The owner and captain of a fishing vessel featured on the Discovery Channel's popular reality show "Deadliest Catch" has pleaded no contest to a single count of illegally possessing undersized crab, according to Alaska State Troopers.Richard S. Quashnick, 52, of the Maverick, was fined $1,500 after an Alaska Wildlife trooper inspecting his catch over the winter discovered some of the Maverick's bairdi tanner crab were smaller than the 5.5 inches required by law, troopers spokeswoman Beth Ipsen said.

"We went through several hundred of those crabs and there was only a small percent that was undersized," Ipsen said. "He was allowed to continue with the season."

Quashnick, reached by phone in Warrenton, Ore., said he was hauling some 45,000 pounds of crab at the time and troopers found only a few that were undersized.

The citation was a violation and was not criminal in nature, Ipsen said. Quashnick entered his no-contest plea in Unalaska District Court May 28, according to troopers.

"It was an accident," he said. "It was just a mistake that my crew made, and we took care of it."

The wildlife trooper came across the violation in February aboard a floating fish-processing vessel in the Bering Sea near the Pribilof Islands, Ipsen said. Troopers often measure a portion of a catch - usually several hundred crab - to ensure size limits are being followed, she said.

A film crew from the "Deadliest Catch" was not filming the vessel this season and so was not present at the time of the citation, Quashnick said. Calls and e-mails to a Discovery Channel spokeswoman were not returned Friday.

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 Four commercial crab boat captains who starred in the popular television series “The Deadliest Catch” are gearing up for a new and lucrative harvest: tourism in Ketchikan. Veteran crab fisherman Larry Hendricks, with partners Phil Harris, Sig Hansen and Rick Quashnick, hope to bring thousands of cruise ship visitors to the Southeast Alaska city aboard Hendricks' retired crab vessel, Sea Star, to learn all about fishing for crab on the high seas. Their business manager, also a crab boat captain, is Gary Stewart, Hendricks said.Instead of risking life and limb to harvest crab on the Bering Sea, Hendricks, his business partners and other crab captains will be greeting visitors to Alaska aboard a remodeled Sea Star, complete with a retail store selling everything from notebooks to calculators and pens, all brand-name merchandising with “The Deadliest Catch” logo, he said during a telephone interview from Seattle. Tourism statistics point to some 850,000 to 950,000 cruise ship visitors from May to September each year, he said.And when the cruise ship season folds in September, the partners are considering taking their vessel south to the Seattle waterfront or even to San Diego for the winter months, he said.Hendricks began crab fishing as an 8-year-old in 1962. He currently serves as a technical advisor and consultant to Original Productions of Burbank, Calif., producers of “The Deadliest Catch” series.The 104-foot Sea Star, built in 1969 specifically for the Bering Sea crab fisheries, was retired in 2005. It is currently being remodeled in Seattle to sail into the tourism trade on May 8.Along with a large retail store in the stern, the vessel will be equipped with about a dozen interactive television screens describing how things work on the boat during the fishery, such as the first season of filming “The Deadliest Catch.”Sea Star Tours LLC, which plans to charge about $20 for a tour, will have tours led by real crab boat captains. “We'll talk to them and tell them tall tales,” Hendricks promised.