SEATTLE — 20 years on-air means the pioneering reality show "Deadliest Catch" has a lot of fans - with a lot of questions. Evening recently interviewed local crab captains Sig Hansen and Jake Anderson and gave their viewers a chance to ask some questions.
Mary wanted to know: "What’s the one thing you would like your viewers to know that the TV series doesn't show."
Capt. Jake Anderson answered, "I'm actually very calm and collected."
"You liar!" Captain Sig Hansen shouted, then added "I don't think they know that I really have this super gentle side to me, and that I'm super emotional, and I cry watching movies more than my wife does. Oh, and I can't swim. How about that?"
Proof that Sig is a softie – Kayla shared this photo of him with his grandson Jaxon, marching in Ballard’s Syttnde Mai parade.
"Yeah, that was May 17," Sig said. "That's Norwegian Independence Day. And, you know, we do the parade every year, I'm real proud of it, obviously, Norwegian roots."
Samantha is a "Deadliest Catch" super-fan; she sent us photos of herself with Captain Keith Colburn and Captain Johnathan Hillstrand, a couple of other local stars of the show. She asked if Sig plans to get revenge on Jake for a stunt that happened a few seasons ago, when Jake helped Johnathan Hillstrand pepper Sig’s boat, the Northwestern, with paintballs.
"He's taking revenge on me my whole career. That's all he does is take revenge on me!” Jake said.
“I know every trigger in that man's body, so revenge is always mine,” Sig said.
Tough talk, but this season will reveal the depth of this friendship. Jake first started working for Sig as a greenhorn and triumphed over personal difficulties and addiction to make it into the captain’s seat himself. This season, Jake finds himself without a boat to captain, through no fault of his own. Sig, his mentor and friend, helps him out.
When they're not fishing in Alaska, both Sig and Jake live in Seattle. We wanted to know where a fan might find them:
"Fisherman's terminal, that's easy,” said Jake. “That's where all the boats are, just follow the boats!"
"Yeah, you find me in Ballard,” said Sig. “Now, back in the good old days, it might have been some of the pubs down there, but, you know, I did manage to grow up a little bit, and so I'm not frequenting as much. The Smoke Shop, that's where you'd find us back in the day. Man, that's where you used to go to get hired if you wanted a job seriously. And they’ve still got pictures of a lot of the boats on the walls there. So, shout out to Ballard. That's all I can say."
Despite the dangers of the job, 20 years of crabbing on-camera may be the riskiest thing these captains have done.
"But I'm glad we did, because it really helped change the industry and really show awareness to the world,” Sig said.
And two decades of being on air is proof positive that fans are still on board for this long-lived, local show.
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