The Wild Deadliest Catch Maneuver Josh Harris Never Thought Would Work

For more than 250 episodes and counting, "Deadliest Catch" has followed various crab fishing crews on expeditions in the seas around the state of Alaska. Of course, like virtually every other reality show, the primary focus of "Deadliest Catch" is oftentimes not crab fishing but its colorful personalities.

Once, a number of "Deadliest Catch" viewers determined their favorite captain to be Sig Hansen, who netted a comfortable majority of votes in a poll over five other choices. Whereas Hansen is a series veteran, Lady Alaska crew member James Gallagher revealed the reason he got into crabbing to be at least partially due to his own "Deadliest Catch" fandom. So, whereas earlier seasons of "Deadliest Catch" solely feature established fishing crews like Hansen's, at least one cast member on later seasons is himself a fan of the show.

Josh Harris has been a fixture of "Deadliest Catch" since he debuted as a Cornelia Marie crew member in Season 3 — now he co-captains the ship (via IMDb). In an interview about "Deadliest Catch" Season 18, Harris shed some light on one particularly risky maneuver he performed on-camera with the help of some others that he never thought would work.

"Deadliest Catch" cast members often have trouble with crab pots. So, it's understandable, when Josh Harris and Cornelia Marie co-captain Casey McManus lose some crab pots in the "Deadliest Catch" Season 18 premiere. Instead of writing them off, however, Harris and McManus team up with the captain of Time Bandit to retrieve their crab pots, utilizing a risky maneuver hinging on connecting their two ships with rocket launcher lines.

Around the time the episode premiered, Harris shared his version of how this maneuver went down in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. "On paper, they came up with this idea that looked like it was really smart and going to be easy. In real life, it was not," Harris said. "But you know, things worked out. Nobody died. Nobody got their arms ripped out. It worked out pretty good."

Meanwhile, Harris recounted how the "Deadliest Catch" film crew complicated the operation, requesting that the ships' crews alter their behavior for filming purposes. Against all odds, then, Harris and co. retrieved their lost crab pots successfully.

That said, in an interview with Monsters & Critics, Harris revealed that he finds the hardest part of his TV role to be constant reminders of his father's death, suggesting that the challenge of his crab pot retrieval may well have paled in comparison to some of the emotions he's felt while making "Deadliest Catch."