‘Deadliest Catch’ Captains Earn Good Money From the Show, Jake Anderson Says
With great risk comes great reward. That certainly can be the case when it comes to commercial fishing. Captains featured on Discovery Channel’s long-running show Deadliest Catch can earn six figures in a single season, depending on their haul. And that’s not counting what they make for appearing on the reality series, which can be substantial, cast member and captain Jake Anderson has said.
Captain Jake Anderson won’t reveal his ‘Deadliest Catch’ salary
Anderson has spent more than 15 years as a Deadliest Catch cast member, rising from greenhorn to captain of his own boat, the F/V Saga. Now a seasoned veteran of the Alaskan fishing industry, he’s said he can make millions of dollars in just a few weeks, if everything goes well.
“You’ve watched the American Dream unfold through me,” the reality star told Fox Business in 2018. “There I was, a bum on the street, and now 14 years later … I’m managing a multi-million dollar company.”
“I think I grossed $2.5 million in 11 days,” he added.
On top of those earnings, there’s the money Anderson makes from appearing on the show. He’s circumspect about his actual Deadliest Catch salary, but has indicated it’s not peanuts.
“I can’t tell you much or I would get in trouble. But it’s good,” he told the Seattle Times in 2022.
One ‘Deadliest Catch’ captain said he made $20,000 from the show
Anderson won’t reveal exactly how much he earns as a Deadliest Catch cast member. But David Lethin, whose F/V Aleutian Ballad was featured in early seasons of the show, told the Seattle Times he was paid $10,000 for allowing his boat and crew to be filmed during the king crab season in 2005. He earned another $10,000 for the snow crab harvest.
Specific details on how much the current Deadliest Catch captains are now paid for the show aren’t available. Reality TV star salaries can vary widely. For cast members on cable reality shows, pay can range from almost nothing to $30,000 per season or more, depending on how central a person is to the overall series, Insider reported in 2016.
Crab fishing captains can earn more than $150,000 in a single season
While Deadliest Catch captains are compensated for appearing on the show, they also make money from fishing. And that take can be substantial.
“It varies year to year. We don’t get paid a wage or a salary. We get paid on a percentage of what we deliver,” Deadliest Catch: Dungeon Cove star Kenny Ripka told People (via YouTube). “We’ve had years of me skippering boats where I’ve made upwards of $150,000, $170,000 a year.”
But not every year is so successful.
“For me, even growing up, fishing was so volatile,” Captain Sig Hansen told Channel Guide in 2014. “We’ve had king crab season shut down for three, sometimes four years in a row. And when your income relies on getting that boat out there, there is no retirement plan, so to speak. You don’t know from one year to the next if you’re even going to go fishing to make a living.”
Deadliest Catch Season 19 airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on Discovery Channel. Episodes also stream on discovery+.
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