[keith] bering sea is a wicked place.
When you're out here by yourself and you're in heavy weather like this,
you know, sometimes you feel like
a million miles from anybody and everybody.
There's all kinds of things that can go wrong.
[man shouting]
[johnathan] whoa!
What is that?
What the [bleep] is that?
Something big out there.
Every single possible scenario, you know it's gonna happen.
[groans]
[man speaking]
we better go investigate.
[keith] it'll just be utter chaos.
Careful, guys.
Hang on! Hang on!
Go, go!
[indistinct shouting]
throw him a lifesling, quick.
Oh, my god. This is not good.
[keith] yeah, this place is creepy up here, man.
[seagulls cawing]
[narrator] 595 miles northwest of dutch harbor...
On the time bandit.
[man] forward.
[johnathan] so, we finally made it up here.
We got the top of the fleet and set towards russia.
I'm just gonna cover more depth.
We came all the way up here to mother russia.
It's, uh, high risk, high reward.
[narrator] after tanking a quarter million pounds in the upper latitudes,
captain johnathan hillstrand plans a surgical strike.
[johnathan] got a nice little deck load of pots that's up,
there's a little spot right behind us.
I could get 15 pots in there real quick.
Just want a little spot to grind on.
[narrator] the veteran's goal, hone in on the biomass over a small range of depths,
hunting his last 80,000 pounds before heading in for offload.
We got a chance.
That's all we need is a chance.
[man] roll 'er!
[johnathan] time to rock and roll.
[man 2] put your ass into it!
[metal clanking]
hurry up. Hurry up.
Hustle!
I'm just hoping this one's really good.
Come on. Let's get it out there. Hey!
Perfect. Out.
[man 2] yeah, baby!
Whoa, what is that?
Unidentified floating object.
Somebody want to tell me what the [bleep] is this coming up?
[deckhand speaking]
something big.
Something big out there.
That's like a dead killer whale.
Possibly a dead nessie.
It's a dead nessie, dude. We found it.
What the [bleep] is that?
[deckhand speaking]
the russians sent it over as a...
As a spy.
"don't worry about me, I'm just a tree floating here. With surveillance on it."
motorized tree trunk.
That could ruin your day.
Ka-thump!
Put a [bleep] hole in your bow.
Throw a chain line around that root.
[deckhand] roger.
[narrator] to keep the 3000-pound piece of debris
from damaging an unsuspecting vessel...
Hey, cowboy. I'm a cowboy.
[narrator] ...John orders the crew to lasso the renegade tree
and haul it on deck with the crane.
[freddy] give it to me, baby!
No, no.
No, freddy. No, no, freddy. No.
[johnathan over pa] no, freddy!
Man overboard. Man overboard.
[deckhand shouting]
oh, my god. This is not good.
Hang on to that, freddy, so we don't lose you.
Yeah, baby!
Throw him a lifesling, quick.
[deckhand speaking]
hook on, bring him in.
Okay, I'll get it.
Come here.
[bleep]. Damn it.
Come here!
This is [bleep] up.
Never done something so [bleep] up in my life.
I know. I know.
[johnathan over pa] thank you, freddy.
But [bleep] that log, we're going out... Getting out of here.
That was crazy.
To be as tough as freddy.
Okay, what just happened is not how to do that.
Out of nowhere, just come out and [bleep].
Now diving for team time bandit, [bleep],
freddy maugatai.
[deckhand speaking]
oh, my god.
Well, that could have gone a hundred ways wrong.
I can't believe freddy just jumped in the freaking bering sea in February.
I didn't mean to try to disrespect captain or anybody, you know?
[narrator] unwilling to risk his star deckhand and unable to secure the log...
We risked a man on the limb to get a stump and we failed.
[narrator] ...Jonathan lets the lumber lumber on by.
All right, man,
we'll put a pot right here.
Get our crab and go home.
[narrator] 47 miles southwest, on the cornelia marie...
[groans]
[seagulls cawing]
[casey] we're gonna spot check one down here in the south end.
And if we check this out, hopefully, we can figure out if the crab are here or not.
All the other boats are out of the area.
So taking a gamble, but we'll see with the first spot.
[narrator] nearly robbed of 120 pots to the deep waters of the western grounds...
[casey] I hear a lot of guys are struggling up in the normal depths.
So for us, this has got to be the only way to put butter on our bread right here.
[narrator] captains casey mcmanus and josh harris
eventually recovered full pots, pointing them to even deeper waters
despite the 125,000 pounds of aging opilio crab on board.
Get that hook moving.
We rolled the dice with you. We're about to find out if we hit or miss.
All right, moment of truth.
Not good.
Ruh-roh.
That looks like a big fat zero.
[over pa] check that bag for sand fleas.
[deckhand speaking]
okay, we'll go down here and check the deeper stuff.
Let's see what we got.
That was a blank.
Yeah, that ain't gonna cut it.
I just don't think there's any crab down here.
You got to judge what you think's in this area
by what you see on these short little soakers here.
[man on radio]
cornelia marie.
Yeah, that's cornelia marie.
Up one.
[narrator] on the radio, the skipper of a longline fishing vessel
hunting for cod...
[casey] yeah, you got me?
[man on radio]
oh, I'd love to hear it 'cause I'm on the hunt right now.
What range was that?
[casey] all right, well, thanks for the heads up.
I appreciate it, man. Good luck to you guys.
[casey] longliner got picked cleaned down here.
Didn't get anything back, didn't get any codfish.
[narrator] longliners often target cod in the same depths
and after pulling up bare hooks,
well, this one seems to have a crab problem.
A problem only a crab boat can solve.
What do you think? You think we should go on it?
So he's saying between here and here, 108 to 105, 102,
right in here.
I think we better go investigate.
Hopefully, it's not sand fleas.
[narrator] responding to his distress, two captains happy to oblige.
Of course, only after they stack their pots
and make the 30-mile trip to the new grounds.
We just got what may be a good hot spot.
See what we come up with, big dog.
Not every day you can get christmas dropped in your lap, really.
-Hopefully. -[casey] okay.
Right there, then. We'll set them right there.
[josh] fantastic.
Stack it.
[deckhand] roger that.
[casey] no time to screw around.
[josh] we're taking a gamble.
Hopefully, it pays off.
[narrator] 67 miles northeast...
Watch the rail, watch the rail.
Heads up. Watch the rail.
[narrator] ...On the wizard.
Whoo-hoo-hoo!
[keith over pa] it's gonna be a little dicey today, guys.
If you hear me yell, obviously, take it real serious
because that one came out of nowhere.
Let's get to work.
The seas are building rapidly, and the weather's screaming out there right now.
Whoo!
We set gear 25 miles below where the ice edge was,
which means the ice is not here yet.
This storm is not coming in directly from the east.
It's got a little bit of southeast to it.
This means that that ice pack is gonna move west, but it's not gonna move southwest.
And that's good for us.
[narrator] the 150-mile-wide low-pressure system
drives warmer wind north, holding the 250,000 square mile ice pack at bay,
giving captain keith colburn the window he needs to haul free of fear for now.
Stand by to throw.
[deckhand speaking]
ho-ho!
That's 95% clean big crab.
That's the real big crab right there.
I want this burger.
Get a count?
[deckhand on radio]
four-two-zero.
[deckhand 2] yeah!
As long as I can fish, I'm gonna continue to fish.
And the good news is this southeasterly is actually south southeast.
So, it's even better than they had forecast.
Not gonna run away from this fear of fishing up here.
We're going to stack and stay ahead on that score of crab.
[narrator] the skipper's rescue operation
becomes a heist, setting back all 204 pots
to partake in a northern windfall one last time.
If we're playing poker, right now, we're all in.
[deckhand speaking]
people complain about crab being expensive. [scoffs]
we're probably the most underpaid guys
based on the amount of work and how--
whoa, whoa, whoa.
Okay, we got a good one coming over the bow.
Hang on. Hang on.
Whoa!
Give me a headcount.
[narrator] on the wizard...
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Okay, we got a good one coming over the bow.
Hang on. Hang on.
Whoa!
[over pa] give me a headcount.
You okay, tyler?
Two guys down on that one.
Both g and tyler got washed down the back deck here.
Come on inside.
[sighs]
all right.
I got to go make sure everybody's okay down there.
Good morning.
-[tyler] good morning. -[keith laughing]
that's a way to wake up.
Yeah.
I'll tell you, man, that thing was just a short one.
Came out of absolutely nowhere.
I didn't even hear it coming.
I didn't even have time to hold on to the table.
It was right there.
I bet you didn't feel it coming either.
-No. -Not like the normal dip and dive.
No, that just kind of snuck out and slapped us.
So, that was, uh...
That was nasty.
All right. How are you doing, g?
Do you have any bangs, bruises, anything?
Nothing? Okay.
All right, guys, good to have you all here.
Let's get back to work.
[waves crashing]
so it's too late to run for cover. At this point, we're out here.
With any luck, there's still enough crab for us to get a good pick out of this.
[narrator] 21 miles southwest, on the time bandit...
This could be some special [bleep] here.
We've got like [bleep] thirty-[bleep]-five pots right here.
[laughs]
[narrator] ...Prospecting on an 8-square-mile patch of ground...
I'm trying to build the boat up.
We need about 70,000 more pounds.
[narrator] ...Captain john prepares to pull gear at a narrow depth range,
hoping his strategic sets closes the books on his russia trip.
See, no one knows, 'cause this is not on the chart.
There's a spot on that bank that flattens out, and it's nice mud.
It looks like it's like that, but then it flattens out,
and the crab like to just collect right there.
That's... Now, I just told--
now everyone knows.
[bleep] off.
There's something here to work on, hopefully.
Hopefully, it's full of crabs,
and we're dumping 'em and picking and dumping 'em.
Lordy, lordy, lordy.
Take us home.
I see a little bit of crab color in that pot.
And I think it's gonna be the right color.
And it's gonna be the right color.
[crew cheering]
[johnathan] thank you, god.
Yeah.
[deckhand speaking]
one hundred and ninety.
If it just holds up for a couple more pots,
then I can set this gear off the deck and get it on...
Get it on these crabs.
-Yeah. -Whoo!
Here, this is a little tank stuffer.
[deckhand cheering] yeah!
[laughs] yeah!
[laughs triumphantly]
that's what I'm talking about.
Yeah, baby!
[johnathan] thank you, god.
See, I'd rather be lucky than good. Any day.
God always gives us just as what we need over here.
Never too much.
Keeps us humble.
[deckhand speaking]
whoa, whoa, whoa! Let's set that one back.
Roger that.
There's got to be a few left here.
[narrator] with his numbers increasing...
The last four pots we pulled are looking pretty good here
to where I know I could-- I could dump back.
[narrator] jonathan goes all in on his newfound hot spot,
betting that the nutrient-rich ledge will
sustain not one, but two runs through the gear.
That's some good crab going in there, dude.
We're gonna power punch this [bleep].
There she goes!
That's the second trip.
[dramatic music playing]
whoo!
Yeah!
-[indistinct shouting] -[johnathan] uh-oh.
We might have a problem.
We got a [bleep] leak.
[deckhand] oh, we still got the leak here.
[deckhand speaking]
[johnathan] hydraulic leak.
Not a good time for a hydraulic leak.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[deckhand 2] that's a brand-new hose, too.
First, we got to get our hydraulics fixed.
[johnathan] wow!
-[screaming] -[man] look out!
[bleep]
hey, you okay?
[johnathan] not a good time for a hydraulic leak.
[narrator] on the time bandit...
[deckhand speaking]
[johnathan] wow!
[bleep]
hey, you okay?
Freddy just almost got crushed.
You okay?
Ah, that was a close one.
-Whoo! -Whoo!
That was way too close.
Oh, wow.
[narrator] in a momentary lapse of judgment,
veteran deckhand, freddy maugatai, disconnects the hydraulic line,
suddenly releasing the pressure,
sending the 2,500 pound launcher into a free fall.
[johnathan] that was so close.
You need to go wash your eyes.
Go wash off. Wash that off.
[narrator] only freddy's fast reflexes saved him from certain injury or worse.
If the hydraulic hit him right in the face,
he wouldn't have been that quick,
he would have just gotten smashed by the launcher.
One thousand and one ways to die on the boat.
But that was what we need is someone almost dying.
You got to be more careful when it comes to [bleep] like that.
[johnathan] wow.
Man, the weirdest [bleep] happens with him.
Yesterday, he just dove right off the side of the boat into the [bleep] water.
All right, just got to get through this.
[freddy] yeah, baby!
No guts, no glory.
Stay.
All right, let's give it a shot, huh, freddy?
-Yeah. -Roger.
Fire it up, baby.
[freddy] fire in the hole.
Oh, I'm really starting to impress me.
Hallelujah, lord.
I love you.
Thank you.
[johnathan over pa] thank you, freddy.
Yeah, baby. Whoo!
Freddy's one of the toughest guys you'll ever meet, man.
Eat his way through a brick wall
and good coming out the other side.
Roll it!
[johnathan] we're this close to being out of here, man.
We have a little hot spot we got to set all this gear on.
So, we'll have a soak time tomorrow. Afternoon, it'll be a 24-hour soak.
Whoo!
Hopefully, I just keep seeing good numbers.
We'll find out.
[narrator] 20 miles southwest...
[casey over pa] okay, guys, get ready to set these off.
[narrator] ...On the cornelia marie...
Yeah, it's not very often one of the longliners would offer up information like that.
It's very valuable to us right now, especially when we're in this hunt mode.
We got to figure out what kind of crab is around and where the hell it's at.
[narrator] after receiving word of a potential crab bonanza...
[casey] he says he gets every hook back clean.
That means that there's a lot of crab down there,
they didn't leave a single piece of bait on his hooks.
[narrator] ...The young skippers push the crew
into their second day of nonstop work.
Let's go!
It's gonna be six hours before we're able to get any food for these guys,
'cause we're gonna start this next string right away.
Let's go! Let's go!
[deckhand] come on, get that bag out there.
There you go.
Kawai ain't gonna-- he ain't gonna make it.
He can barely throw a trailer bag over the rail right now, like.
He'll make it. We're not gonna stop.
Fire it up.
It's been a... It's been a tiring one.
[deckhand] come on! Come on, hustle up.
Go, go, go.
You gotta feed them.
Microwave 'em some burritos,
and then we'll get them the real meal after this string.
I don't know, man.
If you're that worried about it.
They'll be okay.
[scoffs]
I don't know.
You're running it right now, so you can choose what you wanna do.
If I was doing it, I'd do it differently.
But I'm not in the seat, so...
We'll see what happens.
[matt] hopefully, it pays out here.
Get back on to some good numbers.
[casey] can I go a little faster?
Roger. Roger. You can speed it up a little.
We're about the only boat out here, so it's a big gamble.
Is this a risk, what we're doing right now?
Oh, my god. Yeah.
This is a huge risk, but I think this is where the crab are.
And it's our job to get these things on the crab.
[narrator] 43 miles northeast...
No breaks out here this year, man.
No breaks.
[narrator] ...On the wizard.
It's ridiculous.
Holy [bleep]!
[keith] we gotta get all the gear in the water here.
But there's still enough crab for us to get a good pick out of this.
[deckhand speaking]
there's a possibility we're gonna take something through the work area there,
so you're gonna have to stay sharp at the rail.
-Whoa! -Whoa!
[groans]
let's hope we get the next one back without seeing any ice floes.
[narrator] the southerly winds that were an ally have turned into a fierce enemy.
While they fight the descending ice,
leaving keith's chosen grounds accessible,
those same winds now blow over miles of open water,
creating a phenomenon called fetch,
pushing waves to house-smashing heights.
The good news about being on hot fishing is the numbers add up fast.
It's just a matter of hauling gear, you know?
I think mother nature doesn't like us, uh, being here.
[man speaking]
go ahead, tyler.
Dump it.
[tyler] coming over.
[keith over pa] make sure nobody's out in no-man's-land out there, okay?
That is not a good place to be right now 'cause
we probably will take some green over the bow here pretty soon.
Not sure when, but it is coming.
Boy, you work for every crab out here, that's for sure.
[exhales]
hang on, guys.
Everybody, hang on! Grab ahold of something.
Hang on. Hang on.
Whoo!
[tyler speaking]
[men laughing]
nasty.
Mother nature is not giving us too many breaks on this trip, that's for sure.
Ice-packed to easterly storms from hell, and now this.
Okay, watch out, guys.
All right, heads up, we got a greenie coming.
Yup, guys, hang on! Hang on!
[narrator] on the wizard...
Okay, watch out, guys.
All right, heads up.
[over pa] we got a greenie coming.
Yup, guys. Hang on! Hang on!
Oh.
Everyone good?
Are we all good?
[deckhand speaking]
[bleep] damn it.
It just has not let up.
It's been relentless.
[robby] this storm will never shut us down.
[man laughs]
gonna fish right through it.
[keith] good.
Going over!
So, gary, we're going to set one more after that one.
[gary speaking]
[deckhand speaking]
okay, that's the last one. Scramble on inside, secure things real fast.
It's hard to work in this...
In this weather.
So, right now, all we can do is just slam our gear in here and pray.
Pray there's another pick of crab here.
[narrator] 45 miles southwest...
On the cornelia marie...
[casey] last night, we set on this stuff,
so we'll see how this one comes up.
But we're gonna stop for a second and feed these guys.
Takes fuel to run a power plant.
So we're gonna fuel these guys up.
[narrator] after enduring a 38-hour grind...
[narrator] ...The crew recharges with cuisine au harris.
We're going to put in as much pound as we can.
We got 60 more pots to go.
It's going to hurt.
Just got one last push, we'll go as fast as we possibly can, you know.
Don't hurt yourselves.
All right, keep up the good work, guys. I'm gonna go drive.
All right, brother. Thank you.
[narrator] armed with full stomachs, the crew braces for an all-nighter.
[josh] we set the string on the longliner info
with our fingers crossed,
hoping for good things.
All right, pal.
Let's [bleep] make this a memorable day.
[matt] I hope it pays out for us.
Maybe we'll find a nice little pocket.
As long as it wasn't sand fleas,
there's got to be a pretty good amount of crab down there.
You just never know, but, uh, sometimes guys out here
like to play with crabbers, you know?
So, you don't know if it's going to be real or not,
but, you know,
sometimes, they're like, "hey, you want to see somebody really move fast
to a certain area? Watch this.
'hey, we just saw a bunch of crab all over our hooks. You might want to go there.'"
if he's right, christmas came early, though.
[casey] hopefully, we're gonna find something, otherwise we're screwed.
Oh, my god.
[men groaning]
ah, we have zero.
Zero in this one.
[deckhand speaking]
wah-wah-wah.
Gotta keep the hopes up.
Nothing.
[josh speaking]
but the show does go on.
So does the blanks that we're pulling currently.
[deckhand] no table.
Five crabs.
Five.
Zero in that one.
Wah-wah-wah.
Got a lot of cod fish, no crab.
Oh, this-- this one's all on me, 100%.
I'll own it. I set down here.
No good.
[casey] chasing a little bit of radio crab
and, uh, we are... We're kind of screwed right now.
[narrator] 22 miles northeast...
[johnathan] I got to be gone.
Got to be out of here.
[narrator] ...On the time bandit.
[johnathan] we got to go to town to offload.
Only got about 18 hours.
I want to pull as many as I can in the short amount of time that I have left.
I want to build the boat up.
[narrator] one log, one man overboard,
and one game of russian roulette later,
john prepares for either full pots or a trip to town light.
Something here to work on hopefully.
Please be something here.
[freddy screaming]
blah, blah, blah!
[screaming]
[mimics screaming]
[screaming]
love you, freddy.
Whoo!
Okay.
Drum roll, please.
Coming up.
[man] hopefully, it's good.
[freddy] mother, give us some love!
[narrator] this week, on salty takes...
[johnathan] it ain't done with me yet.
This log is not [bleep] done with me.
All right, I'm pissed now.
Now I'm [bleep] mad.
Where's my gun? I could shoot that [bleep] log.
Here's what I think of that [bleep] log.
[laughs]
[bleep] you, you log.
I got to hit that [bleep] now.
[shot fires]
[bleep] you, log!
There. That's how you do that.
Back to crab fishing.
[laughs]
[narrator] captain jonathan logs lots of opilio claws,
while the cornelia marie's long shot came up short.
[narrator] on the time bandit...
I want to pull as many as I can in the short amount of time that I have left.
I want to fill the boat up.
Okay.
Drum roll, please.
Coming up.
[man] hopefully, it's good.
[freddy] mother, give us some love!
Whoo!
Yeah, baby!
[indistinct shouting]
[johnathan] yeah, baby!
That's a pot there!
Whoo-whoo!
Yeah, baby.
My little baby.
Yeah, baby!
Yeah!
The mother lode, baby!
Bring the money!
[crew cheering]
that one's just an insane amount of crab we are pulling right now.
We're getting so close to have this pick full.
Rock and roll.
That's some good crab going in there, dude.
We're definitely getting close.
Every crab we can get in this tank.
Dude, these tanks are stuffed.
Jackpot!
[screaming]
freddy's getting happy.
Freddy's on the crab, he's happy.
[johnathan over pa] freddy, come here.
I hope I'm doing something right, brother.
I'm gonna give this to freddy, and say, "freddy, this is for you,
because I would have never came back out here
if it wasn't for this, and if it wasn't for you."
if I hit this coin... There,
I'm going fishing.
Yeah, baby.
I'm going fishing, [bleep].
Freddy, freddy, freddy, freddy.
Yes, boss.
Come here. I wanna give this to you, man.
-No. -This is the only reason I came out here.
-Are you serious? -[bleep] serious.
Yeah, that's yours, man.
-Wow. -Love you.
-Thank you, cap. -Love you, man. Thanks.
-Thanks. -Thank you. Sorry.
Yeah. Love you, man.
Wouldn't be out here without you.
That's yours.
Bling.
Bling, bling.
-Thank you, cap. -Thank you.
-Appreciate it. -Okay, man.
That silver won't stop bullets like freddy.
Shot a hole right through that thing,
but I wouldn't try to shoot freddy, 'cause he's bulletproof.
It means a lot to me, man.
[bleep], this is, uh, from the captain.
I just feel emotional right now.
I feel like I could go cry.
[johnathan] yeah!
We did it, dude.
We're done.
I'll take those crab to town.
[narrator] 25 miles northeast...
We set gear 25 miles below where the ice edge was,
and now we're back just retrieving these 50 pots.
[narrator] ...On the wizard...
[man speaking]
[narrator] southerly winds give way to a polar blast from the northeast.
[keith] the weather's turned dramatically.
[narrator] restarting the ice pack's descent onto the fishing grounds.
Coming up.
[deckhand] here we go, boys.
Whoo!
[keith] hopefully, we get the string back without getting into the ice pack,
or-- the last thing we need to do is be working in ice floes.
Whoo!
Yeah.
Oh, baby.
Right on.
[deckhand] back in business.
[keith over pa] three-two-five.
We're lucky. There's crab there.
[men cheering]
god, I hope this will hold for up us.
Bright, beautiful crab.
Three-four-zero.
Right on.
-Yeah! -All right.
We're starting to see more and more crabs in these pots.
Whoo!
Yeah.
[men cheering]
-oh, yeah! -Look at that.
[narrator] after challenging the ice, coming out on top...
[deckhand speaking]
[keith over pa] no, we're not setting it back.
That's the whole-- that's a negative. Negatory, big guy.
[narrator] keith, well, he ain't getting greedy.
[keith] we got this string back.
Let's hope we get the next one back without seeing any ice floes.
There's always something when you're working way up north like this,
probably the reason why most of the world lives in warmer climates.
[men cheering]
crazy job.