathan speaking]
[wyatt] hang on! Hang on! Hang on!
[johnathan] hang on, guys. Hang on.
[wyatt] oh, my god.
Good job, wyatt. Be careful, man.
Do not be a crabber, kids.
Go to college.
Go do something else.
This job sucks.
[johnathan] ah, [bleep].
This is a big one. Here comes the big one.
[bleep]
hang on!
[heather] holy [bleep].
Oh, my god!
[bleep] guy, [bleep] smart guy.
I'm watching my guys.
Watching my guys, ma'am.
-See, honey? -You are on it, baby.
[johnathan] yeah, I'm driving son of a bitch is what I am.
This is getting pretty crazy out here.
[bleep] yeah. This is crazy [bleep].
That's for sure.
[johnathan] they like to travel in pairs.
Be careful, be careful.
There's another one. [bleep]
holy [bleep].
Big one.
Watch out! Watch out!
Watch out!
[narrator] on the time bandit...
[johnathan] this just got ugly.
Ugly.
Be careful, be careful.
There's another one.
[bleep].
Holy [bleep].
Big one.
Watch out! Watch out!
Watch out!
[wyatt] oh.
You okay?
We're all good.
That was close. Wow!
Be careful, careful. One pot at a time.
Let's go one pot at a time.
I'm having an amazing time.
Soaking wet.
[johnathan] if anybody was behind the launcher when that one hit,
it'd have really hurt somebody.
[eric] man, I've never seen a weather like this.
Really, we're just trying to stay alive and not get murdered.
So we just got to watch out, safety first.
But right now, we just got to try to get these pots on.
Easiest day was yesterday.
Well, that wasn't very easy.
[narrator] thirty-one miles northeast...
On the northwestern.
Looks like I needed a beach umbrella and a lawn chair.
Maybe a little gazebo and a cooler for later.
[sig] it is really blowing here today,
just as the weather, uh, was forecast.
[narrator] now engulfed by the northbound low-pressure system.
[sig] I set off a couple of strings down this way,
as deep as we've fished in years and really want to see what's here.
I just got short soaked on it,
but hopefully, we'll see something.
[narrator] captain sig springs his trap early, eager to see
if the storm's violent currents sent the crab
in search of a peaceful reprieve.
These pots have about 14 hours on them, but I can't wait any longer,
so if there's crab in them, I just got to get them back dialed in
and then, uh, let them soak.
This is it. This is the big deal right now.
This can make or break us.
I'm telling you, it's just like gambling.
They're either there or they're not there.
Come on, baby.
All right, moment of truth.
[man 14 speaking]
it's blank. [bleep] damn it.
Nothing in the first pot.
[sig speaking]
that's 85 fathoms.
We'll see.
Come on now.
[man 14 speaking]
[groans]
zero crabs. That's not good.
Now I'm a little nervous.
I really thought there'd be crab on both ends.
So honestly...
[clark speaking]
come on, man.
[man 14 speaking]
I don't care if it's one crab. It's a sign of life.
They're nice, big, beautiful crab.
That's a good sign, and we want to keep it that way.
Come on, guys. Come on, guys.
[cheering]
[bleep] yeah!
[laughs]
yeah!
Haul 'em in!
Look at that little piece.
That's [bleep] quality.
[sig speaking]
[clark speaking]
oh, yeah.
Come on. Let's do this.
Oh.
-Uh-oh. No. -Ooh.
[sig speaking]
[clark speaking]
a little less?
-Yeah, half way. -Yeah.
Possible it tapered off a little bit.
[man 14 speaking]
we're drying up.
Ugh. That's all.
[mandy] whoa-ah!
All right, mandy, it looks like there's life in here.
That's six-tenths of a mile that we have to work with, right?
We know north and south where there's meat.
We just don't know how far the strip goes east and west.
[mandy] right.
So that's what we're looking for.
[narrator] with only a handful of pots showing crab...
Okay. We're gonna get them right back where they were.
[narrator] ...The skipper targets the best sign of life,
precision bombing for 125 fathom range.
All good!
[cheers]
if we're lucky and if the crab are piled in, they're all schooled up,
then hopefully, we can get a good pick out of it, but if it's spotty,
up and down, that's not a place you wanna be.
[clark] throwing over.
[sig] so we'll see.
[narrator] forty-six miles northwest...
On the corner of the storm...
On the wizard.
[keith] oh, man. This is going to be gnarly.
Uh, this is going to be gnarly.
Hello.
[narrator] assaulted by 40 knot winds and building 25-foot seas...
We are going to take a shot at getting some of these pots on there
and pray we can catch the crab we need to catch.
[narrator] ...Captain keith looks for gear positioned for the weather,
betting that cleverly set pots will lead to safely hauled strings.
[keith] we got 18 in that string.
I might be able to haul this string literally with the weather on the port side
and drift down the string sideways...
And just let the wind blow us down from pot to pot.
[narrator] to keep the smaller starboard rail facing down sea,
keith positions the boat perpendicular to the wind using the port side wave wall
as both a shield and a sail, allowing the wizard to drift down the stream
while hauling, keeping the crew protected and the operation running.
[keith] this is only possible if the bags are laying in the right direction
with the wind, and that's what it looks like.
Can we do it? I don't know.
We're going to find out here in a minute.
I think we'll have a pow-wow with the boys.
All right.
If we take it in green water, it's coming on your blindside, off the port side,
which means I'm gonna have an even harder time seeing it coming.
So you feel the boat do that or take a weird roll, hang on.
All right?
Roger that.
All right, boys, let's get back out there.
[indistinct yelling]
all right, it's coming up, guys.
[man 15] whoa! Come on.
This is it.
[man 15] come on, guys. Let's go. Let's go.
[narrator] on the wizard...
[man 15] let's go.
[keith speaking]
stay sharp at the rail.
[man 15] whoa! Come on!
This is it.
[narrator] ...Approaching his first pot.
Now, let the drift begin.
[narrator] ...The veteran skipper relinquishes control of the 155-foot vessel
to the gale, allowing the southerly gusts to blow it downsea to the buoy.
This is not crab fishing 101.
This is advanced crab.
And instead of fighting the ocean,
you're trying to work with the ocean.
[man 16] watch out! Whoa!
[bleep]
[keith] but she will remind you who is in charge.
All right.
Drifting in on it just the way we're supposed to.
[man 16] hey, what's up, crab baby?
We've got the first one.
Oh! Oh, ho, ho, ho!
-[man 16] whoa! -[man 17] lots of them.
Okay, there we go, right there.
Welcome aboard, boys.
Good. So far, so good.
Just head to the next one.
[man 16] yeah, brother.
Come on around, girl. Come on around.
[man 18] whoa! Yeah.
Come on now.
Get around for me. Get around.
There.
[man 16] watch yourself! Watch yourself!
-[bleep] -[indistinct chatter]
ah. Jeez.
Stacking up quick here.
He is stacking up.
I won't be shocked if we're jogging here pretty soon, randy.
Whoa, whoa, whoa!
Heads up, port side.
Watch out for the next one.
[man 16] watch out!
That rolled pretty hard here.
[man 17] hold on.
Ah!
Oh, [bleep].
Damn it!
[keith] you okay?
Give me a heads up.
All right.
Remember, guys. It's going to be our blindside.
Everybody, port side blindside.
[man 17 speaking]
[man 16] whoa!
This weather has gone from bad to real bad.
I can't take too many more chances.
[narrator] forty-three miles southeast, on the time bandit...
[man 16] yeah, baby!
[indistinct yelling]
got to go, try to find some better crabbing.
Hell or high water.
Whatever that means.
Another saying we don't know what it really means.
[narrator] ...Looking to boost his average and shake loose from the fleet...
Captain johnathan stacks on his remaining pots.
[johnathan] we're gonna haul these through the night
and then we're on our way north.
We'll try to make it up there without having to stop at the ice.
[narrator] his plan, charge 55 miles
into the northern reaches of the storm expecting no one to follow.
Do I like fishing off to the side all along?
It's, uh, dangerous to go up to russia.
So scary. It's always scary.
[johnathan] hopefully, it's the right thing to do.
Okay, so everyone be careful.
There's still like ten pots left now.
[man 19 speaking]
pretty bad out there right now.
I'm not going to hurt nobody to get an extra ten pots.
[man 20] it's blowing pretty good out there.
Guys are taking a pounding on deck.
I really got to watch out.
They're right in harm's way.
[man 21 speaking]
that's why I need to get this hay rack down
and get the hell out of here real quick.
We might be able to get two more pots.
We'll see how this one goes.
[indistinct chatter]
[bleep]
I can't see nobody out on deck.
I hear a lot of yelling, and that's not good.
Aye, aye, aye.
I'd love to get the other ten pots on board,
but it ain't gonna happen with the weather doing what it's doing.
It's not worth it.
So I'm gonna call it a night.
Okay, we got one left, guys.
This is the last one.
[man 20] last one coming up. We're going to doing this.
There we go.
Pull up and stack them.
They can put that pot away and come in and not get hurt.
That's all I'm going to ask of them.
[eddie sr.] that's the last pot here.
Make sure our deck's secure, pots are tied.
We worked hard. We battled the storm.
And we have these 90 onboard.
Those other ten pots will be right here, soaking in the water for us.
So, going to russia.
Hopefully, we land on our own mother lode.
[narrator] five hundred and sixty-three miles
northwest of dutch harbor
on the northwestern.
Okay, we're back down in the deep.
And we're getting ready to see what's down here.
We took quite a risk, you know, when you think about it,
because I crossed the hole basically with 20 pots, but it was only three today.
I needed some crab on it, on a short soak.
And we laid them back through on that bank.
[narrator] captain sig intercepts a patch of crab coming down the slope
at 125 fathoms.
We got in as much crab as we can on the boat
and tried to salvage this season.
[narrator] now the question remains,
if fanning out at that depth will net them more
or is this spot just a one hit wonder?
I'm afraid to be excited because I know...
I mean, it was such a small little sign.
Small sign with a big number, you never know.
I don't know how big that--
[mandy] oh, just shut up and roll it already
because I'm ready to see what's in these pots.
[sig speaking]
all right, no promises.
But if this hits, then I'm going to be so happy.
This is huge. We could have a monster pick here or crab aren't there anymore.
Just have a... It's exciting right now.
Come on now.
Yeah!
[men cheering]
they're screaming.
No, no, no. Get away. Get away.
Now! Whoa!
-Yeah! -Yes!
Yeah!
Oh, yeah! Yeah!
Ooh, that just brought me some real estate.
Oh, I left it in gear.
I forgot to pull it out of gear.
-Oh, my god. -Because you're excited.
All right, breathe.
Breathe.
[sig speaking]
430.
That's pretty doable.
[man 20 speaking]
but I mean, it's...
That's just one pot.
Oh, my god! It's full!
It's [bleep] full!
[sig laughing]
hold on. Let me film it. Let me film it.
Hold on, mike.
[bleep].
Oh, my god!
[bleep] holy [bleep].
We need a bigger table.
My god!
[all laughing]
[sig] that's how you fish!
Yeah!
[cheering]
[laughing]
[sig] oh, my god.
Oh, I'm gonna pass out.
Table's not even big enough.
We only got 30 hours, so that's fast fishing.
[sig speaking]
[man 20] about 800.
About 800 in 30 hours?
[sig speaking]
-that'll do it! -[sig] hell yeah.
It's almost 1,000 pounds in that pot,
I think we can afford to set it back.
[sig speaking]
that's the most exciting thing we've seen all season.
This deep haul might even make our season.
[sig] easy.
We're not there yet.
Hopefully, we can finish this strip up and get started
on the right foot for a change.
[narrator] forty-two miles northwest...
On the time bandit.
[johnathan] watch out! Now it's gonna be above you guys.
Ready.
Just got above the fleet, all the lights are behind us.
I haven't seen any gear for a while.
It's scary dangerous out there.
[narrator] after throwing caution into the 45 knot winds and steaming north,
despite building weather...
I only got 90 pots, I wanna bring a hundred up here,
but I couldn't because I don't wanna hurt nobody.
[narrator] ...Captain johnathan prepares to set
a prospect string in the far north searching for a biomass
he can call his own.
[johnathan] okay, guys.
Just tell me that you're ready.
Let's go ahead and dump the first one.
[man 21] throwing over.
[johnathan] roger. Throwing over.
Well, the 24-hour soak on our big 90 pots
we've got up here and then we can start pulling gear, find out what we got.
That's our plan, in a crab shell, because that's what we do out here.
We don't have it all in a nutshell,
and I don't even know what that means.
We'll see.
[narrator] thirty miles southwest...
On the wizard.
Oh, boy. Just getting shredded up there.
I don't think there's going to be much left
of our stars and stripes when this storm's passed.
Definitely, we are not in much better shape, that's for sure.
Stacking up, we went from [bleep] 15 to 20 to 25,
now we're starting to see some 30-foot combers coming through here.
[man 22] whoa!
Nit setting a new land speed record for hauling gear,
but we are getting them on.
[narrator] after hauling gear set against the weather...
We just need to keep chugging along and put them down, you know.
Three, four, five hundred crabs at a time.
Set this back.
Now we got about 140 crab pots we got to go through that
are going to have over 30 hours, so...
[narrator] ...A shift in wind direction allows keith to hold more strings,
even in a building sea.
[man 21] throwing over.
[keith] we have a string there, there, and there.
Those are all set to haul in the weather.
I'm gonna have the weather on the starboard quarter...
Which means we're gonna be taking wave after wave right through the work zone.
But if I don't get this string now,
we're not going to get it until this storm blows through.
[grunts]
[keith] all right.
I'm going straight into it, so stay sharp at the rail.
[man 21 speaking]
come around, keith. Come around.
Don't get the weather on the starboard side too much.
[man 22] oh, my god!
Whoa!
There it is.
[indistinct yelling]
not getting any easier.
[man 23] no protection from any of it.
Turn your face one way, and then it starts spraying that way.
Where did my pot disappear to?
Where are ya?
Okay, that pot's gotta be right here somewhere.
It's got to be right here.
Oh, [bleep].
All right, you guys, hang on. Hang on.
[man 22] wave, wave, wave!
Oh!
[bleep]
[narrator] this week on salty takes.
[johnathan] where's eddie?
We're not gonna say how old you are, but we had to buy three packs
of candles and they come in 24.
-[johnathan] shut up. Fire extinguisher. -[mandy] happy birthday!
[man 24] yeah!
[johnathan] now this is going to take a while.
Think of the good words.
That's the way you light this [bleep] up.
Let's blow this pig.
That's right.
I ain't got air in my lungs to blow that [bleep] out.
[johnathan] okay. Help out, karl.
You got all the lungs.
What the hell is that?
[all laughing]
you see all the smoke in here.
[man 25] best birthday cake ever!
[man 26] eddie thought, he was... He wasn't here for his birthday.
[narrator] the time bandit gets a birthday bump while keith and the wizard
maintain the pole position.
[keith] [bleep]
all right, you guys, hang on, hang on.
[man 27] wave, wave, wave, wave!
Oh!
[bleep]
[narrator] on the wizard...
Holy crap.
[sighs]
[keith] I can't take any more chances out here like this, not on this course...
It's time to call it quits on this attempt.
[keith speaking]
this little rodeo just came to a close.
[man 27 speaking]
[keith] it's just gotten too big.
We've got major snow squalls.
Barely was able to warn the guys in time.
[man 27] let's go. Let's go.
[keith] I got lucky.
That could have been a lot worse.
Just hope it blows through fast.
Right now I just got to get this boat onto a safer heading,
then we'll figure out if we can fish.
Let's just hope it happens.
[narrator] thirty miles northeast...
[johnathan speaking]
[narrator] ...On the time bandit.
Yeah.
Let the games begin.
We have a chance to beat the storm.
We hold down here, our gear is all up here now.
So, hopefully, we run into some crab.
[narrator] captain johnathan approaches his string on a short 24-hour soak
to learn if his hail mary contains hearty crab...
It's just difficult, just a miserable [bleep] day.
[narrator] ...Or nothing but heartache.
Let's see how it worked.
Yeah! Yeah, baby!
[johnathan] that's a good pot.
I like that pot.
It's beautiful. Never seen so many crabs.
[johnathan] big crab up here.
Those things look clean.
Good fishing.
Not a good time to be out here!
Four. Here we go.
[johnathan] four hundred.
My hair's standing on my neck.
Look at that one.
Choo-choo.
Woop, woop, woop! That's 500.
[men cheer]
if you're on them, you're on them.
We're gonna pick it up and get them all back in the water,
with bait in 'em, pick out the pots.
[man 28] here we go.
Good things are happening on the time bandit right now.
[johnathan speaking]
[keith] I've got iced up windows.
I can't see these waves coming.
And the temperature is dropping like a rock.
The longer it blows, the bigger the waves are going to get.
It's going to definitely get worse before it gets better.
[keith] you think you're very good in the ocean.
Guess what?
You get slapped hard and fast.
I'm not giving up yet.
We're going to have to battle again.
[johnathan] we just don't quit.
We don't know when to give up.
Going to make it work.
[sig] I couldn't be more happy about the way this turned out.
When you're fishing like this, it's a lot of fun.
[man 28] oh, yeah.
And I'm not saying anything to anybody.
We'll try to keep this sliver for ourselves as long as we can.
[johnathan] I'll fight to the death.
I'll push this boat as hard as we can push it.
That's what we do. We fish.