[narrator] When it comes to gold mining,
every miner believes they can determine
the wisest choices to land their fortune.
But make even one wrong move
and they could end up chasing nothing...
[screams]
...but fool's gold.
I need to make a lot of gold within a short amount of time.
[Vernon] We're going out to 40 feet.
See if we can get back on that good gold.
Time to go make some money today.
[Jeff] All right, bud. No hero [bleep].
Be safe.
[narrator] So as the critical final days
tick down on summer mining...
[Kris] Let's put the hammer down.
We know where the good gold's at. Get it.
[narrator] ...whose decisions could maroon them
on a ship of fools...
[Andy] There's just no light down there.
I can't see [bleep].
[Vernon speaking]
[Gary speaking]
[narrator] ...and whose could lead them to untold riches?
[Gary speaking]
Whoo-hoo!
[Vernon] That's a damn good test pan right there.
All right-a-roony. Hooray!
[Shawn] It has so much gold in it.
We're gonna [bleep] smash it out of the park.
Nuggets and gold.
Golden nuggets.
Whoo-hoo-hoo-hoo.
Money!
[dramatic music playing]
[alarm clock rings]
We're off to another fun-filled day
on the Mistress.
Gotta keep pressing hard.
[narrator] It's pre-dawn, and in just 48 hours,
a winter storm will shut down the summer mining season,
and Reaper Nation captain Kris Kelly
is on a mission to reach the ounces he needs
by any means necessary.
[Kris] It's the end of the year.
We're gonna make it work, no matter what.
We're just gonna have to push through it, be men,
make it happen today,
even though my body says,
"What are you talking about, [bleep]?"
-[laughter] -[man] That's pretty...
-We can make it. -[man] Oh.
-You know? -[man] My body's like,
"No, mother... No, sir."
It'll be okay today though, the Mistress...
It's gonna be a nice day.
This season has been brutal.
It seems like every day there's a new problem,
a new obstacle.
I'm mentally and physically exhausted.
I'm basically crawling to the finish line.
We have to hit our goal.
I've already reduced our number
just so we can hit our bills and stay alive.
But that storm stirred up the seafloor
and probably opened up some new pay streaks,
so we can end with a bang.
I gotta keep working.
I can never stop
or everything will just fall apart
right around me.
Today's strategy is to find new ground
that's been opened up from the storm.
Maybe I'm being a fool but right now,
an ordinary cleanup is not gonna cut it,
not when we need to hit our goal
with almost no time left.
Coming up on the Mistress...
It's gonna be a great day today.
James finished night crew.
Everything's gonna be awesome.
[James speaking]
[man 1 speaking]
[man 2] Let's do it.
[Kris] Are you ready?
Let's put the hammer down.
[machine whirring]
I love my guys, but the season's been rocky.
So I'm gonna oversee everything today
to make sure we get the kind of gold we need to see.
So I'm gonna be tough.
My standards are sky-high right now.
Put that behind the wash plant...
I mean, behind the gas.
[machine whirring]
We're up. We're running.
Everything's going great.
Almost every time I'm out here, it's like...
it's like a green walk over here.
This is a good job right here.
[Kris speaking]
I think--
Thank God I checked.
[man] Okay.
This isn't it. We need killer gold.
Like, light-up-the-pan gold.
That pan was crap.
I'm convinced there's gonna be a new pay streak
that we can tap into.
We just gotta keep hunting and we'll find it.
Hey, we're not getting good gold.
We're moving.
We're gonna push off in an angle outward,
20 or 30 feet back, then we'll check the material.
Let's just do some on-the-fly prospecting.
Yeah, I can feel it. We're in gold.
Like there's gold around here.
We're just in the wrong area.
So let's get the [bleep] out of here.
We're moving spots.
I'm gonna be relentless today.
We're gonna keep moving till I find what I want
or until I learn that what I want is a pipe dream.
Either way, we'll find out soon.
A little bit more.
Okay.
Oh, yeah, baby.
We're back on the prospecting mission.
But you know what? The good part is,
I'm actually good at finding gold, so...
One of my specialties.
So stay tuned.
We'll be on gold in a couple minutes.
[narrator] But Kris isn't the only captain
already on the water.
[upbeat music playing]
[Cody speaking]
Yeah. It doesn't look like they moved out, did they?
[Cody] No.
[narrator] Pushing to rebuild after the great storm,
Shawn Pomrenke and protege Cody Moen
are hitting it early,
trying to keep the gold flowing
until the bitter end.
The situation is simple.
It's been a tough season.
We've had to re-adjust our goal for the season.
The good news is the last time out,
we hit a pay streak that was uncovered by the storm.
Holy [bleep].
That is [bleep] a hot pan.
Load it!
[bleep] hot damn.
So the strategy is simple, keep the Myrtle
and the Christine Rose on that pay streak
and have the day and night crew
ride that pay streak out till the end of the season.
I need to make a lot of gold within a short amount of time.
I got huge payments.
Gotta cover wages, fuel, insurance.
So I'm gonna get in that excavator today
and I'm gonna dig my little heart out.
It's loaded.
We're in it.
Right where I thought it was gonna be.
Look at that. That's just pure gold.
Hot damn.
Yes, sir. Whoo!
We're on the gold.
Left the nightshift guys off right in the good spot.
So I just gotta keep digging.
We're in some of the best gold the Christine Rose
has ever been in right now.
[Shawn] Yeah.
It is loaded up.
[Shawn] Well, that's good.
Good news, the crew kept the Christine Rose
on high ground so Cody can keep grinding it out all day.
You know, he'll be just fine.
Now, it's on the Myrtle.
We left her on a nice patch yesterday
when I turned it over to the night crew.
As long as they stayed on that spot,
the box should be loaded and we're gonna kill it today.
Now, the question is did night shift put any gold in the box?
That's what I'm gonna go look.
Did they do good or didn't they?
Gotta be kidding me.
Just not seeing it.
When you're in the gold,
you can see it in the lower box.
I'm not seeing it down here.
I'll go check out the GPS, see where we're at,
and see if we're on track or off-track.
Went to total [bleep].
No.
I was right here yesterday when I left.
Now, I show up, night shift's over here.
[sighs]
This is ridiculous.
I tell them where to go for a reason and now...
It's like they're scared to go after the good stuff.
We know where the good gold's at.
Get it.
Why in the hell are we not at that point?
And here we are, 15 hours later.
All right. All right. All right. All right.
Yo, hey, let's pick up the spud and move over.
[man] Copy that.
[Shawn] Let's get turned here.
We're going on a hunt.
Unbelievable.
It pisses me off.
I hunted and hunted,
got us exactly where we needed to be.
That streak was smoking.
Then the night crew comes in, moves us off of it,
and completely loses the scent.
I'mma swing over that way,
see if we can find it there.
Where you at?
Hey, Cody.
[Cody] Yes?
[Shawn] How's the digging going over there, bud?
[Cody speaking]
Well, that's good. At least you got some.
Should start calling you Shawn Kelly.
[laughs]
[Shawn speaking]
[laughter]
[Shawn] I don't give up.
That's the one thing that separates me from...
and my guys from everybody else out here.
We're just gonna do a lot of short moves.
We're gonna work hard today.
We're gonna move.
It's a Sunday, God's day,
but today, these boys are mine.
Get to work.
[upbeat music playing]
[Vernon] All right.
It's like Brer Rabbit in the Briar Patch
trying to get out of here in the morning.
Everything's frozen up or just getting on the way.
It's a pain in the butt.
[narrator] Still struggling to reach his goal,
Vernon Adkison has a plan to supercharge production
in the season's final days.
[Vernon] We're flush with divers
and we're going out today about 40 feet,
see if we can get back on that good gold.
And we're ready to go.
We're gonna finish out the season with a bang.
So far, this has been a crap season.
We're way behind on our goal,
but we've been gaining some traction lately.
We've been going to ground
that's at least 40 feet deep.
That's past the reach of the excavators
and deeper than most divers are willing to go.
That means the ground is untouched,
and it's been paying off.
[Gary speaking]
[Vernon speaking]
The trick is, ground that far down is dangerous.
So it's farther for the divers to get to the surface
if there was a problem,
and it's easier for the lines to get tangled.
But with my current situation, I've got no choice.
And today, I'm gonna push it more than I've done before.
Okay.
Can you push it off some more?
All right. Here we go.
That far down, the nitrogen can build up
and give the divers the bends.
That's why we need to limit their dives
at 40-plus feet to two hours.
That short window is a killer to my bottom line.
So to make the most of it,
we're aiming for three divers
in a single day at 40-foot-plus.
First, I'm gonna drop Gary,
then Brad,
and then Tony will close it out for us.
Hopefully, knocking on wood,
we've work through most of our bugs.
We're ready now.
I hope so.
[Vernon] Keep it up. Stay close.
We're definitely pushing our luck with this plan
and most people would say I'm crazy for trying it,
but if that box is loaded,
I'll look like a genius.
Pull it your way, Kevin.
All right. Good.
[Gary speaking]
That's why I'm the best.
[Gary chuckles]
[Brad speaking]
All right.
We're in business.
[suspenseful music playing]
So just take your time.
No sense of getting in a hurry.
[Gary speaking]
[Vernon speaking]
[Gary speaking]
Sand is not usually where the gold is.
We wanna see cobble.
But the storm really shook up that seafloor,
so it may have covered up this area.
That could mean we've gotta find a new spot to mine.
We don't have time for that.
[dramatic music playing]
[Gary speaking]
Well, what do you wanna do?
You want us to move or what?
[Gary speaking]
He's seeing some nice pieces go up the nozzle every now and then,
but the--
[Gary speaking]
Okay. Well, it might be because of the sandiness
that it's going in without you being able to see it.
[Gary speaking]
[Vernon] All right-a-roony.
[Gary speaking]
The way this material is flowing into the nozzle,
there could be gold in it and not see it.
Gary is seeing gold in the sand
that's coming up the nozzle.
I'm betting for every little piece he sees,
there are probably 50 more that he doesn't see.
So we're gonna stay here and feast on this spot.
Hopefully, it's the right call.
Okay. We're gonna rev it up.
[Gary speaking]
[Vernon] Yeah. Okay. It looks good up here.
[Gary speaking]
[Vernon] All right.
We're in business.
[Gary] Yeah.
All right-a-roony.
Hooray!
[Brad] There we go.
Let's put gold in that box.
Whoo!
[upbeat music playing]
[Zeke] It's a beautiful day.
[narrator] Zeke Tenhoff is hoping
to finally get cooking...
[Zeke] Mmm.
[narrator] ...after the storm of the century
knocked him and his dredge, the Synergy, off the water.
[Zeke] Need instant coffee.
[sighs]
I need some caffeine.
Before the big storm hit, we were just on fire.
We were headed to our best season ever.
[Jeff] It's good ground, buddy.
[Zeke] Yeah. That's good as that's ever looked.
I think we've got about 30 ounces.
[Jeff speaking]
We were doing so well that we passed our season goal
by the halfway point of the season.
But then the storm of the century hit,
and it kept us off the water.
But now we're ready for the final push.
-Steer lines? -[Jeff] Yeah.
[Jeff laughs]
We doing this.
[Zeke] Looks like best-case scenario,
if the viz does clear up, we have, like, two days.
We'd get two days in.
So, I just wanna make sure
that we get those two days in, if we can.
Even though we've been off the water for a bit,
I'm gonna raise my goal to 150 ounces.
I've made enough this summer to make the $100,000 payment
that I needed to make on the Synergy.
But I still owe another $300,000 on it.
So the sooner that I can get ahead on this debt,
the sooner I can start making a profit with this.
The pay streak that we were on before
should get us to the 150-ounce goal,
but I don't know if we're gonna be able
to get back on it now that the storm
has gone through it.
[tense music playing]
We're gonna drive over where we left off working
before the storm and see if...
if there's any evidence of the work we'd done...
or if the storm
had just filled it all back in.
It'll be interesting to see with the sonar.
[Jeff] I mean we... I mean, this is... I mean...
[Zeke] Yeah. It looks like it moved a whole bunch of...
some more sand into Tomcod.
The storm really did a number on the area we were mining
and dumped a ton of sand everywhere.
But luckily, we have the biggest nozzle in the fleet,
14 inches.
And that 14-inch nozzle can move a lot of material.
The real issue for us is gonna be the viz.
This could ultimately be a fool's errand for us,
so I hope I'm not just letting my guard down here
in the final stretch.
[machine whirring]
It's gonna be a great day.
[whirring]
Probably go down on the gantry.
[Jeff] Beautiful.
[Zeke] We're here.
[Jeff] We're trying to go to work.
We'll see what happens. Yeah.
Knock the, uh... Knock the dust off them boots.
There's no viz.
Like, you can barely see the hose.
Brave man.
[laughs]
He's gonna go try. Let's do it.
All right, bud. No hero [bleep]. Be safe.
[tense music playing]
[Zeke speaking]
[Jeff] I got you loud and clear.
[tense music playing]
[Zeke speaking]
[Jeff speaking]
[Zeke speaking]
[Jeff] Yeah.
[tense music playing]
[Zeke speaking]
Yeah.
[Zeke speaking]
[Jeff] I mean it's not really ideal, right?
[Zeke] No.
[Jeff] Hell, yeah.
[narrator] Back in the harbor...
We've had a storm.
We've had [bleep] weather.
We've had a lot of repairs.
This boat hasn't been out much.
And I lost lot of my season,
so now I gotta make up for it
because we gotta push it to the end.
[narrator] With one half of Reaper Nation
already on the water,
Andy Kelly is feeling the late pressure.
So I gotta go out every day I can.
So, this year, I'm in charge of the All-In and the crawler,
and the crawler's a great machine and everything.
I love it.
And so far everything's been a nightmare so far.
Well, if I go to use my winch, it moves my track.
If I go to lift my nozzle, it moves my track.
I don't know what's going on.
And we lost the crawler?
[Andy speaking]
[bleep] I'm [bleep]! I just [bleep] got it going!
[Andy] So what are we waiting for?
[Andy speaking]
We need to get it on the water and start making gold today.
We're gonna drive away and start going to work.
I've finally got the crawler running and in great shape
and finished, and I've done my part.
I'm not the only one on this boat.
The captain's also responsible.
This guy really sucks.
My brother gave me somebody
that doesn't have a clue of what he's doing,
and it really sucks for me.
But Kris said, "Be humble."
Yup.
[Kris] Just so you're clear,
you're handling all the gold.
He's handling just driving.
So, he's more like a chauffeur.
I want you to be calm at all times,
-speaking to him. -Oh, [bleep] me.
Don't talk down to him.
[laughs] That's a lot of, uh, don'ts.
I told him that you're gonna be working with him in harmony
-'cause he knows you're-- -We got the harm part right.
No, "harmony."
You want me to harm him with a knee?
[laughs]
So my captain's gonna be sober today
'cause he has no beer on boat.
All right.
I just need this guy to put the boat in the right depth.
I wanna be deep enough where there's good gold,
but I have to make sure we have good visibility.
We need to make this thing work
or we're not gonna hit our goal.
The plan is we're going to the same area
as we were last time, 'cause there was really good gold
in this virgin ground,
so we're going right back to there.
It's gonna be a good day, Daniel.
Everything's warmed up.
We're taking off out of the dock.
Time to go make some money today.
Todd's saying we're at 35 to 40,
right where I wanna be.
We're putting the anchors down.
[whirring]
Thirty-five to 40 feet is the sweet spot.
Most divers won't go that deep,
so the ground should be untouched.
We should still have some light down there.
-[man] Okay. -[Andy] Anchors are set.
We're gonna start dropping all of my equipment
on the bottom of the ocean.
Okay. Are we good?
-[man] Okay. -[Andy] Okay. Cool.
Let me drop her down.
[whirring]
The water looks a bit murky at the top of the water,
so hopefully it'll be better on the bottom.
Keep lowering it.
[tense music playing]
Let's see.
I can't see anything on my front camera.
It's completely [bleep] black.
My camera's not even registering now.
So it's just really [bleep] dark this deep.
Hey. We gotta check the depth.
My two front cameras, they're black.
Okay.
The jackass captain put me deeper
than I needed to be.
[Daniel speaking]
[Andy] All right. So it's way off.
You know, I wanted to go at 35 to 40, not 50.
And it's an overcast day,
so there's just no light down there.
I can't see [bleep].
[Daniel speaking]
We're gonna have to because I can't see anything
-on my cameras. -[Daniel speaking]
[Andy] Like, my cameras are straight black.
So we're just gonna go shallower.
[tense music playing]
The captain just wasted a whole bunch of time.
We gotta pull the anchor back up
and get set back up for the right depth.
Every hour we do of this is an hour we're wasting.
[engines revving]
Now my brother's over there working, and...
which is why I don't get no [bleep] mining time in,
because our captain is no captain.
[engines revving]
[suspenseful music playing]
[Kris] Get away from this, uh, sand.
Yup, that's it. Push it back.
Move, baby.
[narrator] After two hours of hunting,
the Reaper Nation captain has yet to find ground
that gets his seal of approval.
Whoa.
Ooh, that felt like rock, huh?
Whoa, baby.
Just grab some scoop, but let's try.
[machine whirring]
[Kris speaking]
Uh...
Right now, everyone thinks I'm outta my mind
by insisting we don't start mining
until we find something killer,
especially with so little time left in the season.
But you know what?
I don't care what anyone else thinks.
Yeah, about there.
I know I'm right
and I'm gonna prove it to everyone.
[Brad speaking]
[Kris] Yeah, no, I know. I know.
Bring it over. I just wanna look at it.
Yeah, let's do this. Let's do this.
I like this.
I even like the way we're fitting here,
kind of, you know? Lock us in place.
Okay. Let's do it.
I'm clear.
All right. This is what I want.
This is the kind of ground I'm looking for.
I'm telling you, when we start doing
a test pan of this,
everything's gonna be better for us.
I'm gonna take a test pan
to make sure my spidey sense is right
and this is where we wanna be.
Yeah, let's do it.
I like it.
Oh, yeah, baby.
I knew it.
I knew to trust my own instincts.
I knew there was something better out there.
And now, we're gonna reap the reward.
Started out this morning on no gold,
so I have to be here to keep things going in the right way
and keep us going on the right trail.
So I'm like the lucky charm or the mascot,
whatever you wanna call me.
I'm the guy that makes it happen,
so I'm here making it happen.
[narrator] While Kris milks a pay streak,
on the other side of the claim...
[Shawn] Okay. Go ahead and bring her down.
Yeah, let's see that plug.
[Cody] Copy that.
[narrator] Shawn Pomrenke is also hoping
for a change in fortune...
[Cody] Got it now.
[narrator] ...as he desperately tries to tap back
into hot ground.
[Shawn] We got the spuds down,
now it's time to take a bucket and see what we got.
Not what we're looking for.
We're gonna go ahead and move.
We're still trying to get back on that pay streak
that the night crew drifted off of.
We've been at it for hours now.
We're hunting and pecking,
and so far we're just striking out.
The Christine Rose is on great gold,
but the Myrtle's supposed to be the king.
Dave Young didn't put me in charge of it
to play second fiddle to the CR.
I'm just stressing out right now about the whole season
coming to an end and the Myrtle Irene's
just not producing what is expected.
[Shawn] I don't feel real hot
about how we're doing right now,
but you know what?
When I get up against the wall,
I just push a little [bleep] harder,
and I am gonna make it happen.
[Shawn speaking]
[man speaking]
[suspenseful music playing]
[machine whirring]
[Shawn] Let me see.
Are we in it
or did the move work?
Bucket's gonna tell us the tale.
[suspenseful music playing]
[machine whirring]
Oh.
Oh! Man, that looks good.
Wow.
Make me [bleep] proud.
Yeah.
If this is what I think it is,
it's gonna be loaded with gold,
loaded with nuggets.
I wanna check the box.
[machine whirring]
Oh, yeah.
Look at that.
-Gonna be nuggets. -[man] Dang.
[Shawn] All right. That's it.
It's Northwest Gold Creek.
About ten years ago, we found this creek in close,
and it's a deep channel of this brown,
lovely, lovely, lovely material.
It's loaded with gold, loaded with nuggets.
It's ironic, but the night crew
might've did me a favor getting off that pay streak,
because I just tapped back in to one of the greatest finds
the Pomrenke empire ever hit.
About ten years ago, we stumbled on this
ancient beach line called "Northwest Gold Creek."
It's the richest ground we ever found out here.
This is it.
Uh, I remember exactly what it looked like,
brown, golden.
Yeah.
I've been wanting to find this
for years now.
[man] Yeah, finally.
[Shawn] I've looked for it a couple times
but could never find it,
because it's only like a 15,
20-foot-wide channel.
-[man] Yeah. -But... And I had...
I had a hunch it ran all the way out
into the deeper water, but, you know,
we could never dig deep enough with the CR.
It was as deep as you could dig
with the Christine Rose.
[man] Yeah.
[Shawn] And it was nothing but nuggets and nuggets.
When we found this creek a decade ago,
we were on the Christine Rose.
The arm of the Christine Rose only goes about 16 feet,
so it dried up really fast,
because it went deeper than we could go.
But now, I have the Myrtle, which can go to 25 feet.
So boom, I found that Northwest Gold Creek again
in deeper water.
And it's loaded.
It is loaded.
It has so much gold in it.
We're gonna [bleep] smash it out of the park.
Yeah!
So a little bit off course here,
a little bit off course here
put us right where we need to be.
-[Robbi laughs] -Everything happens
for a reason.
This is the break we needed right here.
Nuggets and gold, nuggets and gold,
gold and nuggets.
Whoo-woo-woo-woo.
Fire everything up, prime the pump,
make some gold.
[suspenseful music playing]
[machine whirring]
Look at it.
We're right in the middle of it.
See that nice brown, light brown?
That's the channel.
That's the paydirt.
That's the money.
Hey, Cody.
[Cody] Yes?
[Shawn speaking]
[Cody] Nice.
[Shawn] I took a couple pans
and it looked, you know,
like five nice chunky pieces.
Another pan had one big chunk in it.
It's a buck... Big, full buckets.
[Cody] Whoo!
Yeah, it's good to be making good gold, man.
[Shawn] Yeah.
[Cody speaking]
All right. Well, I'm heading in the right direction again,
so we'll end up high-fiving buckets in the middle here.
Just keep washy-washy and make everybody happy.
[Shawn] You find spots like this very rarely.
Oh, look, there's a couple rainbows
that they're both ending,
one on the Myrtle, one on the Christine Rose.
That's a good-ass sign.
Hopefully, we can have a pot of gold in both boxes.
This is the reason I gold-mine.
Money!
[suspenseful music playing]
Hey, Gary, overall, how is it?
[Gary speaking]
[Vernon] Roger.
[narrator] Aiming for a trifecta
of dives at over 40 feet,
Vernon Adkison is hoping the gold
is hotter than meets the eye.
[Vernon] Hey, Kevin,
he's just got 15 more minutes.
Check that test mat.
Okay, Gary, we're getting ready
to check the test mat.
Your time is up anyway.
Why don't you turn the nozzle off and come on up?
[Gary speaking]
All right. Are you gonna decompress?
[Gary speaking]
[Vernon] Okay.
At these depths,
the divers are limited
to two-hour shifts.
Then they have to decompress
and call it a day.
So we need to make sure that every minute counts,
especially this late in the season.
We're gonna do a test pan,
and hopefully we'll see that that ground is loaded.
If it isn't, we're gonna need to pull up
and keep looking,
which at this point would be like a dagger in my heart.
[Kevin speaking]
[Brad speaking]
[Vernon] Yeah. You might as well.
So yeah, go ahead and suit up.
The test mat gives us a tiny but accurate
read of what's in the box.
It's either pudding with the proof
or the canary in the coal mine.
[Gary speaking]
[Vernon] We won't really know
until we put it on a pan. Let's pan it.
Let the diver take a look at it,
and we'll get on about our business.
Come on, baby.
[Vernon] That's a damn good test pan right there.
[Gary] Look how big they are.
-That's [bleep] damn good. -[Gary] Yeah.
[suspenseful music playing]
And that's a test mat.
That's pretty damn impressive.
[Vernon] We took a gamble.
I could have been caught with my pants down,
but instead, I'm looking like
the sage of the Bering Sea.
The gold is there.
[Brad] Can't argue with that.
Gary said there's a ton of that over there.
I'll just head right back to that spot.
[Vernon] All right.
Now, it's time to get Brad down there,
and eventually, Tony too,
to work that rich ground.
But that pay streak gets deeper as we follow it.
And it's only gonna get dicier the deeper we go.
[Brad speaking]
[Gary speaking]
[Vernon] All right, Brad.
Don't get tangled in a panic.
[Brad speaking]
[suspenseful music playing]
[Brad speaking]
[Vernon] All right.
[engine revving]
[Brad speaking]
[Vernon] All right. All right.
Suck it up.
[Vernon] He's moving material.
His breathing is steady.
I'm liking it so far.
[Brad speaking]
Yeah, Brad, just keep doing what you're doing.
You get that gold.
[narrator] As Vernon's bold strategy pays off,
across the water...
[Shawn] Beautiful day.
Found some gold.
Had some rainbows.
Everything's running good.
Myrtle's shining.
Now the box is shining.
Found a channel
and we're gonna keep following it,
and we're gonna follow it and follow it,
and we're gonna pile the gold up.
And you know what the best thing about it is?
It runs right through the middle of my claim.
[narrator] Shawn Pomrenke's golden dreams are coming true
as he guides the mighty Myrtle Irene
down the yellow brick road.
[Shawn] See, Cody?
This is gonna be a big payday today.
We're talking a big pile of gold.
[Cody speaking]
It only took a couple of rainbows.
Cody's been outpacing me lately.
Not only doesn't that look good for the boss,
it don't look good to Dave Young either.
So hitting this Northwest Gold Creek
makes everything sweet.
Time to check the box.
There might even be some nuggets in the box right now.
[suspenseful music playing]
Thinking I wanna see more gold.
I don't know what the [bleep] is going on.
[producer speaking]
Thought I was on the channel.
I was sure we were on Northwest Gold Creek.
The ground looked exactly like it.
It's unique and the gold was good.
That's what I believed.
All right.
[bleep] finish this cutout,
see if it's kind of looking...
Let's do another cut.
[bleep] it.
But if it was Northwest Gold Creek,
the box would be lit up.
Totally loaded. But it's not.
Maybe I didn't find the creek.
Now, I'm gonna be sad.
...move a little bit,
and then not have [bleep] any?
I was hoping I was at the channel.
Maybe it was just a pocket of it.
I'm gonna do one more test pan.
If this one's a dud,
then we know it's not the creek.
It was a mirage, fool's gold.
Fingers crossed.
There ain't a whole lot in the pan.
Few pieces. Not what we're looking for.
Well, now, I know that wasn't the Northwest Gold Creek.
No fortune, no treasure.
Not much of anything at the end of the day,
to be honest.
That's cost me big time.
Let's get the hell out of here.
That was a huge disappointment.
It's time to wrap up for today.
And the Myrtle's got little to show for it.
Now, it's mostly up to Cody and the CR again.
Not the day I wanted to have.
I put a lot of heart and soul into that.
I had big hopes,
and then they were smashed.
[dramatic music playing]
[slow rock music playing]
[Jeff] Uh, how's that ground down there still looking?
[Zeke speaking]
Whee-hoo!
[narrator] Zeke Tenhoff has plowed through the sand
and isn't letting low visibility hold him back
as he chases his increased season goal.
[Zeke speaking]
[Jeff speaking]
[Zeke speaking]
[Jeff speaking]
And, uh, yeah, these whitecaps
are kind of picking up a little bit, too.
[Zeke] Okay.
They're probably two-footers, three-footers.
[Zeke] Wow.
[Jeff speaking]
[Zeke speaking]
Yeah.
[Zeke speaking]
[grunting]
[Jeff] All right, homie.
Well, you're, uh,
you gotta be pretty exhausted.
[Zeke speaking]
Weather out here is super unpredictable
and it can vary from claim to claim
depending on what the swells are doing.
[Jeff] That's what I'm saying.
Like it just [bleep] picked up.
What the [bleep]?
The good thing about having a 14-inch nozzle
is you can move a lot more ground.
And on a day like today,
hopefully suck up a lot of gold.
The bad thing is, is it's a beast.
So when the swells are hitting you down there,
it takes every bit of strength
that you have to move it around,
even just a foot or two.
When we get hit with swells like we are now,
that usually ends the dive.
[Jeff] We have no vis
and the chops picking up from the east, so...
We're just gonna pull the gear out of the water,
and we're gonna pull the anchors
and we're gonna go back to harbor.
The good thing is, is that I was seeing gold
go up that nozzle for the last few hours.
So we might have a pretty sweet clean-out on our hands.
I certainly hope so,
because we might not get another chance
to dive this summer.
We have to look at the situation
and figure out what our next move's gonna be.
I do need to get some more gold.
[Jeff] We gave her hell today, huh?
[Andy] Well, my brother's over there working
and I'm sitting here
trying to get to where I wanna go.
[narrator] In a quest to get on deeper ground,
Andy Kelly may be marooned on a ship of fools.
[Andy] I don't know, man.
I hate my brother putting me with idiots,
that's for sure.
And the [bleep] part is,
none of these dumb [bleep]
have to explain to my brother
why nothing's going right.
So it's all gonna fall on me
and I'm supposed to be the one
that's supposed to be running this grid
and everything else,
but then he also tells me,
"Don't tell Todd how to do his job.
He's the captain.
You're in control of the crawler."
Okay, great.
Can the captain drive the [bleep] boat
without [bleep] anything up?
We need gold bad.
My brother's counting on me
to make this part of Reaper Nation work.
I'm trying to get on ground that's shallow enough
to have some visibility,
but deep enough to be untouched.
That should be 35 to 40 feet.
But the clown in the captain's chair
put us on ground way deeper than what I needed to be.
Yeah. I don't know, man.
He's repositioning the boat
and now we're just burning hours.
[Todd speaking]
[man speaking]
[Daniel speaking]
Well, I thought we were backing up
to go to shallower ground,
but it looks like we just did a U, that's it.
It looks like we're at the same [bleep] depth.
The only difference is, is now I'm facing shore.
I got a captain that drives the boat better drunk,
and he's not drunk right now.
So basically I don't [bleep] know
what he's doing.
This is beginning to be bull [bleep].
[Daniel speaking]
Seven, eight...
[Andy] We actually somehow got deeper
than what we were originally.
Todd did a big U
and took us out deeper than what we were.
[Daniel speaking]
[Andy] We're running out of time this season.
I don't know how many more days
we're gonna get out of here.
The biggest mission this season
was to get the All-In and the crawler out there.
These guys have gotta get it together.
[Daniel speaking]
So now we're gonna try to go closer
to shore where I wanted to.
It's always something, man.
I swear to God, every time I wanna get out and mine,
you know, I mean,
what's the next captain gonna be like?
[mellow music playing]
[Brad speaking]
All right, you guys.
Just me and gold down here on the bottom.
Whoo!
[Vernon speaking]
[Brad speaking]
[Vernon speaking]
[narrator] Skipper Vernon Adkison
may be laughing all the way to the bank...
[Brad] Whoo!
[narrator] ...as the second of three dives in deep water
appears to be right on track.
[Brad] That's some gold.
[Vernon] Yo, Brad, just keep doing what you're doing.
You beat Gary's pants off.
I mean, you left him in the dirt.
He... I tell you what,
he's not looking real happy right now.
[laughs]
[Brad speaking]
[Gary] That's all right, Brad. Yeah, I put you on it.
Just remember, I was searching around looking for the [bleep].
[Brad] Hey, I remember. I remember.
[Tony] Blindfolded. Blindfolded.
Yeah, man. Uh, so, you know,
I get all the credit on this one, buddy.
[Brad speaking]
Yeah, man. We all win on this one,
so cool. Just keep it up.
[Brad speaking]
[Vernon] Once Brad finishes, next up...
will be Tony.
We gotta keep this train moving.
The goal is three dives at 40 feet.
We're almost there,
and the best part is
all the signs are pointing
towards us being on absolutely stellar gold.
[Brad speaking]
[Vernon] We'll give it a couple more minutes.
[Brad speaking]
[Vernon] Yeah. Come up and make a decompression stop.
[Brad speaking]
[Kevin] Hey, you guys. Look at that nugget.
-We need to lift that screen. -[Vernon] Oh, yeah.
[Kevn] Look at that [bleep].
[Vernon] Oh, wow.
[Kevin] Whoo! [laughs]
-[Vernon] Really? -[Gary] Yeah.
[Brad] Yeah, baby.
[Kevin] Yeah. We're rocking and rolling.
[Vernon] Brad did a bang-up job.
All that's left is Tony,
the greenest guy on the boat.
Try not to leave any bare skin showing.
It's gonna be cold.
But he's teed up for success.
All he needs to do is keep his head on straight
and hold onto that nozzle.
[dramatic music playing]
Tony, just take it slow and easy.
[Tony speaking]
[Vernon] Yeah, he's breathing okay.
His air pressure is good.
[Tony speaking]
Okay.
[Tony speaking]
We'll see how he does on this dive,
but I'll let him stay down there
as long as he's comfortable,
or until things start going haywire on us.
All right, Tony, at this point,
the ball is in your court.
[Tony speaking]
[narrator] While Vernon's team feasts in deep water...
So we're still trying to move to shallower water.
We'll get there before the sun goes down, I hope.
[narrator] Andy Kelly is still trying to get
his ragtag crew on the right ground.
At this rate, who the [bleep] knows
when I can actually drop my crawler and go to work.
I really wish my brother
would've came for this gong show.
Got a guy that can't drive the boat.
I have a boat that's a piece of [bleep].
I have water that's nasty as [bleep] on the bottom.
When we set out at the beginning of the season,
it was supposed to be the Mistress and the crawler with the All-In.
But we got a captain that's worse than Gilligan,
his cousin.
And we're trying to think he's gonna find 35 to 40 feet
with the [bleep] depth-finder in front of him.
If he can't find 35 to 40 feet,
everything's gonna be on the Mistress.
Well, we've landed in a spot.
Everybody says we're at a good depth.
[Daniel speaking]
Okay.
I just gotta drop her down.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Daniel speaking]
[Andy] Oh, man,
my day just got so much worse.
So what happened?
[Daniel speaking]
We noticed there's a little bit of oil,
and when it comes to hydraulics
and everything else, you gotta be
very careful with it
because if any of my lines blow,
the hydraulic fluid will flow into the ocean as fast as it can.
And I don't want that.
We got a hydraulic fluid leak.
We don't want that for two reasons.
One, you can't have the fluid leaking into the Bering Sea.
Those hydraulic lines are what controls the crawler.
And number three,
this [bleep] costs too much money.
If those lines aren't fixed,
we can't mine.
[Daniel speaking]
[Andy] See, how the [bleep] could it even break right there?
[Andy] Okay.
There's always something.
To be honest, I don't even know how it's even leaking there
because nothing even hits that connector.
So I don't know if it's wear and tear or what.
I don't know how the [bleep] I did it.
So basically we're just gonna call it a day,
'cause we don't wanna [bleep] have a leak or anything
or a line blow off and...
This has been a cluster [bleep] day.
I should have stayed in bed today.
Hey, I'm just packing up. Let's go in.
The crawler got nothing today.
I have to go back to town and get this leak fixed.
Then at the most, we'll get one more chance to mine.
I hope my brother's killing it on the Mistress
'cause we're gonna need it.
I'm gonna go to town, get the part I need,
replace everything I need to
and come back out and try again.
Hopefully my crew will be a little bit better.
I don't know.
[dramatic music playing]
[Jeff speaking]
[Zeke] Hi.
[Zeke speaking]
[narrator] Zeke Tenhoff is ready to see if his season
can hit new heights
as he motors towards his raised goal.
[Jeff speaking]
[Zeke speaking]
This has been a pretty weird summer.
We've already had a great season,
but we've also had the worst storm
that I've seen in Nome in my whole life.
If this clean-out is a good one,
then we'll be back on track
to having a 150-ounce season.
That would be huge for my gold mining future
with the Synergy.
[Jeff] Nice and clean.
And we should weigh out this gold.
Let's see what we got.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Zeke] Two ounces,
five, six...
[Jeff] Seven, eight,
10, 11, 12,
13, 14, 15,
16, 17, 18,
19, 20, 21, 22,
23, 24,
24.2.
[Zeke] Sweet.
[narrator] 24.2 ounces
is worth over $43,000.
And just like that,
the Tenhoff team
is back with a bang.
Right on.
I'm really proud of what we've been able
to accomplish this summer.
We just keep crushing it over and over.
I've already hit a career best,
but let's see if we can cross that 150-ounce mark.
If we keep having clean-outs that are this good,
the sky is the limit.
It's like 25, 30 ounces every time.
I'll take that.
It's really good money.
[narrator] Back out on the water...
[upbeat music playing]
...with one half of Reaper Nation
already in the harbor...
[Kris speaking]
Everything is going great.
Oh, yeah, baby.
[narrator] Captain Kris
is milking his newly uncovered pay streak
for all it's worth.
We had a pretty good day.
Everything's going the right way.
People are doing everything the way
I trained them to.
[upbeat music playing]
[Kris] How's it look?
[man speaking]
[Kris] Yeah, we're doing good.
Oh, yeah.
Crew changes right now,
so we got like 11 and a half,
11 hours of a 12-hour shift,
which is pretty [bleep] good.
I insisted on looking for something amazing
and not settling on an ordinary pay streak,
and I was right to stick to my guns.
It's paying off.
These are the kind of decisions that will make
the difference of us hitting our goal or not.
This might have been our best day of the season.
Whoa.
How's it going, guys?
[man speaking]
[Kris] Uh, we got 11,
11-and-a-half hours
of running today.
On gold 90% of the time.
Now we're gonna pass the baton over to James
and the night crew.
We just need these guys to stick on what I found
and keep grinding like crazy.
We just might finish this season with a bang.
And, buddy, you're gonna do great.
So good. We're going. Uh, any problems,
take care of 'em.
Yeah. Okay. So just do what you do.
I'll see you tomorrow.
Bye, boys.
Have a good night.
[Kris] Okay. Good job, everybody.
It's a strange coincidence,
but things always go better
when I'm on the boat.
[narrator] As Kris heads in,
there's still one captain out on the water.
-[Vernon speaking] -[Tony speaking]
Tell us what's going on.
[Tony speaking]
[Vernon] All right. All right.
[narrator] As daylight fades,
Vernon Adkison's three-dive marathon in deep water
is nearing the finish line.
[Vernon] Good dive. I like it.
He did two hours.
He was in gold the entire time
he was down there.
[Tony speaking]
[Vernon] Yeah. Tony, you're done.
Make a decompression stop
and come on up.
[Tony speaking]
There haven't been any days this season
when I've had all my men on base
and knocked it out of the park.
Most divers won't touch 40 feet,
but my divers came through.
[Brad speaking]
[Brad] It's been a long day.
Wake up and do it again tomorrow.
[Vernon] All right. Let's do it.
Pulling out the lens.
[man] Forty feet long.
[Tony speaking]
[man] From the flare up to that.
Let me get this over to that side.
[Vernon] It's been a hell of a day.
We got it done.
It took a team effort,
but the good part is, I mean,
we got into some really good gold,
and it was pretty [bleep] juicy.
[announcer] And now, kick back for another
Social Hour with Vernon.
All right. @HoppySchlopppy,
"Talk about your time in San Francisco.
Any wild stories?"
Well, I've got a lot of 'em,
but I don't remember most of 'em.
They say if you were there,
you don't... probably don't remember it.
And [bleep], I was there.
[upbeat music playing]
First time I went to San Francisco
was in the summer of '66,
and then I was also there the summer of '67.
One of those years was the Summer of Love.
I can't remember which one it was.
But believe me, baby, I was there for the Summer of Love.
[upbeat music playing]
I saw some of the best bands in the world.
Unfortunately, I can't remember most of 'em
because like I said, I might've been a little high
at the time.
I saw the Grateful Dead.
I saw Santana, I saw B.B. King,
I saw Joan Baez.
Jim Croce, he sat at the end of my bar,
so did Harry Chapin,
and so did Randy Newman...
[announcer] Thanks for joining us
for another Social Hour with Vernon.
[Vernon] But anyway, he [bleep] fired me.
[upbeat music playing]
[Kris] Okay. Four buckets.
Ooh, this is heavy.
Ooh, there's lots of gold right on top too.
Ooh, that's a good problem.
[narrator] After a strong day aboard the Mistress,
Captain Kris is ready to reap
the fruits of his leadership.
I think that's everything, boys.
[man] Who wants to ride in the back?
[Kris] Who wants to ride in the back with the gold?
Right now, it sounds like Andy and the All-In
[bleep] the bed.
But I was able to get the Mistress
on good ground and grind on it all day.
The end of summer's coming any day,
so right now, I need this clean-out to be the best it can be.
I have a feeling this is gonna be great.
[man] Gold panning action, baby.
Everybody needs this. Everybody needs money.
Everybody's gotta pay bills.
And at the end of the day,
you know, the proof is in the pudding.
Kris, what's your guesstimate?
How much gold you got in the pan?
There's definitely 20-something ounces here.
This operation makes money.
That's the long story short.
This operation definitely makes money.
Now, we've dialed it in and we're still,
you know, not even running at 100%.
Yeah.
Here we go. Drum roll, please.
[drum roll playing]
Okay. We got one, two...
[Kris] That's three.
[man] Four, five.
-[Kris] Seven, nine. -Ten, almost.
Ten.
Maybe do it a little faster.
[man] Eighteen, 19...
[Kris] Plus pickers.
[man] So we found two good-size pickers.
Beautiful pieces here.
23.15.
Come on, [bleep],
-that's pretty good. -Not bad.
[narrator] 23.15 ounces.
It's worth over forty-one grand,
and Reaper Nation is creeping closer
to their revised 175-ounce goal.
Congratulations. We did it.
Gimme some love, people.
-Andy, gimme some love. -Sounds good.
That was a decent haul on the Mistress.
And because of what happened with the crawler,
we need every flake.
Now we're about to enter do-or-die time.
We'll have maybe one more chance to get at it.
We'll need both the Mistress and the crawler on gold,
or we'll be in so much debt
that it will be the end of Reaper Nation.
After all the bull [bleep] we've been through,
I think that's a good number.
Okay, throw it in the jar.
Let's get the [bleep] outta here.
I'm happy. More money equals more happiness.
It just works like that, for some reason.
[narrator] Back in the harbor...
[upbeat music playing]
[Vernon] We got in with some really good gold.
I think you guys did
an exemplary job of getting it.
I was, uh, I was pretty impressed with it.
[narrator] After completing his three-dive day...
[Brad] Whoo. [laughs]
[Vernon] You got on some good gold.
[narrator] ...Vernon Adkison is in desperate need
of a late-season boost on the scale.
[Vernon] So it's still looking pretty juicy.
It's been a rough season,
but we're finally starting to get gold
on this deep ground.
We may only have one more day on the water,
so we really need for this day to count.
All right.
Come on over here. We're getting ready
to do the weigh.
No matter what that scale says,
I know my team gave it their all.
All right. Here we go.
Come on.
Baby needs new shoes.
There's two, three,
four, five,
six,
seven, eight,
nine,
ten... Come on, ten.
Come on, ten. There you go.
10.37.
All right.
[narrator] 10.3 ounces
is worth over 18 grand.
Not exactly a bonanza,
but it is the salty captain's
best clean-out of the season so far.
Yeah, that's pretty good stuff.
Get the deep water.
Found out what I need to know.
That's where it's at, as far as I'm concerned.
Are we getting rich?
No. But you know what?
I'm proud of my guys.
They really put their stones out there
diving that deep, and it paid off.
This was a big gamble
and we raked in the gold.
But you know what?
There's no rest for the wicked.
We're gonna have to do it all again, and then some,
if we're gonna finish where we need to be.
Right at the end of the season
is when things start coming together.
I've got all my equipment working a lot better,
and I've got divers,
and I've got real good ground to work.
The fact is, you can't quit.
You gotta persevere.
If you quit,
you're not gonna get any gold.
Let's get this bagged and tagged.
The prognosis is,
more gold in the future.
[narrator] Just across the harbor...
[Shawn] Time to check the box.
[man] Look at this.
Dude, it's loaded.
Look at that.
Piles of gold.
[narrator] With a hardy haul from the Christine Rose,
it's time to tell the tale
of the scale for Mr. Gold.
[man] I'm hoping this cleanup
is better than 50 ounces.
[Shawn] I thought I found the silver bullet
for the rest of the season,
but that wasn't Northwest Gold Creek.
I still got some ounces out there.
But the good news is, Cody crushed it.
So hopefully we still had the kind of day we needed.
[Cody] Wow.
Piles of gold.
Looks good.
Hopefully it'll be, like, 60 ounces, maybe more.
I don't know. Maybe less.
[Shawn] Let's get this gold on the scale.
See what the heck we got.
[Cody] Well, hopefully it'll hold us over.
[upbeat music playing]
[Shawn] There's 20,
30,
there's 40.
We're heading for 60.
[man] Oh, that's...
[Cody] Seventy-three.
-That's awesome. -[Shawn] I think
it's [bleep] amazing.
[narrator] Seventy-three ounces
rings in at over $131,000,
keeping Shawn within striking distance
of his goal for the season.
[Shawn] Good job, guys.
I wish the Myrtle had more to do with this clean-out,
but I'll take it.
This season's been a grind like no other.
With the hell that's rained down upon us this summer,
it would say a lot
if ultimately, we could hit our number.
[Cody] Good job.
-[Shawn] Nice job, man. -Another good run.
[Shawn] I need some more gold.
Never enough. Never enough.
[narrator] Across the fleet,
the miners inch closer to their goals
as the end of the season looms
just around the corner.
Next time
on Bering Sea Gold...
[Emily] Got one more day left of the season,
it's like now or never.
[Shawn] Here we go.
[man] This is our lucky run.
We gotta finish this season with a bang.
All right, buddy. Get money!
It's all about the gold.
Oh, yeah.
We're piling up the gold.
[Kris] We're killing it right now.
Whoo-hoo!
This is some of the best gold I've seen
since I've been in Nome.
[Emily] Whoo-hoo! We're making money at the end.
[man speaking]
Looks like the storm is coming in earlier than we thought.
[Kris] We're gonna keep pressing hard
until the ocean makes us leave.
[man speaking]
[Emily speaking]
[man] You can't see anything.
It's just black.
We gotta get outta here.
[man speaking]
[man 2] Come up, come up.