Great topic, doesn’t seem like we are making enough progress on terminal fishing.
A question: How far offshore are we fishing for Salmon now? (Coast wide)
Would moving the line closer to shore do anything to improve runs here or do WA Salmon run along the coastline?

Fishing in the ocean fishes on mixed stocks of immature fish. We know that non-local stocks stray into bays (Columbia into Willapa). There really isn't a line in the ocean that would save WA stocks.

At the sportsman's show a charter outfit from BC was saying how most of his catch was from WA, clipped fish.

The belief at harvest management has been this level of impact is compatible with the ESA Chinook listings.
I wonder if the listing of the Orcas will show the outdated belief of managing just fish returning to WA waters?

Fish Managers manage fish. Period. The rest is background noise.

Back in the 80s there was a lawsuit in Federal Court (Palila vs. Hawaii) where the state was sued because the sheep and goats they introduced were eating the Palila's primary food. Court held that destroying the food supply was a "take". When I mentioned to my section head about this, as there were demands to provide salmon carcasses to feed the then listed Bald Eagles his response is that he would never manage fish for birds.

Heck, they won't manage one species of fish to benefit another species of fish.

That is a pretty damning pie chart especially if it reflects where the impacts on ESA listed Chinook to include Stilly fish is occuring. And it puts the focus on the ongoing Salmon Treaty negotiations to find a way to reduce that impact!

A few years ago there was a belief (rumor) that Fisheries and Oceans was doing test fisheries/analysis to allow its fishermen to better target U.S. (read that Puget Sound/CR) origin Chinook.

So, do southern U.S. bound Chinook tend to travel the salmon highway further off the Canadian coast than Canadian bound Chinook? Notice I used the phrase "tend to travel" recognizing that there will always be some mixing.

Former Director Koenings approached Canada with the proposal that WDFW would produce hatchery Chinook, marked, for Canadian fisheries is they would fish selectively. They declined. Both countries like to fish the other's fish.

For what it's worth, we were fishing Tahsis Inlet (on the East side of Nootka Island) in the Narrows area last June. The DFO collects the snouts of clipped fish to look for CWTs. Canada doesn't clip Chinook and does limited coho clipping, but they do provide tags and bags for self-reporting the take of clipped fish. We picked up a clipped Chinook - about 22" long as I recall. That fish came out of White Horse ponds on the Stillaguamish.

And while the SE-AK fleet hammers our PNW stocks, their own local kings are TOTALLY in the tank!

http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=pressreleases.pr12222017