The veteran captains of DEADLIEST CATCH are back and this season the young deckhands and skippers plan to give them a run for their bounty. But can the captains keep them from taking over the wheel house for good?

From Thom Beers' Original Productions, the multiple Emmy Award-winning DEADLIEST CATCH returns for its ninth season at 9 PM E/P, Tuesday, April 16 on Discovery Channel. Adventure is their call, crab is their trade and a one hundred million dollar plunder could be the reward for their sacrifice.

This season the seven skippers and their crew are fighting through hell and back again in search of King and Opilio crab. But as the fleet faces off with the raging sea, they are quick to realize, that sometimes the most violent storms can come from within.

"This year a lot of young guys are trying to get a start, make a name for themselves. When you've got guys that are hungry, that's when things get nasty, that's when the gloves are off," Northwestern Captain Sig Hansen said. "Especially when you've got experienced and inexperienced people playing in the same sandbox. That's when it's a war."

Hansen, a 30-year veteran and a third generation fisherman, will match skills against his old rivals, Keith Colburn of the Wizard, the Hillstrand brothers on the Time Bandit and legendary Skipper "Wild" Bill Wichrowski who will return at the helm of the F/V Cape Caution. Young gun Captain Scott "Junior" Campbell and his newly rebuilt Seabrooke will be there to defend his status as a legend. Meanwhile the youngest skipper in the fleet, Elliott Neese is all in this year as he returns as the owner of his own boat, the F/V Saga. With over $1 million dollars in the hole and ten bucks to his name the stakes have never been higher for Neese.

While the skippers wage war for crab supremacy, the youth seek opportunity. Time Bandit Deckhand Josh Harris attempts to keep his father's fishing legacy alive, while on the Northwestern both Edgar Hansen and Jake Anderson's quest for a captain's chair becomes closer to reality.

Forty-foot waves, hurricane force winds, heavy-machinery and massive icebergs are just a few reasons that no season is ever the same on DEADLIEST CATCH. Surrounded by death and a multitude of injuries these brave men struggle to return from man's oldest journey alive.

Also new this season is "The Bait," a series of one-hour pre-game shows, beginning at 8 PM E/P on April 16. "The Bait" will give an inside look at the episode ahead from the captains - where they'll talk fishing, drama and what to expect on that night's episode of DEADLIEST CATCH.