Crew members from the Discovery Channel's Deadliest Catch signed autographs and chatted it up with fans at Seattle's Fishermen's Terminal today, Sept. 17, during the annual Fishermen's Fall Festival there. A long line formed to greet Captain Keith Colburn, Gary Soper, Lynn Guitard, Freddy Maugatai and Danny Maki, get some autographs and hear some stories.

"Right now we're down here in Fishermen's Terminal supporting Fishermen's Fall Festival for the Seattle Fishermen's Memorial," said Captain Keith. "Everybody wants to go on the boat but the boat's in a major reconstructive surgery mode right now with the deck, new crane, a lot of new hardware. Season 8 is going to be shot when we're in Alaska. What's going to happen? Your guess is as good as mine."

"The king crab season will start October 15 and that will go for about a month, a month and a half maybe, and then the opie (ophelia crab) will start in January," said Soper. "You get used to getting filmed. We only have one guy (filming) out on deck with us. They try to stay out of the way. If they don't you get them out of the way."

"I started with the show when I was 21," said Guitard, now 25. He grew up in Olympia, then moved to Dutch Harbor when I graduated high school. I have family up there."

In an April 19 TV Guide online interview, reprinted on www.crabwizzard.com, Captain Keith made a poignant remark about the passing of Captain Phil Harris, who died Feb. 9, 2010, while in the hospital. He was 53.

Said Captain Keith, "You work in the Bering Sea for five years, you’re going to know someone who went down. You work in the Bering Sea for 25 years, like I have, not only will you have lost comrades and fellow fishermen, but you will have lost good friends(...) Phil was a guy who knew the clock was ticking. He was one of those guys who knew sooner or later it was going to be his last season, and it was almost kind of creepy to listen to him talk about it. Every season he would punch the clock and hopefully come back, but he knew one of these seasons it wasn’t going to happen. And, it happened last year."

According to www.crabwizzard.com "The Wizard is a 155’x30’ vessel commissioned to be built by the US Navy in 1945 in Brooklyn, NY by the Ira S. Bushey shipyard. Her original name is an International Marine Organization (IMO) number, YO-210. She is one of the few remaining YO-153 class vessels." It is currently docked along the western edge of the Fishermen's Terminal docks.