One of the big items I wanted to check off of my list in Alaska was bear watching. When I came here last year I was able to see one bear briefly on my Tracy Arm Fjord Glacier Explorer tour. I tried to book a Whale and Bear watching tour in Icy Strait Point but it sold out so I ended up with just Whale Watching.

This year I made bear watching a top priority. One thing to consider if you want to watch bears is the month you pick. When the salmon are running, there will be more bears. My trip last year was the first week of June and the salmon weren’t running yet. This year it was the first week of September when the salmon were plentiful. July through September is the best time to see bears in Alaska.

I did a lot of research on the best bear watching spots in Alaska. The one on the list that matched up with my itinerary was Neets Bay from Ketchikan. There was one other shorter, cheaper bear watching excursion from Ketchikan that was accessible by car. My research said that place was hit or miss. Neets Bay is is longer, more expensive and requires a one hour boat ride each way, but it’s almost a guaranteed spot to see bears. I may try the other excursion the next time I’m in Ketchikan, but I’m glad I went with Neets Bay this time.

I booked this tour through NCL on a NCL cruise so we were docked at Ward Cove rather than downtown Ketchikan.

When you walk in the building you see a big sign for tour departures on the far wall. There are three big screens with tour departure information.

I found a sign for my tour.

When I checked in they gave me a sticker.

When I received my sticker I was told to go outside to my bus.

The lady outside told us to go inside because there’s going to be a bus change.

The lady inside told us to go back outside because our bus is here.

Again we are told our bus is not here. 

Finally our bus arrives.

It’s comfortable but it smells like a really old book.

Someone got rolled.

A lot of people in this bus are coughing, including both of the people behind me. I’m glad To be in good health and hope it continues.

Here we have an opportunity to use the bathroom. I recommend doing it here. There is a plethora of bathrooms here but there are only two at Neets Bay. You’re also going to be using some of your bear watching time in the bathroom at Neets Bay.

This is the boat that’s going to take us to Neets Bay.

We were given these devices to hear our tour guide over the loud engines.

This is our tour guide Alyssa. Captain Kirk is behind the controls. After the tour I heard it’s a big deal to have Captain Kirk as our driver. He owns the resort on this property.

We are going through Clover Passage.

Those barges are for submarine sound wave testing. If they had a light on we would have to call for permission to drive through at this speed.

Don’t text and drive.

On our way into Neets Bay we came across a group of steller sea lions. These sea lions can weigh 700lbs to 1 ton.

Captain Kirk stopped the boat so we could get a look at the sea lions.

And we have arrived at Neets Bay. 

These are the bathrooms you can use here. We’re on bear time now so you really don’t want to be in line for these bathrooms if you don’t have to be there.

The main reason this is such a great spot for bear watching is there’s a hatchery on this property. There’s always going to be a good supply of salmon here.

We are on our way.

This is evidence of a bear climbing this tree. Since I’ve been back I saw a video of a brown bear climbing a tree to get a black bear that was hiding in the tree. After two attempts the brown bear knocked the black bear out of the tree, killed it, and buried it. There are no brown bears on this island.

In a clearing we were able to spot some harbor seals.

Our guide snapped her fingers before walking through here just to make sure there aren’t any bears. What you don’t want to do is surprise the bears.

This is a large bear den.

This is a small bear den.

This is a little bit of the hatchery we walked by on our way to the bear watching spot.

Our viewing areas are these two wooden platforms. One on the left and one on the right. We were told to pick one and not to stand in the middle.

This is the one I picked which is the one on the left. I stood where lady in the black hat is at in this picture. I think it’s the best spot.

As you can see, there are a lot of salmon out here. This hatchery will harvest eggs from some of these salmon, hatch them, and release them into the ocean. Then at the end of their lives these salmon return to this stream to lay their eggs and either be caught by fishermen, eaten by bears, eaten by eagles, or they will just die on their own.

We only had to wait two or three minutes before the first bear made an appearance. This video has millions of views on YouTube.

We watched this one bear for 20-30 minutes before another bear came out.

With the number of salmon here these bears are able to be picky. They mostly prefer salmon eggs so in many cases they just squeezed out the eggs and let the fish go.

A second bear is working it’s way over here.

Now the second bear is here and a third bear is heading this direction.

On the far left a mom and her cub have come out. We are now up to four bears. This is why it’s good to be on the left side I’m right in the middle of all of the action. 

There are 300 wolves on the island. Those are the biggest threat to bears. 

The biggest threat to bear cubs is male bears. Male bears will kill all cubs and try to mate with the mom.  If a mom has a son she will run him off after a year. A daughter she will keep for four years teaching her how to take care of cubs. Here you can see the mom keeping her eye on the other bears.

And me.

The first two bears got into a fight over this fish.

This bear retreated into the woods after losing the fight.

When we had to leave there were seven bears out there.

We have a different boat and captain. This time it’s Captain Greg.

This is Cindy. She was the naturalist who took us out to the bears. 

This boat is louder so they gave us ear plugs.

They passed out snacks.

On the pier I came across a load of halibut.

Here they are cleaning the halibut.

That’s our ride.

And we arrived back at Ward Cove.

There were a bunch of little bugs out there. You can see them around the bears in my videos. They were also biting my hands. I recommend putting some off on before going out. These didn’t itch much and were gone the next day, but it would be nice not to have them.

Before I went on this trip I read a blog by someone else who had visited Neets Bay. I think he went in early July. He stood out there on that platform for his entire hour with no bears. Then at the end one bear came out and ate an entire fish. So I’m guessing in early July the salmon weren’t as plentiful as they were in early September. Even with the hatchery you aren’t always guaranteed to have the same experience I did. For me it checked all of the boxes. Seven bears. A mama and a cub. Two bears fighting over a fish. This is definitely one of the best excursions I’ve ever been on. I highly recommend it when you’re in Ketchikan.