Habitat is the ultimate, but we're not making the most of the habitat we have now. Not by a longshot. Reducing the Alaska and BC ocean fisheries by any percentage will increase the number of returning spawners to the mainland US by very nearly the same percentage. Quickest, most reliable means of putting more fish on the gravel. Whether those fish hitting the gravel results in better future returns would remain to be seen....

We basically engineer our spawner returns so that only the number we think we need to sustain future fisheries will spawn. Why on earth would we ever expect that to result in any increase, let alone anything resembling recovery?