High-stakes reality series Deadliest Catch is back on Discovery Channel for its 19th season. But a few familiar faces are missing from the popular show. Former cast member Josh Harris does not appear in the new episodes. Nor does his one-time partner Captain Casey McManus of the F/V Cornelia Marie. Instead, McManus has taken a job that keeps him a bit closer to shore.
F/V Cornelia Marie Captain Casey McManus is not on ‘Deadliest Catch’ Season 19
The Cornelia Marie has been a fixture on Deadliest Catch since the show’s earliest seasons. Initially, it was captained by Phil Harris. Harris died in 2010, and his son Josh Harris eventually took over the boat, along with his business partner McManus.
Recent seasons of the show, which focuses on the lives of Bering Sea fishermen, followed along as Harris and McManus hunted for crab in the sea’s icy waters. A spinoff, Deadliest Catch: Bloodline, even featured the pair heading south to Hawaii, where they used Phil Harris’ old charts to search for secret fishing grounds.
But when Deadliest Catch Season 19 premiered, the Cornelia Marie was conspicuously absent, as were Harris and McManus.
The reason for Harris’ absence was clear. He was fired from Deadliest Catch in September 2022 after reports surfaced that he’d pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a minor in the late 1990s, when he was in his teens.
“We’ve been made aware of this issue. Josh will not appear in future episodes of this series,” a representative for the network told RadarOnline.com in September 2022.
Casey McManus has moved on from ‘Deadliest Catch’
While Discovery Channel had cut ties with Harris, McManus’ future on the show was unclear. However, when details about the currently airing 19th season were released, his name was missing from the list of captains. And the Cornelia Marie wasn’t mentioned as one of the boats that would be featured on the show.
McManus has not commented directly on the situation with Harris. However, in a tweet, he said the network did not renew his contract, which he called a “bummer deal.” Posts on his Instagram indicate he’s moved on from crab fishing, at least for the time being.
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Dramatic declines in both red king crab and snow crab populations have led to fishing seasons being canceled in recent years, according to a report from Alaska Public Media. That, in turn, makes it much harder for commercial fishermen to earn a living. So perhaps it’s no surprise that in October 2022, McManus shared on social media that he’d taken a new job running tug boats in Kodiak, Alaska.
“It’s a new world, but a boat is a boat, and I know boats,” he wrote on Instagram.
When a fan on Facebook asked if he’d ever return to fishing on the Cornelia Marie, he wasn’t optimistic.
“Waiting for Crab to bounce back. Might be waiting for awhile….,” he wrote.
In another update, the former Deadliest Catch cast member indicated he still had a stake in the Cornelia Marie. But he didn’t speak highly of the Discovery Channel show, hinting that the drama was all manufactured for the cameras.
“I am still a partner in the CM right now,” he wrote on Instagram in December 2022. “There’s no crab to catch this year though. They will make a TV show, but it’s all bull….”
New episodes of Deadliest Catch Season 19 air Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on Discovery Channel. Episodes also stream the same day on discovery+.
Source: Alaska Public Media
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