Lights! Camera! Action! But where are the groupies?

Greetings Fishies!

Here is a short piece that ran in the March issue of Pacific Fishing Magazine:

While fishermen featured on Deadliest Catchy may enjoy being inundated with fan mail and marketed on a variety of merchandise, their fellow fishermen have mixed feelings about the series.

Many find it ironic that the series is filming now, after the crab rationalization program and federal buyout of boats has so dramatically changed the nature of the industry. They joke about crabbing “back when it was safe,” and say it would be interesting to see a re-creation of some of the stories from the “Wild West” days of the 1960s and ‘70s. At that time, huge quotas and the “race to fish” led to months of grueling non-stop fishing.

Few fishermen are willing to go on record as critical of the show, however, not wanting to seem envious of others’ “15 minutes of fame.”

One fisherman from a contingent of Norwegian-American crab pioneers summed up the doubts of many: “They are looking for tragedy. That’s what sells,” said Lloyd Johannessen.

“They also glamorize it so much,” Johannessen added, “I get all kinds of calls from guys wanting to go crabbing.”

“You get young guys in Missouri, out dry-walling, and they come home and watch Deadliest Catch and think, ‘Oh, yeah.”

Stay tuned!

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