Crab Counts – Seasons 2 and 3

Hello Fishies!

After the competition during Season 1 it is understandable that the Discovery Channel would want to continue with the drama during Season 2. After all, considering the posts on their own Forums, the fans seemed to love it.

However, crab rationalization threw a bit of a kink into the works. This time there was no real race to see what boat would catch the most crab. Each boat had been allotted a fixed amount of crab, all based on an average of their catching history. The original crab poundage assigned to each vessel is not public information. There is no way of knowing exactly how many pounds each boat had to catch that originally belonged to the boat. We know that there was a dramatic decrease in the number of boats participating in the fishery. Where did that quota go? Easy answer – the majority of it was sold or leased. To who? To the boats that actually fished.

Now comes Discovery Channel with their effort to create even more drama on the Bering Sea. They do this by creating an artificial race with a crab count. We have no way of knowing what each boat was originally assigned, what the owner bought and what was leased. I seriously doubt that any captain or owner would share the paperwork with a film crew, so we have only their word on it. Remember that the season continued for an extended period of time, it went for months, not days. Film crews were not aboard for all the season. The final tallies would have been supplied after the filming had ended.

So what will happen with Season 3? Will there be a crab count? Yes Fishies, there will be! Only this time it’s a personal competition between the skippers. One they thought of all on their own, one that will test their skills. As I have said before, most fishermen have a bit of an ego. Get them going and bragging on themselves and their crews and pretty soon a wager is made and the dice are rolled. Behind the bar in a world famous watering hole is an envelope for the victor. Provided they don’t edit it out, and as long as Discovery is honest, this is going to be fun!

Stay tuned!

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