260 Mi northeast of Dutch Harbor, the Time Bandit is racing to close out the king crab season.
“We’re on our fourth trip. We got 40s and 50s. I’m happier than hell, but I think we’re going to get some real good numbers down here too. Stand by! Woo! You guys are badass—the short timers now, that’s what they call us.”

A huge storm is bearing down from the west, and it could shut them down. But if Jonathan’s last string pays off, they’re heading home.
“We got it made in the shade… pretty much. We don’t know yet. Can’t take that far ahead.”

“Scrap fishing, and we are going to check the first spot. And the thing about the first pot is, whatever that pot has, the rest of them are probably going to have that. So if it’s blank, then the rest of them are probably going to be blank.”

“Ro—nice big boys! We’ll take it. Probably about a 45.”

“Good, good. Get off the pot, get that crab on top of the pot! R 67, 39, 54, 39, 65, 52, 59, 23, 31.”

The Hillstrand secret grounds have paid off all season long.
“This is a great-looking pot— even looking better because I know it’s our last trip, and numbers like this mean it’s a shorter trip.”

Jonathan needs to maintain a 21 average.
“71! And catch it quickly.”

Just when things were going smoothly:
“Hey Mike, did you feel that? Think we got something in the wheel.”

The Time Bandit is dragging 1,000 lbs of steel across the ocean bottom.
“Uh-oh, not good. Like, when we set, there’s no gear—and I come back 4 days later, there’s a load of gear everywhere.”

The momentary distraction has the Time Bandit tangled in another boat’s gear.
“I traced the Wizard going right up one of my strings. Pot for pot.”

“Well, I set the gear 6 days ago.”

Keith and Jonathan don’t have time for the conflict.
“I could care less about his gear. I could care less where he’s fishing.”

“He kicked one off over here—not on purpose. Hey, I pulled my pot, sucked his pot underneath my boat, and his buoys came up right by my prop. He put it in gear and sucked it right in. That’s what happens when they cork you off, man. We were just pulling our pot.”

“We freed one pot. We had one in our rudder. Stupid kindergarten game. That’s what I feel about that. Now I’m done talking about that.”

“That’s the kind of person you need to play pin the tail on the— with. You don’t want to have line in your wheel; it gets in your cutless bearing and everything. It’s not a good thing.”

“Disappeared! Where’d it go? Free! Pop free! Yeah! We still got our props and shafts. Everybody’s happy.”

“It’s a good thing that pot came out of our wheel, because then we’d have to maybe dive and cut it all out. That’s why you don’t set your pot that close to somebody else’s pot—because that happens.”

Anyway, casual ties of war suck.
“I don’t know whose pot it was, but we ran somebody’s pot over. It wasn’t ours, I know that. So that’s all that matters. Out here, it happens.”

“Now I’m back to business. This one’s got to produce. Let’s drop down. I only need like about a 21 average—we’re almost there.”

With a major storm closing in, Jonathan won’t be able to reset. He needs these pots to come up full.
“It’s go time, man. We have 13 pots left and a big storm coming.”

“Come on guys! I can’t even stand up in my workspace—that was ass, dude. That is badass. 25! It’s probably five crab in that box. Not great, but if they can keep it up, it’ll be good enough for a ticket home.”

Jonathan’s gamble on his scallop-bed honey hole has paid off all season. Now the Time Bandit boys are down to their last set.
“24, 24, 13—perfect. 38!”

“We actually got a 40. We had some 10s and 13s and 15s too.”

They’re fighting sloppy seas for a mixed bag of 10s and 40s, but so far they’re holding their own with the 25 average they need.
“But we got six left. Don’t jinx it. Actually got a 40—I’m not saying anything yet, because all of a sudden, it could be blanks.”

“Five more pots—we’re going home! Oh yeah, brother! A good one there. Four more pots and they’re headed for home.”

“Coming down to the wire—still got three more. You ready to go home, Mike?”

“Hell yeah! Keepers! Mikey likes it!”

Lucky pot number three comes up jammed with 50+ keepers.
The Time Bandit finishes the season with a pot or two to spare.
“Gets a little more than we need, aren’t we? It’s always good. Last one—nice work, Andy.”

“That’s the best feeling in the world—when the last pot breaks the rail. All I got to do is put them away and go home.”

“Here we go! Hell yeah, we’re out of here. Try to beat the storm through False Pass. Hopefully we’ll get on the next flight home.”

But there’s no time to celebrate—they still have to outrun the storm to False Pass.
“Still a long way from home. I’ve got to make it. I’ve got to get this boat through False Pass right now.”

False Pass is a narrow inlet with a dangerously shallow bottom. On a good day, it’s a shortcut into Ikatan Bay.
“Had a fun ride. Sweet—oh yeah, here we go.”

But in a storm, breakers in the pass can reach 30 ft and crush a boat like a beer can.
“Seas are going to build. We’re going to get out just in time to pass, but there’s going to be huge rollers and fast water. The only time we can get in is high-water slack. Even then, we still might not be able to get in.”

“Hard to see right now—this is ridiculous.”

Now they’re catching hell from the storm they hoped to outrun.
“Storm warning today: northwest wind 50 knots, gusts to 60 knots. Pass seas 22 ft.”

As Captain Jonathan struggles to navigate safely to False Pass, below deck the crew gets a well-deserved break.
“Ready for vacation. Tired of looking at these… We got a couple hours break. I’m just hanging out, checking out pictures of my little guy—remembering home. Why I’m out here doing this stuff.”

“I don’t really know what I want to do. I want to be part of the legacy, but I want to be 100% toward my son’s life. I can share this with my son—man, it’s phenomenal.”

“It’s hard to be gone a long time. It’s really tough to see pictures of him. If I didn’t have pictures, it probably wouldn’t be so bad. I think about it every single day. It’s really hard. It takes a lot out of me, knowing I’m missing a lot.”

“When I was a kid, you’re either on the boat or off the boat. It’s really tough to balance it all out.”