Season 1 Crab Count

Greetings Fishies!

Some interesting news has come my way regarding the crab counts in each of the seasons of the Deadliest Catch. This information may upset some of you, I know that it did me.

The first season as we know, the Derby style was in effect. That meant each boat caught as much crab as they possibly could in the allotted time. Discovery decided to up the ante by offering that $250,000 prize money for the boat that caught the most. This was NOT for ALL of the vessels that participated in the king crab fishery. It was only amongst the boats that were filmed for the series. There were many boats with tremendously higher scores that what we saw on the show.

The broo-ha-ha over this has been well covered in various newspapers and other media. There was much ado in Dutch Harbor/Unalaska regarding this. It has been reported to me that the Discovery people were very nearly run out of town, boats that had intended to commit to a film crew bailed, and the Coast Guard refused to participate in the filming:

TV's offer of $250,000 prize for crabbers is called risky

When the Opilio season opened the crab counts remained – but without the prize money, which was a good thing. I can understand having the crab count for the viewers. It had always been my assumption that the boats did not know this “count” was going on. I was wrong.

I recall reading one of Donna’s posts on the Discovery Boards regarding these counts. Since the Maverick stopped fishing in order to deliver, she spent less time catching crab than the other boats. There was a huge chunk of time there that the other vessels continued to add to their count while the Maverick sat in port. She claims the Maverick out fished them all. What she says makes a certain amount of sense to me.

At the end of the season the Discovery folks phoned around to get the final tally for each of the boats. The Maverick was told that they had indeed won the count. They continued to believe this until they viewed the last show of the series. Not nice Discovery.

What caused the confusion? Well if your blood pressure isn’t already up I guarantee its going to be….remember that deck load of crab? It was not counted in the first tally because they were ALL DEAD. That’s right fishies. I am sorry to have to tell you this. In the original figure of live crab caught, the Maverick did win. However, when the dead crab were factored in the Northwestern won. Hmmmmm.

I know that there are some of you that will castigate and berate me for telling this. So be it. I got my information from some one who was there.

Stay tuned for information on the crab counts for Seasons 2 and 3!

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