Ondarvr -
I think this discussion has two aspects - the chum run/escapements in recent years and what is happening this year.

I'm not doubting your observation about the number of chums and fishermen targeting them this year on the Skykomish. Rather I merely suggested that that situation may change; it would not be the first time that an anadromous salmonid run was later. Further if indeed the worst case happens and the returns are well below expected I'm sure that most of us would hope that management would respond to that situation. In fact in the last 15 years or so the evidence is that at least on most North Sound Rivers that would will be the case.

WN1A -
The old chum model did attempt to account for the pink "influence" with different odd year (pink) and even year (non-pink) escapement goals. As Twodog mentioned on the Snohomish the chum escapement goals prior to the switch to capped exploitation management were 10,300 on odd years and 28,000 on even years. The other north Sound Rivers also had much higher goals for the even years.

An interesting observation is that over the last dedade or so both pink and chum run sizes have increased dramatically for most systems. It maybe that the ocean survival conditions for both species is very favorable and that outweights the competition factors you have speculated about.

Tight lines
Curt