“In a scene to be shown later this season, a monster wave pummeled his boat in January, causing him to fall out of his bunk. He punctured a lung and broke his ribs. But his condition worsened after a blood clot dislodged from his leg and traveled to his heart.”

Read the full article here. I think the premiere episode debuts in the United Kingdom and Canada today. Do you folks already know what is going to happen (from the internet) or do you wait to watch the episodes as they come out?

Season 4 kicks off tonight at 9 pm on the Discovery Channel. The first episode is called “Ge ‘Em Back Safe” and TV Guide says, “In the fourth-season opener, the crab-fishing fleet prepares to sail into the Bering Sea after some crucial repairs are made on the Northwestern, two new crewmates are trained on the Wizard and Johnathan’s son Scott joins the crew of the Time Bandit.”

One of our fans brought this cartoon to our attention - thanks. I thought this was especially funny as we start the Marathon weekend. Check out their website called “Player Vs. Player” or pvponline.com - funny stuff.

Now, be careful, the marathons are very addictive - before you know what’s happened you have been sucked into one episode after another:)

Our own deckhand, Jake Harris does some promoting for the new XBOX 360 game, Alaskan Storm. You have to admit, the other guy from the F/V Northwestern looks a little freaky. Click on more to watch video. (more…)

King crab demand going strong thanks to the popularity of “Deadliest Catch” and it’s fishing crews. 

Greater domestic retail demand, owing in large part to a popular cable television series, has led to solid markets continuing for wild Alaska red king crab in the early days of 2008.

“If you are a buyer and need king crab right now, I couldn’t tell you where to go and get it,” said Dave Keen, a wholesale crab marketer with the Crab Broker, a major domestic distributor of high-end seafood.

At this point, with the king crab season all but over in Alaska waters, if you don’t have a business relationship with one trader or another, it’s certain that you will not be able to buy No. 1 red king crab, Keen said Jan. 2.

The snow crab harvest, meanwhile, was underway in earnest in January, with a number of processors posting an advance price of $1.58 a pound, compared to about $1.50 a year ago, said Greg White, a negotiator for the Inter Cooperative Exchange, which represents the bulk of Bering Sea king and snow crab harvesters.

Since the king crab harvests began in mid-October, vessels have harvested nearly all of the allowable catch of about 20 million pounds of wild king crab, according to reports compiled by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

The popularity of the domestic red king crab has been so greatly enhanced by the “Deadliest Catch” cable television series that one major restaurant chain will be adding the name of the vessel that harvested its entrees to its menu, Keen said.

After representatives of the Oceanaire chain met captains of the crab vessel Time Bandit, the Crab Broker was able to purchase for the chain crab harvested by the vessel, he said.

Oceanaire, which normally buys on a spot basis, placed a large order this year for frozen, as well as fresh king crab, Keen said, citing the contract as an example of the growing retail interest in wild Alaska king crab.

“Our business is selling crab throughout the year,” he said. “The season starts in mid-October. Last year we ran out of crab about a month and a half before the start of the new season. We are thinking that because of demand that we may run out again.”

Wholesale prices for the wild Alaska king crab are up about $1 a pound because of the higher demand.

This year buyers paid $8.95 for crab delivered to the dock in Seattle, compared to about $7.65 a pound a year ago, he said. If there had been more competition from Russian king crab from the Barent Sea, prices would have been lower for the Alaska crab.

With this year’s allowable snow crab quota at about 63 million pounds, compared to about 36 million pounds a year ago, White said he expected it to be a good season, despite diminished capacity in the processing sector.

“It will all get caught, because we got off to an early start,” he said.

Snow crab fisheries normally begin to pick up about Jan. 15, when the snow crab have good infill, and the fishing continues through May, White said.

Last year only about 17 percent of the harvest went to Japan, but White said he expected Japanese buyers to take a higher percentage this year.

“Sometimes the Japanese market is stronger; sometimes the U.S. is stronger,” he said.

While harvesters are not happy with the current posted advance price, “It’s a fair price to go fishing for,” he said.

Even with anticipated robust harvest, Alaska harvesters and processors are eager to produce as much as possible before May. The Eastern Canada snow crab fishery, which produces about 200 million pounds of snow crab, begins in April, and prices become more competitive as May approaches.

“Alaska’s speaker of the House wants an investigation of Wal-Mart sales of Russian crab that’s packaged in a box featuring a vessel that catches U.S. crab in the Bering Sea.

The sales promotion attempts to ride the fame of the F/V Northwestern and its skipper, Sig Hansen, who is featured in “Deadliest Catch,” the reality series broadcast on the Discovery Channel.” This was the report today from the Seattle Times.

This reaction from the Alaska Speaker of the house stems from an exclusive story published in the Seattle Times on Tuesday, November 15, 2007.

For fans of this site, the real surprise was the story of Captain Sig Hansen also reported in the Seattle Times. Our boats captain, Phil Harris was quoted in this story.

Phil Harris, owner of the F/V Cornelia Marie of Kodiak, Alaska, also turned down the Global Fishing marketing pitch. (more…)