Deckhand Shares Explained: How Crew Pay Works

Commercial fishing crews on lobster and crab boats are almost never paid by the hour — they’re paid a share of what the boat brings in. Understanding that system is the first thing anyone new to the industry needs to get straight before setting foot on a boat.

Why shares instead of wages

A share system ties crew pay directly to what the boat actually catches and what it sells for, rather than to hours worked. There are practical reasons the whole industry runs this way rather than switching to hourly pay:

• Catch is unpredictable. A boat might haul heavy gear for ten hours and come back with a modest catch, or have a short, excellent day. Hourly pay doesn’t map well onto that kind of variance, and a share system spreads the risk (and the upside) across the whole crew.
• It aligns incentives. Every person on deck has a direct financial stake in how well the boat fishes, not just in showing up for a shift — which matters on a boat where teamwork and attention to gear genuinely affect the catch.
• It’s how the whole industry is built. Boat financing, gear costs, and crew expectations across virtually every Atlantic and BC fishery assume a share system; a captain trying to pay hourly wages instead would be an outlier and would still need to cover costs from the same catch revenue.

How the split typically works

The exact mechanics vary by boat and captain, but the general pattern in lobster and crab fisheries looks like this:

1. Gross landings — the total value of the catch sold, based on the shore price paid by the buyer that day or week — is the starting number.
2. Boat expenses come off first in many arrangements — fuel, bait, and sometimes gear repair are deducted before the remaining amount is split, though the exact expense-sharing arrangement is something each captain sets with their crew and can vary a lot.
3. What’s left is split by role and seniority. A junior deckhand or bait boy typically takes a smaller percentage (commonly discussed as roughly 10%, estimate; confirm with current crews and captains in your area), while a senior sternman with years of experience takes a larger cut (commonly discussed as roughly 15-20%, estimate; confirm locally). The captain, as licence holder, keeps the remainder after covering boat and licence costs.

Because there’s no industry-wide published pay scale — this is negotiated boat by boat, often based on longstanding local custom as much as any written contract — treat any specific percentage you hear as a starting point for a conversation with a captain, not a fixed rate. See our crews guide for how someone actually gets a spot on a boat in the first place, since the negotiation over your share usually happens as part of getting hired.

What this means for take-home pay

Because pay follows catch and price, take-home earnings for the same role can differ hugely between a strong season and a weak one, and between boats fishing different grounds. A share-based system also means there’s no fixed floor — unlike an hourly job, a run of bad weather, gear trouble, or a soft shore price can mean a genuinely lean stretch through no fault of the crew’s effort. Anyone comparing a fishing-crew income to a stable hourly job elsewhere should treat published income ranges as wide bands reflecting real catch variability, not a predictable salary — for general labour market wage comparisons in other trades, Canada’s Job Bank publishes wage reports by occupation and region, though there’s no direct wage report specific to share-based lobster crew pay since it isn’t structured as a wage in the usual sense.

For the ownership side of this — what it costs to hold the licence that entitles a captain to that larger share — see our guides on buying a lobster licence and leasing a licence versus buying one. And for how a deckhand’s share tends to grow over a career, see our sternman-to-captain guide.

FAQ

Do deckhands get paid a wage or a share of the catch? Almost always a share — a negotiated percentage of the boat’s catch value after certain expenses, rather than an hourly wage. There’s no fixed minimum; pay follows how well the boat fishes that season.

How much of the catch does a deckhand actually get? It varies by role, experience, and the individual boat’s arrangement — junior roles are commonly discussed as roughly 10% and senior sternman roles as roughly 15-20% (estimate; confirm with captains and crews in your area, since there’s no published standard rate).

Are boat expenses taken out before or after the crew’s share is calculated? It depends on the boat — many captains deduct costs like fuel and bait before splitting what’s left with the crew, but the exact arrangement is set individually and should be clearly understood before you agree to work a season.

Can someone explain the Deadliest Catch payouts? That show follows crab boats out of the US Bering Sea fleet, which is a different country’s fishery with its own boats, quotas, and pay customs — it’s television, and the dollar figures discussed on the show aren’t sourced or verifiable the way a real pay stub would be, so this page doesn’t repeat them. A Canadian snow-crab or lobster deckhand’s actual pay works on the same basic principle — a negotiated share of the boat’s landings, split by role and seniority, as explained above — but the specific splits, boat costs, and shore prices are a different fishery entirely with no real connection to what’s shown on TV.

How much do the fishermen on Deadliest Catch make? This page can’t answer that with any confidence — it’s a US reality show about the Alaska Bering Sea crab fleet, and whatever numbers get repeated online about it are promotional or anecdotal, not sourced pay records. If you want a grounded answer for what a Canadian deckhand actually takes home, see “How the split typically works” above, which covers how crew shares are calculated on lobster and crab boats fishing Canadian waters — a genuinely different system with its own captains, costs, and local pay customs.