Alaskan crabbers like the irascible Capt.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY First off, how is sheltering at home going?
KEITH COLBURN:I’m getting through this pretty well.
I’m in a pretty good place.
So, this is a cakewalk compared to working with my brother.
Let’s talk about the theme this season, competing against the Russians.
Wasn’t that already a threat?
Why is it different this year?
That has really hurt our pricing at the dock and at the store.
This year they’re trying to clean up their act.
Whether they do or not, who knows.
But in effect, their season is starting a little late.
So we’re racing the Russians to see who can get their crabs to the market first.
Do the Russians fish in roughly the same area you do?
Well, remember how big Alaska is.
It has more shoreline than the rest of the United States combined.
In fact, the red king crab has the scientific name ofparalithodes camtschaticus.
It’s named after the Russian peninsula.
We’re talking thousands of miles of distance between each other.
How were they breaking the rules?
They are fishing a lot longer in duration.
In the United States we don’t start our crab fishery until Oct. 15.
The Russians usually start in the summer.
So spring, summer months, the crab mate and they molt.
When they molt, they have literally no meat in their shell.
They’re basically rebuilding after they shed their shell and they’ve got a soft shell.
All their energy goes back into rebuilding and calcifying their shell, which is their armor plating.
The meat or infill is greatly reduced until you get into the fall and winter months.
Then you open a crab leg and it’s full of meat.
The Russians have flooded the market with crab that’s substandard.
I’m proud of how we fish, where we fish and when we fish.
For very consumer out there, check the box.
Are you and your brother looking for new places to fish this year?
There’s a lot of science that goes into trying to figure out where we’re going to fish.
So we plug all the numbers in and temperatures and past surveys.
We look for a pattern.
So we keep pushing further and further and deeper and deeper to try and find crabs.
I talked to Sig Hansen last seasonabout retirement.
He said he remains hugely competitive so he wants to stay in it."
How long do you plan to stick with this?
It’s not only the competition, but the strategy.
I mean, we’re not fishing, we’re on a treasure hunt.
Everybody wants to hunt for buried or sunken treasure.
It’s what we do.
So that in itself is really exciting.
Braving, battling, and getting through the weather is an adrenaline rush like nobody can imagine.
And then at the end of the day, sometimes there’s just peace and solitude.
I’m at the helm.
It’s a starry night.
It’s flat, calm weather.
I just feel like me and mother nature are hanging out together and coexisting.
We’re both being friendly for once with each other and it’s a beautiful thing.
How could I ever give this up?
Deadliest Catchreturns for its 16th season with a two-hour premiere on Tuesday at 8 p.m.
