Does Deadliest Catch accurately depict what it's really like fishing in the Bering Sea?

Question

It seems like there is so much goofing around and showboating for the cameras, I wonder if they are really showing what it's like accurately. I mean, do the captains really take time to do quirky little dances, prank each other, and all of that other stuff that just to me seems so staged and phoney. The Bering Sea strikes me as a dangerous place, but Deadliest Catch often makes it seem like a bunch of frat brothers out for a good time : /

I saw previews for tongiht's season finale, and it shows their families all showing up at the harbor, and I thought that had to be out of the ordinary to fly the families in -- wouldn't that get kind of pricey, and really inconvenient? Dutch Harbor doesn't really seem like a family vacation hot spot, kwim, so it got me to questioning how much of the show is 'real' and how much is creative editing and the producers trying to get more of the storyline they're shooting for. Do the captains and crews who are NOT on tv fly their families in?

Answer 1

You have to remember that the thousands of feet of film that the camera crew takes has been edited and condensed, from the 5 boats that have allowed their cameras aboard, and is a very small part of the months of drudgery work that those guys have been doing on the Bering Sea.  

The boats are coming into Seattle .. if your seeing the Northwestern, they don't fly in from anywhere the wives drive their kids to to meet their husbands and you obviously never have anybody in the military, of course you meet your husband when he comes into the dock or the airport.

You might want to read the "Time Bandit" book the Hillstrand brothers, Andy and Johnathan just wrote.. the stuff your seeing is all very real more than most people will do in their lifetime. It's their job, its not an adventure to them, but it is dangerous and yes they can have their fun times; if you didn't do those things anyone could go slightly nuts.

Answer 2

From what an college friend told me who worked there one year, the only thing not realistic about it is the timeline.  They do all that stuff, but in real life it is spread out over a long period of time.  For the camera, they show alot more of that stuff than the real work, so it seems like they do more goofing around than they really do.  Like, they will edit out the 16 hours of work that happens in between the goofing around, because the show isn't 18 hours long.

I think most of these guys live in the general Seattle area, and that's where they meet up with their families.

Answer 3

I hardly think what we see on TV even comes close to what actually happens on a crab fishing vessel. I mean hours of freezing rain and snow alone is enough to wear a superhuman endurance to a frazzle then add the stress levels of big heavy machinery waiting to tear limbs... naw they make it look way too easy.

I've fished shrimp boats in the gulf and that's nothing to what crab fishing is about. We set a trawl that takes about a hour and we're busy readying the decks for the haul where crab pots on a steel deck with 40' waves... that's as high as most homes.. have got to be secured.

My hat's off to those guys and they earn every dollar... the hard way.