Intense captain to helm ‘Deadliest Catch’ vessel

Published 5:00 am Sunday, April 10, 2011

PENDLETON — One of the fresh faces on Discovery Channel’s “Deadliest Catch” is billed as a take-no-prisoners captain possessing youth, steely confidence and a fast-paced fishing style. One of Captain Scott Campbell Jr.’s mottos is “Leave no crab behind.”

Campbell, who spent much of his boyhood in the landlocked city of Milton-Freewater, captains the Seabrooke, a speedy vessel branded by Discovery Channel as “the Corvette of the Bering Sea.”

Viewers will get to form their own opinions when the newest season starts Tuesday.

Campbell, home in Walla Walla after filming the first eight episodes, talked about life on the Seabrooke. His father, Scott Campbell Sr. (aka Senior) sat close by. The men, who jointly own the Seabrooke, are obviously close. After years spent at sea together, they seem able to read each other’s minds.

The family lived in Kodiak, Alaska, until Campbell was around 8 and then moved to a small farm in Milton-Freewater.

Campbell said he has loved the fishing life from the time he was small.

“While most kids played with cars and trucks, he played with salmon and crab,” said his father.

As a 4-year-old, the boy pushed fish on a tender. By the time he was 12, he spent summers fishing on his dad’s boat.

Senior, retired after 34 years as a fishing boat captain, says he did his best to funnel his son toward a less-dangerous career on land, one that wouldn’t take him away from family for months at a stretch.

But, when Junior insisted on fishing, Senior devised a plan to convince him otherwise. He invited his teenage son to spend 2 1/2 months at sea on his boat, before spending another three months on a longliner owned by his best friend.

“I figured 5 1/2 months would change his mind,” Senior said, “but he was more stubborn than me.”

Now Campbell, 36, is competing against four other Deadliest Catch captains, each hoping to outcrab the other.

The Seabrooke crew manipulates 700-pound, 7-by-7-foot crab pots, about 125 of them each trip. The crew separates their catch using hydraulic sorting tables. Big crabs go in a holding tank, while juveniles go quickly back into the water.

Campbell’s fishing style is intense. Rather than placing his crab pots in systematic patterns in “the flat,” he searches for concentrated pockets of crab on the fringe.

“I like to fish the edges and the currents,” he said. “When you find them, you go like hell.”

The captains maintain a friendly, yet focused, rivalry. Campbell is always cognizant of the other boats in the fleet, vowing to work harder and faster.

Two videographers and four stationary cameras capture every moment of action aboard the Seabrooke.

Dramatic moments caught on film are all real, he said.

“You can’t fabricate 20-foot waves coming over the side of the boat,” Campbell said. “It doesn’t matter what camera angle you use.”

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