Hammer Bob we're venturing into an area where there are no numbers to support our theories, only past fishing experience to rely on. In any case, I don't think a salmon picks out an individual herring when it bumrushes the school. With this in mind, one of the reasons an artifical lure gets struck when other REAL baitfish are present is that it behaves differently, unlike the schooled-up bait. In this instance a feeding chinook will attack with its mouth the majority of the time because the lure has been singled out.

Another thing, you are using an example of chinook feeding behavior in saltwater to try an justify a freshwater fishing scenario, i.e. using roe. As we know Chinook are not feeding in the river thus their behavior when encountering a roe cluster will not be to try and squash it with its fins.

Hammerbob I fish Seacrest Pier in Seattle for kings nearly every day during the summer. Seacrest is the equivalent of Pacifica Pier in your neck of the woods. I see hundreds of kings landed every season. Unlike Pacifica which mostly uses bobber and bait, we use jigs with sticky sharp barbless trebles attached. Every year there are a fair number of chinook hooked square in the tail. Either the chinook tailslap the jig in an attempt to wound it or they are a lot more clumsy than I think...