Bait Fishing in Excursion Inlet’s Sawmill Bay; East and West Bights

July 1-2 – 16 miles east of Glacier Bay entrance

Fishing boats waiting to unload at the cannery.

This Sawmill Bay Cannery was a former prisoner-of-war camp during WWII.

With a few days to kill before our permit would allow us to enter Glacier Bay on July 3, we decided to spend some time in Excursion Inlet.

The eastern bight is called Sawmill Bay and is the sight of a cannery that reportedly was used as a prisoner-of-war camp for Germans during World War II. Despite the rain and fog, it was a beautiful shoreline heading back to our anchorage.

We were feeling the pressure to show Rick and Judy a really good time since this was the first two-week vacation they’d ever taken away from their business, so..... time for some jigging! And we’re not talking dancing.

We pulled out the fishing poles and attached jigs to the lines so we could fish off the boat. Wouldn’t you know, our Captain “I don’t know how to fish” caught the most fish that afternoon.

Don't ask?!?

None of us had an idea of what fish we were catching so we grabbed our fishing chart and discovered we were pulling in Walleye Pollocks (guess they knew we were used to Lake Erie fishing) and sole fish. Great for crab bait ... which Judy chopped up spectacularly on the back deck!

The next day we moved the boat to the West Bight; Judy and Laura took the tender out and dropped prawn traps. Sadly, the following morning the line on one of the traps broke when the guys were pulling it up. We’d like to think it’s because it was filled with so many prawns -- but old lines were the probable culprit!

And Rick caught a real whopper!!!!

 Adding insult to injury, the guys beat us at euchre that night 3-2.