I’ve seen several episodes of the Bering sea king crab fishermen. I know, it is a very dangerous occupation. The boat owners can lose everything, and the crews can lose their lives. Such great risk brings great rewards-you can get very wealthy crab fishing. Now, the question about who picks up the pieces: if these guys go out into a howling gail, and their engine fails, does the Coast Guard have a legal obligation to go after them? Or is the CG bound by rules of common sense and safety? Somehow, I can’t see the wisdom of risking Coast Guard lives in saving people who take deliberate risks in fishing.
By the way, can alaskan crabs be farmed? 
My husband is a Bering Sea Crabber. He also works many other fisheries, and the weather is always a factor. The Coast Guard will always try to assist a ship in distress, but there are often times when even they have to wait out the weather.
The days of getting rich crabbing are long over. With the new rationalizations in place, each boat which has fished for X amount of years is given a share of the allowed quota, figured by taking X amount of years fishing plus averaging the past catch. This is supposed to make the fishery safer. (What it has really done is put the big bucks in the pockets of the processors, who never step foot on a boat.) My husband fished last year’s red (king) crab fishery, but he was gone longer, as they had the opportunity to wait out the bad weather without losing their share of the quota. However, the opilio (snow) crab price was so low that the skipper leased his shares, so my husband made $0.00 on that fishery.
Farming red (king) crab is being looked into, but they are extremely difficult to raise and maintain to a harvestable size. In addition to the fact that farmed fish is not as flavorful as wild caught, and there is new information regarding lowered nutritional value and possible negative health side effects to the people who eat farmed fish which have been fed commercially prepared feed. I personally do not see crab farming being either economically feasible or an appealing proposition.
As for taking deliberate risks, there are a lot of fishermen who really don’t have an option. My husband, for example, has been commercial fishing since he was seven years old, (not uncommon in rural Alaska to involve the family as soon as they are old enough to stack corks and leads) and he really has no other job skills, in addition to the job market being very limited where we live. Also, as long as there is a demand for the product, there will always be those filling that demand.
The Coast Guard is authorized by law to conduct search & rescue and required to do so by service regulations. Therefore, if the operation is truly a suicide mission, the Coast Guard is not legally obligated to go. In that the CG has been plying the waters of the Bering Sea since the days of the Revenue Cutter, they are very well prepared for just about anything they may face in that area.
The cutters and aircraft that respond to SAR cases in that region are very tough and dependable craft. For cutters, you’ll find 378s or perhaps the Storis - a cutter that has been in service since 1941. Very seaworthy, indeed.
For aircraft, you’ll find the tested HH-60 Jayhawks or the HC-130 Hercules.
Only the most severe storms and conditions could keep these assets at home when duty calls. I think you’d be surprised at the conditions these craft can, and do, operate in.
I was hoping that Scruloose would come in with the Coast Guard information, and I am glad that he did. The Coast Guard is a wonderful branch of the Military, without them life in the Bush, not only for the fishermen, would be even more deadly.
Back to who pays the price when a gale blows up, the ship ices up, a rogue wave, etc. rolls/disables or otherwise sinks a boat, generally the boat owner has it insured and suffers little if any material loss. However, very often the boat is leased to an operator (skipper) and with fish/crab/etc. prices so low, it’s rare for crewmen to have any kind of health/life insurance. For any survivors, there is the Fisherman’s Fund, which is supposed to cover medical bills, but they, mostly, (and in my experience,) don’t. The owner/operator generally have insurance that also covers crew injuries. As an example, several years ago my husband and a crew mate were breaking cod pots out of the ice here at home to re-web them for the next fishery, and he herniated himself. The skipper’s (owner and operator) insurance paid for his surgery as well as compensating him for the money he would have made had he been able to participate in the fishery. It was a frustrating experience for us, because we were (are) good friends with the skipper and the incident caused his insurance rates to go up, but he insisted. The good skippers treat their crew like family, and the crew in turn bend over backward to make sure that the skipper is happy.
BTW, it really isn’t just crabbing that is so dangerous and risky. My husband left yesterday for a halibut trip, and the wind is coming up right now. I know that he is only a few hours travel time away from home, but that doesn’t mean that he’s safe. I am truly thankful for the Kodiak Coast Guardsmen, so far my husband hasn’t needed to be saved in a life or death situation, but the Coast Guard was on site immediately a few years ago when the boat he was on hit a rockpile and punched a couple of holes in the hull. They (C.G.) evacuated all the crew save the skipper and my husband, and escorted the boat safely back into town.
I have no doubt responded with more information than you were looking for, but your question hits very close to home.
kaiwik, since you’re here, do you mind if I ask a few questions about the show “The Deadlest Catch” which I assume the OP is referencing? Specifically, have you and your husband seen it, do you think it’s an accurate representation of crab fishing, do you know any of the captains/crew on the show, and how dumb do you think it was to use “Wanted, Dead or Alive” by Bon Jovi as the theme song?
**kaiwik ** - I usually watch “The Deadliest Catch” marathon in complete awe. My husband would walk to Alaska for a chance to work on a boat for a season. I can’t imagine how it feels on the day they leave. My husband is an over-the-road trucker and I feel scared for him sometimes, and he has the luxury of pulling over instead of being in icy water! Do they get lots of thrill seeker types like my husband that are there for just one season?
For the OP - I understand the question, but I personally would put crab fishing, which, as **kaiwik ** said, is a family job that may leave little room for developing other skills, on par with senseless behavior. I can’t equate working for a buck with “no common sense” activity like strapping yourself naked to a log and floating into the icy water just to see if the Coast Guard would come get your frozen corpse (whew! went out on a limb with that one, didn’t I?).
I meant “…would **not ** put…”
Kaiwik, I just wanted to drop in for a sec and say that I find your first-person take on the realities of this industry were very interesting. I thank you for sharing your experience and knowledge.
I, too, really enjoy watching the series on this profession, but your insider info on what it’s REALLY like is just really welcome.
Thanks!
Man, so the processors get all the money. I haven’t eaten alaskan king crab in years-here, its about $24.00/lb. Are the TV shows realistic? Or do most captains head for harbor when a gail starts blowing. Another question: “williwaw” storms are violent and frequent in the Bering sea-is there any warning given of them?
Yeah, I’d like to hear your thoughts as well, kaiwik. I’ve become hooked on that show as of late. 20 hours on, 4 off is tough to do just once. But day after day? In those conditions?!? Man, that’s grueling. Those boys and girls earn every penny and then some.
Trucker, eh? Well then he could just drive there and make a little cash on the way!
Ice road trucking and Bering Sea fishing are two jobs that are waaaay up there on the “Big Brass Ones” list.
Wow, lots of questions, and I want to give the topic the attention it deserves. I watched the first series of Deadliest Catch and, just as The Perfect Storm, it put a cold stone of fear in my stomach. I haven’t been able to bring myself to watch the second season yet. I will work on a comprehensive comment and post it later today/tonight. Although my husband is, as I mentioned, out fishing, one of his crew mates and best buddy is in town, so I will also check with him in regard to the accuracy of my answers.
I will now, as I did in a previous thread on this topic, defend the choice of Bon Jovi’s song Wanted, Dead or Alive. As I see it, the boats are steel horses, and I want my man to come home, dead or alive. As difficult as it is to lose a loved one, to never recover the body is a pain not too many understand. jmo
I did a couple summers as a deck hand on a salmon boat out of Dillingham, AK when I was in grad school. In the later weeks of the sockeye run when fishing is open 24/7, we put in a lot of days like that back to back. In fact, the 4 hours off were usually just a sequence of 1-hour naps. It was tough and tiring, but the light actually helped a lot. There’s so much daylight that time of year that your body tends to say, “It’s light! Time to work! I’m up!” Fortunately for me, the skipper was a 7th Day Adventist, so we didn’t work Saturdays and the deck hands could catch up on our sleep.
I sent my husband that link (after I had to pull the seat cushion out of my ass from seeing the “thin ice” pictures). He’s talked about doing that very thing before. If he goes, I’m coming to live with you!
Wow kaiwik, I apologize if my remark about the Bon Jovi song was offensive. I never interpreted it the way you do - I thought they were singing about the crabs - you know, the crabs are “Wanted” ? I’ve never listened to all the lyrics - my loathing of Bon Jovi obviously colored my interpretation of its use as the theme song. I’m really sorry.
I apologize for the delay in responding, but some in-laws flew in unexpectedly from the village yesterday, and I was busy with them, and I just got my computer back up, apparently it had an aneurysm or something, sheesh.
Against warnings from my husband’s best buddy and crabbing crew mate, I watched the first season of The Deadliest Catch. Although I have heard many, many first hand stories, and I have personal experience on fishing boats around the island, the waters of the Bering Sea are entirely different; unpredictable and unforgiving. The show is very realistic, although they do edit out a lot of the scariest, hairiest parts, and, of course, fishermen use some of the foulest language I have ever heard, that is also edited! My impression is that the show does not truly do justice to the toll the long hours and hard work do to the fishermen, (the 20 hours on/4 hours off is a rough average, they often work far longer with less sleep, stopping just long enough to, literally, cram a sandwich in their mouths, gulp some Gatorade, and get back out to work. My husband went out one year and came home 40 pounds lighter than when he left, and he’s not a big guy to begin with.) as well as just how unforgiving and frightening those waters and the weather are. I have also watched some of the second season with my husband, and he is in agreement with me in regard to the show. For myself, if having viewed the show gives a person pause before eating any wild Alaska seafood, then it is doing a great service to the fishermen who sacrifice so much to provide that seafood to the rest of the world.
We all knew Gary Edwards, of the f/v Big Valley, (from the first season) and how terribly ironic was it that it was he and his crew who demonstrated the EPRB and the survival suit test, only to be the first boat and crew lost during the first week of the opilio season? My husband knows quite a few of the skippers and crew out there, I know his crew mates and skippers, but I am busy raising kids still, and don’t hang out with the fishermen as much as I used to.
Before the crab rationalizations were put in place, the skippers would never leave the grounds just because the weather was coming up. Which was the reasoning the officials put forth as The Answer as to why the rationalization was implemented. A bit of back story: it used to be that Fish and Game (http://www.adfg.state.ak.us/) would hold two or three halibut openers every year, in which they would set a date for the opener, everyone would bait up and head out to the grounds. At noon Fish and Game would shoot off the flare, and it was a wild free-for-all for 24 hours, despite the weather conditions (and it always stormed during every halibut opener I was here for, every damned time) to catch as much halibut as possible before the final flare was shot to close the opener. Many lives and boats were lost, due to the urgency to catch as much as possible in a very short amount of time, in snotty weather. My husband has an impressive scar on the back of one hand where he was snagged by a hook as they were setting the gear out. Thank God he wasn’t wearing gloves, or he would have been dragged down with the gear. So, F&G instituted the IFQ (Individual Fish Quota) program; each boat which had fished halibut for X number of previous years plus an average of the poundage of each boats previous catch during those years was figured into how much of the quota (pounds of halibut) each boat is allowed to catch. The halibut season opens in early April and closes in either September or October, there are no more openers. However, now one is only allowed to catch X amount of halibut, which remove the chance to load the boat and make some real money. Yes, it has cut down on loss of equipment and lives, but the really big boats obviously have larger shares, while the smaller boats (like those my husband fishes on) are limited to a percentage of their largest catch in the past. With crab rationalization the deal is the same, with the added injustice in which the processors getting cut in for a percentage of the catch, even though they don’t take the risks of catching the crab, in addition to the piddly amount they pay for the crab compared to the amount they charge consumers for the product.
The weather in the Bering Sea is generally bad to terrible, husband has never come home to say that they had an easy day, it’s just to what degree is it going to blow, snow, freeze, and how many rogue waves are going to slap them out of the blue. A williwaw is a tornado, I watch them kick up in the dust here at home all the time. On the sea they pull the water up into the air, and some can be impressive. The weather service can tell when a low is coming in, but the degree of the force of each storm is impossible to predict, and the time of year when crabbing is done, the storms just roll in one after another, there is no break from the heaving sea and raging gales. The real fear comes when the boat ices up. The fishermen have to break ice or the boat will roll, and while they are breaking ice, climbing the rigging and the on board pots, the boat is pitching around in the swells. Since my husband is always the smallest guy on the boat, he gets sent up the rigging and gear while the rest of the crew break ice from the deck. In October while red crab fishing the skipper did put to port during the worst of the blows, but they still fished in weather most people would not leave their homes in to drive to the grocery store. They were also gone for almost two weeks longer than before, but come home they did. This year the price for crab was so low while the price of fuel is so high that the skipper decided that he would lose money, so he leased his shares to another boat. The skipper can do that, as he is part of a Seattle based company, and is a member of their co-op. He was compensated, my husband wasn’t. Instead he went out West (the Bering Sea) and pot-fished for cod. Same kind of fishing, same weather and working conditions, but he was gone for 77 days, during which time a pot slammed into him and cracked a couple of ribs, and another pot smashed open one of his fingers. The only first aid was ibuprofen for the pain, and peroxide and gauze bandaging for the finger. The wound on his finger, a good four+ inches long, just recently closed, and his ribs are still tender to the touch.
Do we get thrill seekers up here looking for jobs? Hell yeah! They rarely last long though. Fishing towns have huge transient populations as different seasons open, mostly men, some women, from all over the world come to Kodiak (and Dutch Harbor, King Cove, etc.) looking for fun and excitement on the high seas. Most either don’t find fishing jobs, and those who do often quit very quickly. A greenhorn who finishes out a mere salmon season here around the island has something to be proud of. Jobs on crab boats are nigh impossible to land, those guys hang on to their jobs. Husband waited
a lot of years to get on with a crabber. He has fished salmon, halibut, cod, and dungeness crab with the same skipper for the last 13 years, he has been crabbing with the same skipper for four years. He pot-cod fished on the same crab boat with a different skipper, another guy hooked up with the co-op. Again, most of the job seekers spend an awful lot of time walking the docks, talking with crew and skippers, trying and vying for a spot on a boat. Most of them land with nothing more than a backpack holding their clothing and few personal effects, a sleeping bag, and if they are smart, a small tent. There is an area at Gibson Cove (where the old Seattle ferry, the m/v Kalakala was beached and used for so many years as part of a processor.) where a “tent town” is set up every year. There are also those who think they can just walk off the road into the Bush and camp out there. First of all, it’s not legal, and second, well, can we all say “Bears”? (I knew we could! lol!)
Again, as for the show’s signature song, I really don’t understand the many objections I have heard about it from many sources, I think it is highly appropriate, both the sound of the music as well as the lyrics. I’ve said it before, the boats are steel horses ridden by some of the toughest men in the world, and God forbid, if my man dies out there, I want him back, to bury and mourn. I have known quite a few men who never came back, their bodies have never been found. It leaves an aching in the heart that never goes away.
One true story: a friend of ours was out crabbing, he had recently given up his many years of bachelorhood and married another friend, and they had three very young daughters. The boat he was on was skippered by a man who was not known for his safety precautions. As the boat was going down they discovered that there was one too few survival suits. Also on the boat was a young guy, not even old enough to buy a beer, green as could be. Our friend handed him the survival suit he was holding, told him to get it on and make it back home, and when he did to tell his wife that he loved her and the girls with all his heart, and the he went down with the boat. His body was never recovered, although his name is on a plaque on the Lost Fishermen’s Memorial downtown at the Harbormaster’s office, along with all the other men who have lost their lives at sea, and during the Memorial Day weekend, when the local Crab Festival is held, there is a memorial service for those men, a bell tolls once for each name on the monument. It’s very sobering, as is the the blessing of the fleet by one of the Russian Orthodox priests before the boats ever head out.
Regarding mrklutz’s reply, concerning the salmon season, my husband’s boat always highlines (catches the most fish for their cannery) and they begin the day at 3:00 am and end it at 1:00 am. No days off, unless Fish and Game closes fishing to ensure a good escapement. The season begins June 1st and ends sometime in the middle of September. He leaves for red crab generally October 1st and is home by the first week in November, opilio crab or cod opens the first week of June and runs through March, until the quota is caught. Halibut opens in April. I don’t see my husband very much, to say the least.
Rez, if your old man heads North, ride with him and we’ll play all summer!
muldoonthief no offense taken, it’s an assumption I have heard frequently. I have to say though, that a photo of Jon Bon Jovi in tight black leather pants and nothing else is a pretty picture for a lonely fisherman’s wife to look at, it keeps me home with the kids while my man is gone! 
Okay, husband is home now, and he critiqued these points:
Opilio/cod season open the first of January, not June. (duh, I just made a typing mistake.)
Halibut now opens in February. (but I don’t know anyone how goes out for it then, they are busy with crab and cod.
He was wearing a cotton glove liner when he was injured, and they were hauling the gear in. He was lucky the hook ripped through the glove or his hand would have gone into the hauler, and he would have been ripped quite badly before they could have stopped the hydraulics.
Other than that, he said that what I wrote was accurate.
I sure am glad that he’s home!