Ep 111. The Bait: The Red Zone

On a football field, the Red Zone is the biggest challenge. The goal line is so close, yet so difficult to reach. On the Bering Sea, with the crews exhausted and beaten down, the last pots of the season are toughest stretch. On this episode of The Bait, the Captains discuss the last hurdles of the opie season.

Our captains are no strangers to adversity, and the show kicks off with a lively discussion of their greenhorn years which is a lot of fun to listen to, but does not sound like it was much fun to live through. From there, the Northwestern�??s newest greenhorn, Mandy Hansen, joins us. She describes what it took to survive her first opie season, and her dad, Sig, proudly proclaims he knows of no other 18 year old high school girl who could have done it. The captains jokingly bemoan the fact that now lots of girls will want to follow in Mandy�??s footsteps. This leads to a very funny Mike Fourtner segment called �??The Battle of the Sexes�?� in which Mike challenges Mandy to perform several deckhand tasks. Guess who wins. (Hint: the winner is only five feet tall.)

Act 2 jumps off quite fittingly with our Best of Catch segment: Greenhorns from Hell. As you can imagine, there have been some doozies. Of course, it�??s the job of the deckboss to keep these greenhorns in line, and one of the toughest deckbosses in the fleet is Nick McGlaushan. But he gave Captain Wild Bill no end of trouble this season, and so we put Nick in the Hot Seat to explain his bad behavior which included some very heavy drinking. This leads us to �??Deckboss 101�?�, a Fourtner Report that explains the duties of a deckboss.

Mike Fourtner joins us in rare on-set appearance in Act 3. The topic of discussion is the Time Bandit and all the troubles that befell Andy Hillstrand this season �?? not the least of which was the fact that the Time Bandit lost a prop while at sea. Replacing a propeller is a very costly procedure and Wild Bill reports from Kruger Prop in Seattle to give us an inside look at what goes in to making and installing this piece of equipment. If there was one upside to the Time Bandit�??s mis-adventure, it was that the boat returned to Dutch Harbor in time for the crew to watch the Superbowl. And who better to have as our celebrity guest than the Superbowl Champion Seattle Seahawk�??s linebacker, Heath Farwell. As you can imagine, the Captains are just loving this conversation.

But one boat that almost missed the Superbowl was the Cornelia Marie. Captain Josh Harris joins us in Act 4 to talk about the last days of his opie season. When the cannery moved up their delivery date, the Cornelia Maria raced into St. Paul to meet the schedule, only to find the swells in the harbor were so big the boat could not enter. Josh describes the big gamble they took to ride the waves into the port. Meanwhile, on board the Saga, Captain Elliott Neese was less interested in the Superbowl than his newest deckhand �?? his girl friend, Jessica. Elliott brought Jess on board to cook for the crew and we brought Elliott and Jess on set to answer some questions. Sig, for one, tells Elliott he must be out of his mind to bring his girl friend on board a crab boat. It makes for an interesting conversation.

In the last act of the show, the Captains talk about Scott Campbell, Jr.�??s return aboard the Seabrook. Recovering from his back surgery, Junior came back to the wheelhouse sooner than he wanted to. But financial difficulties forced him back out on the crab grounds and the remainder of this season will be do or die for him. And finally, our Best of Catch segement: Greenhorns from Hell, closes out this episode of The Bait.