The 2026 west coast salmon season is on. Ocean Heart Adventures, one of Western Australia's most consistent land-based salmon hunters, has confirmed the first solid west-coast schooling of the year after a dawn hike into Castle Rock south of Dunsborough on the opening day of April.
He set out half-doubting the early reports. "There's rumors of salmon down in Dunsborough," he said the night before the drive south. "We're going to head down 1st of April. I don't know whether it's all rubbish or real or not. And we're going to find out whether there's actually salmon down at Dunsborough." The plan was simple: catch up with regular fishing partner Cam, hike the Castle Rock trail down through the bush and either confirm the rumour or write it off.
The schooling did not take long to find. "It's salmon time, 2026," he called as a school crossed in front of the ledge. "And there's a school coming right at you." The first hook-ups were chaotic in the rocks — dropped fish, missed strikes, tangled drags — until the schools stacked tight and the bite turned on. "I'm not fit for this," he laughed between fish. "It's the adrenaline dump, too, though, isn't it?"
His setup is built for repeat west-coast salmon trips. Two of his three rods are matched Daiwa Seabass 1102 medium-heavy rods running Shimano Sedona 5000 reels, 30 lb J-Braid main line and 30 lb Black Magic leader to a Doctor Hook School Bully lure. "Most of you know which sort of rod that I'm using," he said. "It's a Daiwa Seabass 1102 medium heavy with a Sedona 5000 reel. 30 lb J-braid and 30 lb black magic leader to a school bully lure."
The third rod — "big Bertha" — is a Daiwa Sensor Sandstorm with a 7000-class Sedona, built to launch heavy Richter plugs at schools sitting fifty to a hundred metres off the rocks. "This one, my big Bertha. I don't know whether you've seen ever before, but I tape my fingers up like I use Elastoplast tape," he said. "It's really helpful for casting big heavy Richter plugs and big heavy lures."
The three-rod system is not overkill, he argued. It is a response to a salmon season where schools push through fast. "When the schools are coming past and coming through thick and fast, you don't have time to go and change lures and all that kind of stuff," he said. "I've only had one school. I've got two fish out of it because I've managed to have a couple of rods set up." Different rods cover different reach: a small filtered lure for fish running tight to the edge, a medium Richter for schools at mid-range, and the big Richter for the fifty-to-a-hundred-metre lobs.
Tactically, the morning came down to position. The good schools were running across the bay in front of a small group of anglers who had been on the rock from before six. "This one's not my favourite," he said of the spot he ended up on. "There's a bunch of dudes — they got, I don't know what time they got here, but I got here at 6:00 and they still beat me, so good on them. That's my usual spot. Let them have it." By his read those anglers had also gotten onto fish through the morning.
Sight-casting in low-light overcast made the fish harder to read once the cloud rolled in. "You cannot see a bloody thing through this water at the moment cuz it's so overcast," he said. "You'd see a big school come across here, but ones and twos, you're not going to see nothing."
The take-home for WA salmon anglers reading the early reports: the first proper west-coast schools are now confirmed running south of Dunsborough, and the run can be expected to track east through Albany over coming weeks. As Ocean Heart put it after the chaos calmed: "Schools are just sitting out in front of those guys there. They're in the spot, aren't they? Yeah. If you sit there, you can see it coming across the bay from a mile away."