What happened to Josh Harris on Deadliest Catch?

Life can be hurtful, but everyone around you is suffering from some kind of tragedy, and in a way, that in itself is the biggest kind of tragedy one could face.

Like Josh Harris, many fans have asked us what happened to Josh Harris. While nothing too serious has happened personally to Josh, he has had a lot of tragedies occur among his family members that would depress anybody’s morale, as he described in his co-authored book about his father.

His or his brother Jake Harris’s relationship with their father, Phil Harris, was far from perfect, but that did not make his death in 2010 any less devastating. Phil Harris died on February 9, 2010, from a hemorrhage, leaving his legacy — the FV Cornelia Marie — to an uncertain future.

We saw his sons, Josh and Jake, in later seasons try to continue their father’s legacy by taking the lead of the boat and fishing enough to bring in enough money to eventually buy the boat. However, Josh would soon be left to fight alone as his brother spiraled down a dark path of drug addiction, just like their father.

In 2016, Jake Harris was assaulted and robbed by an unnamed man and woman in a car before they left him for dead on the side of the road. First responders gave him first aid, but since he refused to go to a hospital, they took him home. Later, he was admitted to Providence Regional Medical Center, and according to Josh Harris’s Facebook posts shortly after, he was badly injured with a cracked skull and brain trauma.

However, with the life Jake Harris had been leading, things were bound to get worse for him. It finally reached rock bottom in January 2019, when Jake Harris was arrested. Jake was pulled over by police officers after a brief chase. They found him uncooperative, showing clear signs of intoxication, like pinpoint pupils, bloodshot eyes, and slurred speech. Upon a search by a canine unit, they found 14 grams of heroin along with other drug paraphernalia, suggesting a motive to produce and sell, as well as a stolen, unlicensed gun.

Considering being charged guilty for four felonies, drug possession, and driving under the influence, Jake still got a relatively lenient sentence of 18 months in jail. Josh Harris gave an important update on his brother in August 2020, saying that Jake is doing really good, all things considered. By then, he had completed five months of his sentence and kept his nose clean.

Furthermore, fans can’t wait for the new season 17 of Deadliest Catch to premiere, as there is a strong possibility that Jake would return in the new season. It all stems from the season 16 finale, where the season ended with a little foreshadowing of what the future will hold. We saw Josh meeting up with Jake, who seemed to have come out of prison. Jake looked a little rough but matured and well-rested as he had some conversation with his brother Josh.

While we do not get to see it, Josh has expressed his desire to once again fish with his brother aboard the Cornelia Marie, just like the good old days, and it might just be in season 17. However, don’t get your hopes up too high, as he may just have a very limited appearance in the series. As we all know, the road to rehabilitation takes time, patience, and baby steps.

We might not know what the future holds, but we know Josh Harris’s career and all the struggles he made to get where he is today. He kept working to one day captain the Cornelia Marie, which finally came to fruition in 2014. There were a few catches, like him being the only co-captain alongside his father’s friend, Captain Casey McManus, and getting help from many investors to buy his father’s boat.

Nevertheless, Josh still managed to become the captain and protect his father’s legacy. He and Casey have now further carried on the late Captain Phil Harris’s memories by pursuing his dreams to make a big profit by fishing for ahi tuna in Hawaii. After finding Phil’s plans stashed away in the Cornelia Marie, Josh and Casey decided to honor his memories by completing his dreams, which also gave birth to their own spin-off series, Deadliest Catch: Bloodlines, which ran for seven episodes in 2020.

Our respect for Josh Harris has certainly grown after seeing how he has struggled through his career and life. Finally, things are looking good for him. His hard work also seems to have paid off, as his net worth, which in 2013 stood at approximately eight hundred thousand dollars, has now reportedly grown to an approximate of one million dollars as of 2021. Josh is said to earn a salary of around 250,000 dollars each year, helping him accumulate such a massive net worth.