Juneau

It’s not just a cruise-ship destination anymore

Story and photo By J.D. Richey

From a fishing standpoint, Juneau often gets a bum rap. While anglers swarm other Southeast towns like Sitka, Ketchikan and Yakutat, Alaska’s Capital City often gets dismissed as being more of a port of call for cruise ships than a fishing Mecca. But is that reputation really deserved? To find out, fellow reporter Khevin Mellegers and I headed down there in mid-August to have a look for ourselves. Our mission was a tough one: Fly to Juneau and explore as many fishing opportunities in the region as possible and then report our findings back to Fish Alaska headquarters . . . in a week.

Once we started looking into things, we found tons of fishy-looking water and quickly realized that there was no way we could scratch the proverbial surface in a year, let alone seven days. After thoroughly scrutinizing the map, we narrowed things down and picked a couple places that looked interesting and hopped on a jet. Our itinerary called for two days of fishing the Juneau road system (see accompanying article), a couple more in the Icy Straight/Glacier Bay neck of the woods at a self-guided joint and then a lightning-quick stop to sample the waters of Angoon at a luxury lodge. This content is available for subscribers only.

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