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Todd Meadows learned to fish when he was old enough to hold a pole, recalled his mother, nearly a week after her son died at sea.
“We put this little rubber fish on it so he could just learn how to cast,” Angela Meadows said.
This winter, at 25, he began his first season out crabbing on the fishing boat Aleutian Lady, accompanied by a camera crew for the reality TV show “Deadliest Catch.”
Todd Meadows died Feb. 25 in the Bering Sea. Two sheriff’s officers came to his mom’s Elma home in Grays Harbor County last week to notify her, and had few details. Now more are emerging.
While fishing, Meadows would call home on FaceTime to give his kids a tour of the boat, and the bounty of crab. He’d call family often, sometimes sharing photos of what he was cooking the rest of the crew for dinner — being the newest member, he was in charge of feeding the crew, Angela Meadows said. As the sun rose over the ocean, he’d text photos to his family.
He already had a job lined up closer to home, deckhanding on the Hot Pursuit charter out of Westport this spring. He was making plans with his romantic partner to buy a home when he came back to Washington. One day, he planned to run his own charter boat.
“He was working to become the man that he promised everyone he could be,” his cousin Paige Knutson said in a phone call. He loved his family and he “loved the Lord,” his mom said. He would’ve celebrated his 26th birthday this month.
The Aleutian Lady notified the Coast Guard that Todd Meadows fell overboard about 170 miles north of Dutch Harbor Feb. 25 around 5 p.m. Ten minutes later when the crew “recovered” him he was unresponsive, according to the Coast Guard. Attempts to perform first aid were unsuccessful “and the crew transported the deceased to Dutch Harbor,” according to an emailed statement from the U.S. Coast Guard.
The Coast Guard is investigating.
“We lost our brother,” Aleutian Lady Capt. Rick Shelford said in a social media post that did not detail how Meadows died. Shelford called it the “most tragic day in the history of the Aleutian Lady on the Bering Sea.”
Meadows was the newest member of the boat’s crew but quickly became family, Shelford wrote.
“Todd’s love for his children, his family, and his life was evident in everything he did. He worked hard, loved deeply, and brought joy to those around him,” Shelford wrote.
Meanwhile, family members are in Anchorage this week to view the body and bring his remains home. An online fundraiser made by the family had raised about $30,000 Tuesday.
“We are deeply saddened by the tragic passing of Todd Meadows,” a Discovery Channel spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “This is a devastating loss, and our hearts are with his loved ones, his crewmates, and the entire fishing community during this incredibly difficult time.”
The death is the latest among the show’s cast members, the most recent when Todd Kochutin, 30, died of his injuries aboard in 2021.
The show is steeped in images of crabbers facing turbulent seas. Some crabbers have said that some “Deadliest Catch” skippers take extra risks to infuse more drama into the show.
Todd, raised in Elma, was the oldest of six siblings.
“(We) were younger when we had him, so he helped us grow up too,” Angela Meadows said.
He was a small, active kid with a big appetite. He’d get up, sometimes in the wee morning hours, to make mayonnaise and jelly toast or tuna sandwiches and spent his days playing in the woods.
Family fishing trips took them to the Hoh River on the Olympic Peninsula, or local lakes.
In high school, he’d coach his siblings in wrestling. And his brother Jordan just claimed fifth place in the state wrestling championship, Angela Meadows said, in part thanks to Todd’s mentoring.
As an adult, everything else in his life orbited around fishing. He got his start in the industry on a charter boat, based out of Westport, Angela Meadows said. Later, he’d go crabbing off the Washington coast.
He’d work 21 days straight, his mom described, and on his one day off he’d go fishing for himself.
“He just had been working his butt off down in Westport trying to make a name for himself,” his partner Kennady Harvey said.
The couple met while joining a group of mutual friends for target shooting. They became inseparable, Harvey said.
“We would go in the woods, and we would go camping, and we would just go on rides and go deer scouting,” Harvey described. “And then, when our first son was born, we would take him too.”
Harvey and Meadows had two children together, Lawson, 2, and Kolson, 1. River, 4, his oldest kid from a previous relationship, just last year learned to fish down on the Satsop River.
After years of hustle an opportunity came up to be on “Deadliest Catch,” Harvey said, but Todd wasn’t accustomed to the cameras. He just wanted to fish and make money for his family, Harvey said.
The couple had been looking at homes to buy together when he came back — something with room for the kids and dogs to get outside and play, Harvey said.
“He was just the best kid,” Angela Meadows said. “He was far from perfect, but he would do anything for anybody.”
