The Story of Cornet Bay

For a family that didn’t have any money to speak of, the Deckwas of Cornet Bay knew how to set a dinner table rich with the bounty of nature. The freezer was always filled with salmon, cod, crab, clams, oysters, shrimp and more. Having a Puget Sound and Alaskan commercial fisherman as a father meant seafood delicacies were the norm and it was never considered gourmet … it was simply our lifestyle.

The wonderful smell of alder wood smoke, coming from Oliver Deckwa’s smoke house as he enhanced some of his catch of salmon, was also normal in their lifestyle and Oliver and Rena Deckwa’s son, Arnie, was never left out of the excitement or the hard work.

Arnie began fishing with his dad almost from the time he was old enough to walk. He laughs at the times as a young boy, when he first began cooking meals aboard his father’s boat … hash, out of the can, and fried eggs, a successful first attempt at breakfast prepared by an eight year old and very much appreciated by his dad and the other fishermen who joined in.

At the ripe old age of fourteen, Arnie was running one of the two gillnet boats owned by the Deckwa family, a twenty-eight footer called the Charlotte D., named after his sister. His dad ran the other, a thirty footer named the ROCA, initials from the family’s names, Rena, Oliver, Charlotte and Arnie. He treasures those days remembering the times, fishing along side his dad during the night and the next morning, together, pulling up along side the buyer boat which was anchored in Bowman’s Bay, to unload the nights catch. It is in this setting that Arnie Deckwa got his start in the seafood industry.

Later in years Oliver and Rena were approached by the Cornet Bay Marina, a local marina located about a quarter of a mile from their residence, to be its managers. The offer was accepted as long as Oliver could still commercially fish when the season permitted. Together they worked side by side for years until the loss of Arnie’s dad, at which time his mother Rena, took over the helm and worked there for a total of 35 years.

The years passed and in January of 1987, Arnie Deckwa loaded a few things in a 1973 Dodge van and left his Cornet Bay home on Whidbey Island, WA and headed south for Nashville, TN, to follow a dream … the music business. This wasn’t a spur of the moment decision, since he had been performing for years in the Pacific Northwest and had completed a successful two and a half month tour with his band in Southeast Asia. Arnie never expected how much his life was about to change! He was soon to become known as, “the Singing Salmon Man”.

During one of his frequent visits backstage at the famed Grand Ole Opry, Arnie shared some smoked salmon with his friend Brent Burkett of the “The Four Guys” quartet. After that famous bite, Brent turned and looked Arnie straight in the eye and said with a serious voice, “I know you want to sing cowboy, but you need to do something with this.” Arnie thought for a moment and said, “Do what with it? And Brent said, “SELL IT!” Having music in his mind and not sales, Arnie thought again and said, “Sell it to who?” Brent looked at Arnie like he had been dragging a sack of rocks up and down the road for the lack of something else to do and said “KROGER!” Arnie said “Who’s Kroger?”

Arnie took this advice and made his way to his first grocery store seafood shop where he met Buddy Hayes, a Kroger seafood clerk, who became instrumental in setting the course of his business. Arnie’s smoked salmon was later put in seven Kroger store seafood cases, and to this day Arnie calls those head seafood clerks "The Magnificent Seven".

During a store visit to Buddy’s seafood shop Buddy said to Arnie, “Pard, your smoked salmon is good, but it’s just not selling.” Arnie turned Buddy’s comment into an opportunity and began making the smoked salmon into a dip!

He soon began rushing from store to store, entertaining customers from behind the seafood counters while he made smoked salmon into a smoked salmon dip. There was always some sort of excitement. It wasn’t unusual to see Arnie with a band from the Grand Ole Opry playing music out in front of a Kroger store. Sales were good and this led Arnie to start his own dip manufacturing plant. Once again, his life was about to change!

Business grew and so did his crew; he married Joanne, and when she wasn’t working at her day job, Joanne and her parents and her children, all pitched in and became a part of the dip business. When the demand for the dips exceeded the plants’ ability, he found a commercial manufacturer that would meet his quality requirements and turned to selling and promoting.

Today, Arnie and Joanne have returned to Cornet Bay on Whidbey Island and have moved their dip business into the 494 square foot house where Arnie was raised. Their daughter, Karen, who at ten years of age was part of the promotional group named, Arnie’s Smokin’ Salmons, now works in the family business full time.

Arnie and Joanne spent a couple of years touring the country promoting and checking on their products in accounts such as the Sam’s Clubs, Wal-Mart Super Centers, Kroger and the QFC stores. They have traveled over 50,000 miles in their motor home and have been written up in the Wall Street Journal, The Sam’s Club Shopping Spree, Sam’s Club Source Magazine, Seafood Business Journal, Taste of Home Magazine, and two Good Sam’s Club RV magazines named, Motor Home and Highways, and numerous newspapers.

A cowboy leaves the dead end road named Cornet Bay, located in Washington state’s Whidbey island, for Nashville, to reach fame and fortune in the music business, and returns home ten years later with smoked salmon and crab dips climbing to the top of the charts in some of the best known grocery chains… and with many, many great stories.

Currently, Cornet Bay is excited about adding to its business more new products, focusing attention to their local grocery chains and bringing their non-perishable products to the world of Internet shoppers.