Not sure this is the right thread but I think it is a good discussion. So this, recognizing that all human activity harm the natural order and fish are very vulnerable just what part of this mess does harvest play? In other words if a judge shut down all OCEAN salmon impacts both directed and incidental what would the returns be? Twice or three times as large?

For Chinook it would take at least five years to get the true number as harvest would need to be removed on each year of the marine life cycle. Then the impact of incidental catch in other commercial fisheries which some say exceeds actual targeted harvest. A number thrown around is 84% of the harvestable Chinook are removed one way or another prior to entering WA waters. So I will throw out my guess based on the fact that I believe the harvest impacts in the ocean are vastly underestimated and say five years out the terminal Chinook run size would triple for a similar year environmentally. No other change but harvest.

So look at numbers from the past & present, good years and bad. Look at ESA stocks and how the numbers would change. Simply put the only way this mess is truly understood is to get marine impacts out of the picture. I think one would be amazed at what would happen. For GH guys think of it this way the high in years was a 40k year and low was around 6k with a something around 15k a average. ( bit of a guess but good number off the model ) Now times 3 and if the ocean impacts were removed our average returns would be around 45k terminal. Think about it.