Chuck S.
While I'm hardly salmon expert it is my understanding that our Puget Sound Pinks (including the Snohomish fish) generally spend the early spring and summer in Puget Sound (moving progressively into deeper water as they get larger) and by late summer/early fall they have migrated to the open ocean. Once they reach the ocean they tend to move in both north and west ending in the Gulf of Alaska and return the following summer to the Sound.

Their moves contrast with our coho and Chinook in that the pinks tend to be a more open ocean fish while the coho and Chinook typically migrate along the coast line typically stay within the continental shelf.

The Skagit Chinook while a northward migrating stock typically does not reach Alaskan waters. Information from code wire tags indicated that only a small portion (less than 5%) of the harvest of those stocks happens in Alaskan water. In round numbers the harvest distribution (prior to the last several years) of the Skagit summer/fall fish was about 30% in BC, 50% in Washington commercial net, and 10% in the Wa. sport fishery. For the Skagit springs the distribution was somehting like 60% in BC, less than 5% in commercial nets, and 30% in the Wa sport fishery (the exact % varies whether the fish were yearling or fingerling migratants).

It probably should be noted that a significant portion of the mortality experienced by the migrating salmon likely occurs during the first few months of their ocean trip.

Tight lines
Curt