Trawling is an industrial method of fishing that involves pulling a fishing net, that is heavily weighted to keep it on the seafloor, through the water behind one or more boats. The net used for trawling is called a trawl. This principle requires netting bags which are towed through water to catch different species of fishes or sometimes targeted species. Trawls are often called towed gear or dragged gear.
Commercial fishing is the activity of catching fish and other seafood for commercial profit, mostly from wild fisheries. It provides a large quantity of food to many countries around the world, but those who practice it as an industry must often pursue fish far into the ocean under adverse conditions. Large-scale commercial fishing is called industrial fishing.
Deadliest Catch is an American reality television series that premiered on the Discovery Channel on April 12, 2005. The show follows crab fishermen aboard fishing vessels in the Bering Sea during the Alaskan king crab and snow crab fishing seasons. The base of operations for the fishing fleet is the Aleutian Islands port of Dutch Harbor, Alaska. Produced for the Discovery Channel, the show's title is derived from the inherent high risk of injury or death associated with this line of work.
USCGC Balsam (WLB-62) was a Cactus-class seagoing buoy tender (WLB) in the United States Coast Guard. She operated in the Pacific Ocean during World War II, then saw service along the United States West Coast, Hawaii, and Alaska. After her decommissioning in 1975, she was repurposed as a crab catcher-processor and is active in Alaskan fisheries as F/V Baranof.
Alaskan king crab fishing is carried out during the fall in the waters off the coast of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. The commercial catch is shipped worldwide. Large numbers of king crab are also caught in Russian and international waters.
Individual fishing quotas (IFQs), also known as "individual transferable quotas" (ITQs), are one kind of catch share, a means by which many governments regulate fishing. The regulator sets a species-specific total allowable catch (TAC), typically by weight and for a given time period. A dedicated portion of the TAC, called quota shares, is then allocated to individuals. Quotas can typically be bought, sold and leased, a feature called transferability. As of 2008, 148 major fisheries around the world had adopted some variant of this approach, along with approximately 100 smaller fisheries in individual countries. Approximately 10% of the marine harvest was managed by ITQs as of 2008. The first countries to adopt individual fishing quotas were the Netherlands, Iceland and Canada in the late 1970s, and the most recent is the United States Scallop General Category IFQ Program in 2010. The first country to adopt individual transferable quotas as a national policy was New Zealand in 1986.
Sigurd Jonny Hansen is a Norwegian-American captain and co-owner of the fishing vessel F/V Northwestern. Since 2005, Hansen has been featured in each season of the documentary television series Deadliest Catch, serving also as technical advisor for the production and also stars in Deadliest Catch: The Viking Returns.
Chionoecetes bairdi is a species of snow crab, alternatively known as bairdi crab and tanner crab. C. bairdi is closely related to Chionoecetes opilio, and it can be difficult to distinguish C. opilio from C. bairdi. Both species are found in the Bering Sea and are sold commercially under the name "snow crab." Tanner crabs have suffered from overfishing and as a result strict controls have been placed on tanner crab fisheries. It was named by Mary Jane Rathbun, a Smithsonian employee who became one of the leading authorities on crab taxonomy. She named the crab for Spencer Baird, her mentor, who in the 1880s as Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution and head of the United States Fish Commission, had given her her first position.
Commercial fishing is a major industry in Alaska, and has been for hundreds of years. Alaska Natives have been harvesting salmon and many other types of fish for millennia Including king crab. Russians came to Alaska to harvest its abundance of sealife, as well as Japanese and other Asian cultures.
The F/V Big Valley was a 92-foot crabber boat. The vessel capsized and sank Saturday, January 15, 2005, in the Bering Sea in an area 70 miles (110 km) west of Saint Paul Island, Alaska. Only one member of the crew survived: Cache Seel, 30. Skipper Gary Edwards, 46, of Kodiak, Alaska; Danny Vermeersch, 33 of Belgium; Josias Luna, 48, of Anchorage, Alaska; Aaron Marrs, 27, of Louisville, Kentucky; and Carlos Rivera, 35, of Uruguay all perished.
This page is a list of fishing topics.
Deadliest Sea is a 2009 Canadian made-for-television film directed by T. J. Scott. It is about the crew of the Kodiak, Alaska-based scallop fishing vessel St. Christopher. It was produced by the producers of the popular Discovery Channel series Deadliest Catch, and originally aired on the Discovery Channel on July 19, 2009. While the film itself is a fictionalized account, according to a title-card at the beginning it is based on a true story.
Phillip Charles Harris was an American captain] and part owner of the crab fishing vessel F/V Cornelia Marie, which has been featured on Discovery Channel's documentary reality TV series Deadliest Catch. He suffered a stroke while offloading C. opilio crab in port at Saint Paul Island, Alaska, on January 29, 2010. Despite improvements in his condition, Harris died on February 9, 2010, at the age of 53, while suffering an intracranial hemorrhage in the hospital.
Crab traps are used to bait, lure, and catch crabs for commercial or recreational use. Crabbing or crab fishing is the recreational hobby and commercial occupation of fishing for crabs. Different types of traps are used depending on the type of crab being fished for, geographic location, and personal preference.
F/V Pacesetter was a 127-foot (38.7 m), steel-hulled, Bering Sea crab-fishing boat launched in 1976 as Priscilla Ann. In 1979, she was renamed Coastal Glacier. The vessel eventually was acquired by Matt Pope and Dale Lindsay and renamed Pacesetter. Pacesetter was reported missing in 1996 by the United States Coast Guard Seventeenth District headquartered at Kodiak, Alaska. The search ended with no sign of the boat or her seven-man crew. The loss of Pacesetter was noted as the worst sinking in the Alaskan 1996 snow fishery.
Jakob Anderson is an American fishing captain and owner of the FV Titan Explorer. He was previously the captain and co-owner of the fishing vessel FV Saga. Since 2007, Anderson has been featured in the Discovery Channel documentary television series Deadliest Catch.
Corey Arnold is an American fine art, documentary, and commercial photographer and commercial fisherman, based in Portland, Oregon. His work explores man's relationship with the natural world, animals, and environmental issues with a primary focus on the Alaskan wilderness. Since 2002 he has photographed his life at sea while working as a Bering Sea crab fisherman and during his summers as a captain of a Bristol Bay sockeye salmon fishing boat in Alaska.
Deadliest Catch: Bloodline is an American documentary and reality television series that premiered on April 14, 2020, on the Discovery Channel. Bloodline is a spin-off of Discovery Channel's Deadliest Catch. In contrast to the program's usual setting in the Bering Sea during crab fishing season, Bloodline is set in Hawaii. The show's three-seasons follow fishermen Josh Harris, his business partner Casey McManus, and Jeff Silva as they investigate scribbles and notes found on Hawaiian fishing charts left by Josh's late father, Phil Harris. Bloodline was launched the same day as the season 16 premiere episode of Deadliest Catch. Discovery cancelled the series and removed all episodes from its Discovery+ streaming service in September 2022 after renewed attention was brought to a 1999 sexual assault case involving Harris.
M/S Stålbas, formerly the Norwegian Coast Guard cutter Stålbas offshore patrol vessel, is a multifunction cargo vessel. It was converted to be able to perform crab fishing in 2021, and featured on the Discovery Channel USA show Deadliest Catch on Discovery+ and Discovery Channel Canada in the 2022 TV show season; and Deadliest Catch: The Viking Returns on Discovery USA for the 2022 fall TV season.
FV Scandies Rose was a crab fishing vessel built in 1978 by Bender Shipbuilding out of Mobile, Alabama. Originally named Enterprise, she was registered in Dutch Harbor, Alaska. She mainly fished for king crabs, opilio crabs, and Pacific cod, in both the Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska. The sinking of the vessel became more widely known due to its relation to the reality TV-show Deadliest Catch.
United States
