Want to know the facts about Crab Fishing? The folks at the Discovery Channel have put together a pretty good list of helpful facts when you are watching the series to better understand Crab Fishing and the toughness the guys must have to do it.

Facts about The Fishing:

• The most lucrative Alaskan crab fisheries occur in the fall and winter; the seasons are often short, lasting less than four weeks. In the Bering Sea specifically, the two most active months are October and January.
• Each season, approximately 250 crab fishing boats converge on Dutch Harbor, Alaska, in search of Alaskan king crab.
• Crab vessels cost several million dollars to build, and tens of thousands of dollars to operate annually.
• The boats range in size from 40 to 200 feet; each crew typically consists of one captain and three to nine deckhands.
• Because the sonar used on most fishing boats is downward-pointing, it doesn’t detect crabs that are right against or buried in the ocean floor. Furthermore, since it is impossible to predict where adult male crabs will be (unless it’s spring, which is mating season), captains must rely on intuition to find the best crabbing location.
• To catch the crabs, fishermen use 700-pound steel traps (”pots”) baited with ground herring, squid, sardines and cod, which are dropped 400 feet below the ocean’s surface.
• On average, the pots measure 7 feet by 7 feet by 3 feet, and soak anywhere from five to 24 hours before being hauled back on deck.

Facts about The Crabs:

• Only male king crabs measuring 6.5 inches and snow crabs measuring 4 inches from spine to spine are kept; females and juveniles are tossed back into the sea.
• In some fisheries, as many as six crabs are discarded for each legal male kept. Such handling of the discarded crabs can result in distress, injury and possibly death to the crabs.
• As they try to get to the bait, crabs often injure each other. A seriously injured crab serves as bait to the others, who will eat it. In fact, “ghost pots” — pots that are lost at sea — will continue to attract and kill crabs through this “self-baiting” process.
• Ghost pots pose a serious problem; in some places they are as dense as 50 per square kilometer, and may catch and kill as many crabs in a year as the fishery does.
• Sometimes crabs die during the fishing process, something fishermen try to avoid since they spoil before they can be sold. However, if the crabs are kept in a tank of circulating seawater, as most are, a few dead crabs won’t harm the others.
• Boats must, as a matter of course, unload hundreds of pounds of “deadloss” after a trip to the fishing grounds.

Facts about The Crews:

• More than 80 percent of the fatalities Alaskan fishermen suffer on the job are due to drowning — either from falling overboard or as a result of a boat accident.
• A crewman’s wages are often based on a share or percentage of harvest earnings. A greenhorn may earn anywhere from 1.5 to 5 percent of the net value of the harvest, after operating expenses and the owner’s and skipper’s shares (often totaling 50 percent or more) have been subtracted.
• When based on percentage of net profit, an Alaskan fisherman may earn somewhere between zero and tens of thousands of dollars, depending on location and type of fishery and the worker’s skills. Other boats offer a daily rate (typically $50 to $100 per day) instead.
• According to the Alaska Department of Labor, crew members are typically expected to purchase their own gear, which can add up to several hundred dollars. This includes wet-weather gear ($100 per set), rubber boots ($40 to $70 per pair), gloves ($2 to $12 per pair), wrist covers or sleeves ($5 per set) and a sleeping bag ($70 to $200).
• In addition, some crew members are charged a share of their boat’s operating expenses — food, fuel, bait and ice.
• In Alaska, crew members are responsible for obtaining their own commercial fishing licenses, the cost of which can range between $60 and $125, depending on whether the individual is a state resident or not.

Facts about The Harvest:

• According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, the red king crab fishery is Alaska’s top shellfish fishery.
• Since 1959, when Alaska became a state, nearly 2 billion pounds of red king crab worth $1.6 billion have been harvested from Alaska’s waters, making red king crabs the second most valuable species to fishers during this period (red salmon being the most valuable).
• Crab quotas vary each year, depending on population size. In 2004, the harvest was 15.4 million pounds of red king crab, 5.7 million pounds of golden king crab and 20.4 million pounds of snow crab.
• At $4.70 per pound, the 2004 catch of red king crab was worth $65.8 million at the dock.

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