Season 8

Rygaard heads into the groups roughest territory yet, hoping to recapture the title. Papac dreams of a repeat in Alaska, but Coatsy's injury hinders that thought.

A replacement is sought for Coatsy; the Rygaard crew bring in a second yarder; and the Dreadknots pull the wrong kind of wood in Florida.

A dangerous process is instituted in Alaska; Rygaard boosts production by doubling its number of yarders.

Shelby and his assistant Bob search the area for scrap metal they can use to repair the wheels on the Swamp Man buggy; Coatsy's return to Papac is marred by arguments with Joe and an uprooted tail hold stump, prompting him to leave Joe in charge until he has fully healed; a topping operation leads to lost time at Rygaard when the tree's cut section falls on the skyline and brings it down; assisted by Levi, David does some high-altitude limbing and topping to fill a special order for Zitterkopf; with Katelyn cleared to resume work, Dreadknots risks working into the night to bring in a stash of logs marked by Clint; Kellie's injuries in a weekend car accident leave Triack shorthanded.

Ax Men is the first-ever non-fiction series about the treacherous life of Pacific Northwest timber cutters. From History and Original Productions, the same team responsible for the mega hit, Ice Road Truckers, this series looks at the legacy that the pioneers of our country laid for the present and future generations of loggers. Deep in the woods of the Pacific Northwest, rugged men make their living doing one of the most dangerous jobs in history... Logging

Shelby, Belinda, and Bob have their hands full trying to free a log stuck in the mud of Lake Pontchartrain for Swamp Man; Chapman employs a heavy-duty barge and extreme tactics in a second bid to capture the Gump Log; a breakdown in the Rygaard processor forces a frustrated Jason to shut down the site and send the crew home; soft soil and heavy turns bring down the skyline lift tree on a new section of the Papac site; a shorthanded Triack crew has to contend with extreme steep slopes that send logs sliding and crashing into Alec's equipment; David must stay in the hospital for a week's treatment, leaving his sons to keep cutting wood on the Zitterkopf site.

In Washington, Rygaard's remaining veterans go old school to keep the team on track. Deep in the Bayou, Shelby and Bob discover a valuable sinker cypress, but reeling it in is easier said then done. In the high plains of Wyoming, the Zitterkopf crew tries to tackle a dangerous tangle of logs known as "the teepee of death." In Alaska, the Papac crew takes on "shotgun logging," one of the most dangerous forms of logging in the industry. In Florida, the Dreadknots get on a hot streak, while on the Saint Johns River, the Chapman crew's season could go up in smoke as an engine overheats. In British Columbia, the Triack crew tries to fight through the hottest temperatures of the season.

Shelby, Belinda, and Bob take the Swamp Man buggy out on a log hunt to pay for upgrades to the jet boat; with the Rygaard machines back in action, Gabe hires DJ to fill a crew opening; Joe has to fill in on yarder duty at the Papac site when the regular operator ends up in the hospital with dizzy spells; Chapman deploys both boats and the barge in a last brute-force effort to haul in the Gump Log; David returns to the Zitterkopf site, going against both doctor's orders and Levi's warnings as he resumes cutting trees.

While waiting on the parts for the Swamp Man jet boat, Shelby takes flyboard lessons and borrows a jet ski to scout the bayou; a flat section of the Rygaard site puts so much stress on the skyline that a cable breaks, forcing the crew to trust an improvised repair job; Dave's attempt to pull a valuable log up from a steep drop-off on the Triack site threatens to topple the excavator; after Dreadknots spends a productive day searching for logs upstream, Clint suffers an ear injury that may put him out of action for weeks; Zitterkopf's rush order for a specialty log challenges David and Zane to bring down the needed tree safely and without damage.

DJ's unexpected absence leaves the Rygaard crew shorthanded and prompts Gabe to fire him the following day; Papac takes a risk by bringing in a substitute yarder operator long out of practice; Shelby and Stephanie use the swamp buggy to wrestle a log free of the mud for Swamp Man; Ethan hires his friend Ike to assist on the Zitterkopf site, but Ike's mistakes endanger and annoy the rest of the family and lead David to fire him after one day; Triack faces pressure from its buyer to pull a load of valuable timber from the bottom of a deep canyon during a storm.

High water and strong currents test Shelby and DaVi during their search for the last logs needed to fund the Swamp Man jet boat upgrades; as the Papac crew moves the yarder to a new section of the site, Joe ends up hanging upside down from a tree as he tries to hang a pulley for the skyline; on Kellie's first day back at Triack following his car accident, he and the track hoe both come within inches of sliding off a cliff; Clint and Dave come to Katelyn's aid during her confrontation with a couple of fishermen who refuse to move out of the way of the Dreadknots boat; David gets an early start clearing a new access road on the Zitterkopf site, then gets bogged down while using it to haul out a load in the rain.

Shelby and Bob test the upgraded Swamp Man jet boat by trying to haul in a capsized fishing boat; newly promoted hook tender Jeremy tries to send up an oversized log without bucking it, breaking a support tree on the Rygaard skyline; Triack purchases a rock truck powerful enough to haul out wood on its own, but using it poses risks both on the road and at the unloading point; with the Zitterkopf skidder broken down, David's plan to have Zane use his pickup truck to move logs sparks a fight between the two; the Chapman crew incurs Greg's wrath after they forget to hook up the boat's underwater sonar sensor and accidentally drop it to the riverbed.

Trucker Todd Dewey (featured on seasons 7 and 8 of the History series Ice Road Truckers) must negotiate a treacherous access road while hauling out loads for Rygaard; after modifying the Swamp Man jet boat to increase its pulling power, Shelby and his crew target a log stuck on the shore of the bayou; slick, muddy conditions on the steep Papac site cause logs to slide toward the rigging crew as they race to keep up production; the rival who tried to steal logs from Chapman in the previous season makes a new attempt to commandeer the crew's latest find; Ethan's shift as the Zitterkopf skidder operator ends abruptly after he breaks a cable while trying to pull a stuck log free.

A jet boat breakdown leaves Shelby wit no good logs to show off for an unexpected visit by the Swamp Man buyer, but his cousin gives him a tip on a promising location; Jeremy's inexperience in using the Rygaard "knife" to move turns enrages Gabe and damages the equipment badly enough to force a shutdown; falling debris puts the Papac crew at risk as they try to bring a massive, valuable log down over a 50-foot vertical drop to reach the landing; Chapman's day on the river is briefly derailed when Swilley gets caught in an underwater fishing net; in his haste to move logs to the Zitterkopf landing, Zane pulls down a group of standing trees and nearly crushes Ethan; Dave's son Cory, called in to help finish the current section of the Triack site, must maneuver the log truck on a precariously narrow landing.

With the Swamp Man jet boat repaired, Shelby trades favors with a friend to get help pulling in the log his cousin showed him, now floating among an expanse of tree stumps; while trying to untangle a cable on the Rygaard yarder, Craig slips and suffers multiple severe injuries to his leg; as Triack races to get loads out before their site permit expires at the end of the day, a log rolls free and nearly hits Kellie; fed up with Greg's constant criticism over the logs he is finding, Swilley quits Chapman; David berates Zane and crew member Khaymon for goofing off and breaking logs with their pastime of "tractor jousting" during his absence from the Zitterkopf site; new Dreadknots hire Jenna, filling in for Katelyn after her ankle injury, has trouble steering the boat but surprises Clint and Dave by finding a log on her first dive.

With Rygaard crippled by equipment damage, and both Craig and the yarder operator out due to injuries, Gabe calls in his crew from previous seasons to jump-start production; one of the Papac riggers falls into a hole and impales his hand on a piece of wood; after nearly dropping a tree on Khaymon, Ethan decides that the Zitterkopf job is too much for him and goes home; now ahead of schedule on the Swamp Man order, Shelby takes a break to hunt squirrels and crows for the day's meals; when Roger has trouble fighting the strong river currents due to his age, Greg tries to dive in his place without success, then reluctantly decides to hire Swilley back at Chapman.

Shelby pulls a log off private property in order to make sure he has enough wood on hand to meet the Swamp Man buyer's expectations; after the Zitterkopf skidder rolls downhill and breaks a cable, David tries a risky topping strategy to improvise a yarding system as a storm moves in; as Dreadknots scouts a distant upriver site for new logs, Swilley rejoins Chapman, accepting Greg's apology and an offer to let him keep the proceeds from the first log he finds that day; during a visit from Gabe and Jason at the Rygaard family home, a convalescing Craig starts to agree with their suggestion that he retire for good; fires started by stray sparks are the least of Triack's worries after the log truck starts to roll off the road.

Mike joins the crew on the landing and brings in Skooby, a veteran from past years, to help with an area full of huge logs; Rygaard must overcome yet another knife breakdown and a narrow, twisting access road in order to have any chance of finishing their site on time; on the last, steepest section of the Triack site, Kellie throws logs down to Dave's brother Jim without a clear line of sight, putting him in danger; David's improvised skyline works well, but the Zitterkopf crew still falls behind in production after Khaymon accidentally drops a tree on it; with $75,000 to go on the $500,000 order, Dreadknots decides to salvage Logzilla, the former S&S boat that Dave sank during the previous season, and put it back in service alongside their main boat.

Joe's misstep brings his spiked boot down on a Papac man's hand, but the crew continues working to finish out the season; Dreadknots sends out both its new and old boats to get every possible log and out-produce Chapman; after Swilley's discovery of a massive log nearly sinks one of the Chapman boats, Greg marshals his forces to haul it in; a stuck clamp stops the Rygaard skyline carriage, but the crew is able to repair it and keep pulling loads; Dave is determined to finish out Triack's season by reeling in a giant log stuck on a steep incline above the landing; while cutting trees on the last acre of the Zitterkopf site, Zane nearly drops a group of huge trees on Khaymon's head; with his last logs on display, Shelby negotiates with the Swamp Man buyer in hopes of building up funds for next season.