The Saga Gets Attacked by Seabirds | Deadliest Catch

It’s getting with it right now. You can see how cold it is, starting to freeze from the outside inside.
You’re not dealing with ice off the boat; you’re dealing with ice on the boat.

Nerve-racking. Every set and every haul, there’s just been something—it’s just been tough.
I’m spacing these out about 2/10 of a mile, which sucks for crab because it’s going to be hard to catch all that crab that tight unless you’re on a big pile.
But I have to keep them tight because next to the ice, I have to be able to pick them up quickly.

After squeezing $130,000 out of the Cod Derby, Captain Jake Anderson steams north near the ice edge, preparing to pack his 75 pots into a small 6-square-mile area, ensuring a quick exit.
But nothing more. It’s so icy out there. My team is just exhausted, but we’re all still carrying on, and that’s the main thing.

Yeah, I’m hit. I’m very fortunate that I have Joe Gomez, Mason Tman, and my beautiful niece, Cheyenne Smith.
It’s only day one. I’m cold, and my hands hurt.

There’s always a method to the madness—and right now, madness.
The deck’s pretty much squared away. I can now at least start setting gear.
“You guys ready?”
“Ready.”

Ice is about 20 miles away.
“This is, Obi, the hardest fishing in the world!”

“W, man, want these pots off? We’ve got to get this tote out of here. Okay, watch out—”
Crash.
“Back! You okay, Joe?”
“I’m good. What the hell? Where did that come from?”
“There’s a big one. This big rogue wave put me on the ground.”

“You always know when you’re going to get hit because they’ll get quiet before you get hit. Everything goes dead silent. And then—bam.”
“Ready?”
“Yep, over!”

I’m fighting the elements here—I’m fighting the damn elements.
We need to get these pots in the water so we can actually start catching some crab.

This string is the southeast of the gear we just set.
“I just want these pots off!”

Captain Jake stakes the last of his gear, betting his empty deck will turn into a landing pad for full pots—assuming his narrow grid doesn’t cut his crab out from under him.
“This is the last pot of that string. What are we doing?”

“And now I’ll start to run to the south. What I’m going to do is… I’ve got a 17-mile run, and you guys can take a nap.”
“Roger!”
“Hey, M, come up and drive for me. I’m so fried, man.”

“What? Look at that. Oh my God!”
“What they do is, they come around—see these outboard lights? They’re going for them.”
“Oh my God, I want him to dig up.”
“What the hell is that?”

“You keep hitting the lights, they think the lights are the sun. But I can’t turn them off—I can’t see the gear! There’s gear all over here, and if I run over anybody’s gear and it gets into my wheel, it could shut the boat down. It could possibly seize up one of my main engines. That’s… that’s not good.”

With seabirds using natural light to navigate:
“What is this, some kind of omen or something?”

Jake’s 1,000-watt sodiums disorient the fowl.
“Oh God, hey Mason, I’m going to need a damage report.”
“Yeah, I can see wires hanging. I can see all kinds of stuff broken.”
“Oh my God! That was absolutely insane. An entire flock of birds hit my mast. I’ve never seen anything like this before. Not in my whole life. On boats, on land—nothing.”

“All right, Mason, give it to me straight on the damage report.”
“They pulled a bunch of wires out. The center sodiums are busted, the port sodium’s busted, and then the starboard LED outwards.”
“$99,000 just in lights alone. All new wiring, plus time—you’re at like $16,000–$17,000 of damage from a 10-minute bird binge.”