The crew of the Cornelia Marie hoisted it up out of the water with considerable effort, and then everyone was in on the joke. Hillstrand mentioned that the Cornelia Marie “needed a truck”, and set about attaching an entire rusted truck body to a Cornelia Marie crab line. When Hillstrand set out to prank his fellow captains, maximum effort was applied. Hillstrand chuckled over that prank, and then noted that the modern way was much nicer. In the past, the bombs were created using human waste donated by the crew members. But it wasn’t the way the bombs were originally set. Attaching bags of flour so that they explode on crew members when the pots are reeled in takes planning and mechanical precision. He described the flour bomb as a modern way to prank the crew on deck. With his crew, he orchestrated pies in the face, fireworks lit on deck, sprays of Silly String, and “the flour bomb”. He had fun with his crew, and he pulled pranks on the other captains in the fleet. “It’s hard to keep sanity out there.” Hillstrand admitted that he battled the dangers and difficulties of crabbing with fun. He fished where his guts told him to fish and carried his famous “wild energy” with him. The other captains knew him as a gambler, too, fishing “all in” with an uncanny intuition for finding the biggest hauls of the fleet. stated.ĭuring his years crabbing on the Bering Sea, he earned the reputation of “high liner”- the captain who consistently brought in the highest catch. was 28 years old when he set out on that first season with his brother Andy, and neither of them had any training from Johnathan Sr. What surprised his sons was that they ended up fishing their first crabbing season for their father, with his expectation that they would pay him the more than $1 million for the boat using their season earnings. His dad built the Time Bandit, calling it “the family boat”, and decided that his sons would buy it from him. learned to fish from his dad, Johnathan Sr.- a successful man with a dictatorial style. The last episode of Deadliest Catch Season 13 chronicled his life on the Bering Sea. recently retired after working as an Alaska crab fisherman for 37 years. Three of the five, Johnathan Jr., Andy and Neal, co-own and operate the boat, and their sons and family members help to crew it, and operate the multiple Time Bandit enterprises.

The Hillstrand brothers who own the Time Bandit have successfully created a legacy of respect within the Deadliest Catch fishing fleet.

Time bandit deadliest catch