Jam -
You asked the question:
"why the escapement goals are so high for chums (118,000) vs winter steelhead (6000)."

The short answer is that the biology of the tow species is much different. Chum salmon are primarily a fish of marine waters spending very little time in freshwater once they hatch from egg. They leave the river within days to weeks of hatching so have little dependence on freshwater habitat other than the success of the incubation of their eggs. A gvien river's capacity for chums thus becomes dependent on two factors - the amount of sutiable chum spawning habitat and the avialability of suitable maine near shore rearing areas for the fry. Puget Sound supplies the near shore rearing habitat. Chum successfully use both main stem area and side channel habitats for spawning which the Skagit has in abundance. The result is that the MSY chum escapement goals are pretty high -though much lower than for pinks (1/3 million for the Skagit).

For a fish like steelhead with a much longer need for freshwater rearing (2 to 3 years) the bottle neck for the population becomes the amount of juvenile rearing for the fry. Typically steelhead populations are limited by refuge habitat from high flows and/or the amount of habitat available during the summer/fall low flows. In the Skagit there is surprising limited steelhead juvenile rearing habitat. While one would think that the main river would supply lots of rearing habitat in reality it does not. During the periods of high flows (late May through July) there is precious little refuge habitat for the fry/parr. This is due to the lack of complex habitats along the edge of the river without which there is nowherer for the fish to escape the high velocities from the run-off. This has been compounded by the extensive diking of the banks that has occurred over the last 100+ years.

The result is the MSY escapement goal for steelhead is just a small fraction of what it is for chums.

I find it interesting that you seem to think that targeting a given species with a CnR fishery is OK when its escapement is expected to be below its goal. Under what conditions do you think it is OK to impact a population and drive it even further below escapements goals?

Regarding the lack of CnR seasons for salmon. That lack falls directly at the feet of anglers like yourself. The process in which our salmon seasons are set is the North of Falcon process. Traditionally river salmon fishery have not bothered to be players in that process. The result is that freshwater season only occur when some other user group has not figured out how to catch the allowable harvest - the river fishermen get the left overs. In the last decade I can not remember one case where any angler asked for CnR salmon opportunity on the rivers - some limited interest in marine areas though where there have been CnR marine salmon seasons the fishing pressure has been very light. Without at least the chance to harvest a fish or two most salmon anglers seem to have little interest in fishing.

If you want to see different seasons/management get involved.

Tight lines
S malma