Nick Mavar, a industrial salmon fisherman recognized for his tenacity and resourcefulness who was additionally a deckhand on the Discovery Channel’s excessive fishing actuality present “Deadliest Catch,” died on Thursday at a hospital in King Salmon, Alaska. He was 59.
His demise was confirmed by his spouse, Julie (Hanson) Mavar. His nephew Jake Anderson stated that Mr. Mavar had a coronary heart assault on Thursday whereas on a ladder at a boatyard in Naknek, Alaska, the place he ran his fishing operation, and fell onto a dry dock.
He was pronounced lifeless at a hospital, Mr. Anderson stated.
The Bristol Bay Borough Police Division in Naknek confirmed that Mr. Mavar had died however declined on Friday night to share further particulars.
“Deadliest Catch,” which follows crab fishermen on their strenuous and typically brutal job off the Alaskan coast, is likely one of the top-rated packages on primary cable, drawing tens of millions of viewers.
The present premiered in 2005, and Mr. Mavar appeared in 98 episodes, engaged on a fishing boat known as the F/V Northwestern till 2021.
Mr. Mavar left the present whereas filming an expedition in 2020 after his appendix ruptured, revealing a cancerous tumor, Mr. Anderson stated.
Mr. Mavar was additionally injured whereas capturing an episode in 2011, when a big hook got here free throughout an intense storm and struck him within the face, breaking his nostril.
Within the fishing group, Mr. Mavar was recognized for overcoming adversities, together with the most cancers and an earlier coronary heart assault, stated Mr. Anderson, who appeared on “Deadliest Catch” whereas crabbing in Bristol Bay with Mr. Mavar and different members of his household.
Nickola Mavar Jr. was born on Oct. 21, 1964, in San Pedro, Calif., to Nickola Mavar Sr. and Maureen (Whelan) Mavar.
He grew up in a fishing household, and his father was a fisherman who emigrated from Croatia in 1959. Whereas a mechanical engineering scholar in California, the elder Mr. Mavar at first fished half time till changing into a industrial fisherman, based on an interview with an oral historical past program on the College of Alaska Fairbanks.
When the youthful Mr. Mavar bought his personal begin in fishing within the early Nineties, the prices to acquire a allow and run a fishery meant he couldn’t afford a completely functioning boat, Mr. Anderson stated.
Mr. Mavar, missing dish cleaning soap and sponges, typically washed dishes with Windex, slept in trash baggage to maintain dry in a flooded boat, and reeled up the web by hand due to damaged hydraulics, Mr. Anderson stated.
“You could possibly give the man a tin pail, and he might make it catch fish,” he stated. “You could possibly give him a bicycle, and he might make it float.”
One in every of Mr. Mavar’s boats, named Miss Colleen after his sister, was bought from his father when he retired, Mr. Anderson stated. Quickly, he ran a fishery in Alaska, then later took a job working for Mr. Hansen on the Northwestern, which introduced him to the present.
“The passing of Nick Mavar unfold via the fishing group like wildfire,” Mr. Hansen wrote on social media, including that Mr. Mavar had labored on his household boat for greater than 25 years and was a superb pal.
After leaving the Northwestern, Mr. Mavar captained his personal salmon boat in Bristol Bay and golfed ceaselessly with Ms. Mavar, whom he married in 2021, Mr. Anderson stated.
Along with Ms. Mavar and his father, Mr. Mavar is survived by two youngsters from a earlier marriage, Myles and Emme Mavar; a stepdaughter, Jensen Weynands; two brothers, Brian and John; and a sister, Colleen.
All through practically twenty years on tv, Mr. Anderson stated, Mr. Mavar didn’t care a lot in regards to the fame that got here from being on the present.
“He was a fisherman via and thru,” Mr. Anderson stated, “and the digicam was one thing that was simply there.”
Emmett Lindner contributed reporting.
