What To Know
- Monte Colburn faced a serious health scare aboard the Wizard.
- Challenging Arctic conditions and tight quotas put extra pressure on the crews.
- Johnathan Hillstrand and Rick Shelford helped each other overcome ice-related setbacks and boost their catches.
Deadliest Catch returned on August 7 with a new episode after a week break due to Shark Week. We’re three weeks into the winter season as the first Arctic flow causes big headaches for the crab catching captains. Though with a $15 million fleetwide quota up for the grabs, they can’t let the icy conditions put a freeze on their paydays.
Keith Colburn felt not only the stress of meeting a tight deadline, but also his co-captain Monte experiencing medical issues. Elsewhere, Rick Shelford risked losing thousands of dollars in gear during his hunt for bairdi crab. Nearby, Johnathan Hillstrand had other problems generating numbers of opilio.
Read on to find out how the three weather their respective challenges this week.
Keith Colburn
Keith Colburn (Discovery Channel)
The Wizard captain braced the crew for what they were going to encounter as the conditions deteriorated. Keith had a string of 30 pots to get off in order to meet his opilio quota and switch to bairdi quickly. His brother Monte joined him on this harrowing journey. The crew started setting gear until a monstrous wave stopped them in their tracks. Thankfully, the deckhands weren’t hurt. Keith slowed the vessel down to a crawl in order to make it a little easier. Monte wasn’t feeling well and left the wheelhouse with Keith taking over. A crew member was approved for a 10-minute break that went on for a half hour. Keith got him moving, frustrated Monte hadn’t shown a united front. “I need a bit of respect from you, Monte,” Keith said.
The siblings got into a heated argument. Monte eventually came clean about his ailments. He revealed feeling mild discomfort in his chest, left arm tightness, and shortness of breath. “And you’ve been holding out on me with this,” Keith responded. This added another sense of urgency to finish the job. He gave Monte a medical assessment and found his blood pressure to be high. The experience surely got him thinking about his own past medical emergencies. Keith called the maritime insured physician for advice.
Monte told the doctor his symptoms, including a stinging pain. With the 62-year-old having chest pains, the medical professional was worried about a blood clot in his lungs or even a heart attack. “The last thing you want is a heart attack on the Bering Sea,” the physician warned. Keith knew he needed to go straight to the clinic. The Wizard eventually made it back to Dutch Harbor, where Monte broke the news about what was going on to the others on board. Keith hoped the best for his brother and relief captain.
Johnathan Hillstrand & Rick Shelford
Johnathan Hillstrand (Discovery Channel)
Johnathan’s Time Bandit had some ground to make over four or five days. The boat had the Arctic flow to worry about, working to make the rest of his 100,000 pounds of opilio. He thought his hunch of where to place pots translated to big numbers. However, the crabs ended up being bairdi. The crews could only harvest one species at a time or land hefty fines.
Knowing fellow captain Rick was nearby and fishing for bairdi, he had a proposition for him. Rick had 112 pots he planned to haul and set from the Aleutian Lady, but worried that the ice field would destroy his gear. There were six figures at stake where losing 50 or 100 pots would severely eat into his profits. Rick spotted the ice, meaning he had to dig pots out of the ice, so the pressure was on to retrieve them. Making matters worse, the numbers weren’t there either.
Johnathan phoned Rick to let him know his spot had bairdi. His idea was Rick could help clear out the ones there, which assisted in his search for opilio. Johnathan also volunteered to lend a hand in terms of retrieving Rick’s 36 remaining buried pots that needed to be found. There was one pot lost under the thick ice. In the end, they were able to recover 18 of them. Regardless, Rick was grateful for the help and the fact he hit the jackpot in the coordinates Johnathan shared with him. He dubbed him the “Hillstrand Bank.” By the same token, Johnathan also was able to get opilio haul. ”I’ll buy you a drink when you get to town,” Johnathan offered in celebration for their returns. Rick was fine with that as long as it didn’t have ice in it.
Deadliest Catch, Fridays, 8/7c, Discovery Channel