Deadliest Catch

- Season 5

(2009)

The King Crab 2008 season begins on the Bering Sea.

It's week 2 of the season, and boats are hunting down the elusive King crab. A vicious storm kicks up and a Mayday goes out. The Skippers are glued to their radios -- waiting to hear the fate of 11 brother fishermen in distress...

The fleet is still dialing into the crab, and already a typhoon has taken its toll. A boat has sunk - and bone-chilling accounts of the fate of its men relay around the fleet.

It's week four of King Crab Season. Seven souls have perished, but the fishermen soldier on, in the hunt for crab. Grueling hours and vicious hazing test the Greenhorns -- and some start to crack.

Crab pots still come up empty and the skippers are out of ideas. Low bait and long grinds take our crews to dark places -- the smallest infractions from a Greenhorn or fellow Deckhand cause tempers and even violence to flare.

A new deadline is set: an upcoming drop in the price of king crab has the skippers rushing to finish their season. But crew battles and a fierce arctic storm block the way.

The King Crab Season is down to the wire and skippers are desperate to top off their quotas. It's looking bleak as crews pick through bone-yards of fished out grounds. Some boats dig deep for an end of season sprint, --other boats just scrape by.

It's the start of the 2009 Opilio Crab Season. Anything the Bering Sea held back during King Season is now being paid out in spades. The skippers have their eye on the oncoming ice pack -- but it's a lethal, 40-foot rogue wave that's on the hunt. And the Opilio season opens yet another judgment day for Skipper Phil Harris...will doctors allow him to reunite with his boat and his sons? On the Time Bandit the men target the Greenhorn of the Northwestern for some sweet revenge. And on the Wizard, it's the boat itself that becomes a target -- of an angry Bering Sea.

The fleet arrives on the Opi Grounds and boats struggle with ice, big seas, and bad information to hunt down the crab. A skipper regrets sending his men out in savage weather to save the boat -- but there are no second chances on the Bering Sea.

It's week three of the Opilio Crab Season. Long hours and miserable conditions already have the crabbers turning on each other. Boat-crushing ice stands between one skipper and the safety of harbor.

After weeks battling freezing spray, forty foot waves, and sub-zero temperatures, skippers have begun plugging their boats with Opilio crab. As they lrace to St. Paul harbor for offload, the 250,000 square mile arctic ice pack stands in their way.

Halfway through the season, each skipper faces his own personal form of hell. Frozen crab, frozen gear, and a frozen harbor chill the hearts of the most callous of fishermen. On the Northwestern, Sig battles a fierce cigarette addiction-and a fierce storm

When the fleet gets word of great fishing by the ice pack, the chase is on to the ends of the earth! Hellacious hours and missing pots-a journey to the far north will push these men over the edge.

Weeks into the Opilio Season, the fleet is bone tired and desperate for home. As delirium sets in, deadly, rib-crunching mistakes are made. But for one fisherman, a tragedy on land spells gut-wrenching, heartbreak at sea.

For two decades the Alaskan crab fleet has been haunted by the legendary "Black Sunday" storm. Now history repeats itself when multiple maydays go out during a massive arctic storm. Most Coast Guard assets are deployed to save a boat from going ashore

It's the final 24 hours of the 2009 Opilio crab season. A savage arctic storm causes multiple vessels to send out maydays. The Coast Guard is in a race against the clock to save four men before their boat is pounded into splinters against jagged rocks.