East Cape Raft Mission

The remote wilderness of the North Island's East Cape is a labyrinth of gorges, spurs and deep bush forest and in this episode fly fishing champion Cory Scott and his mate Chris Sharland will explore the area by raft.  The East Cape isn't particularly reknowned for its fishing but there are good fish here and the plan is to try and find the best areas by covering a large distance on a 4 day raft trip. This is a real journey into the unknown as neither angler has fished here, but by using their knowledge and focusing on likely areas of the main river and the tributaries, they are hopeful of success. A few hours in, and they find a nice looking tributary. Making their way up to the nearest pool, Chris soon hooks into a good Rainbow Trout fishing nymphs under an indicator.  A succession of rainbows and finally a brown trout follow from the same spot and the pair believe these are fish that have moved in to the tributary from the main river after recent rains. Finding another pool, this time it's Cory's turn to start and he soon locks onto fish after fish in the glacial blue waters. Day 2 begins and they have an 18km paddle before they can start fishing in the next tributary where they think there may be some bigger Brown Trout. Its an arudous paddle and there are some tricky rapids which Chris finds out all about as he takes a dunking but eventually they reach the tributary and start fishing again. Moving upstream, they pick out the best looking holding pools in a relatively small stream but can't find any trout home so return to the main river to find some trout and avoid a blank for the day. As their East Cape exploratory trip concludes, there's still time to find one more stunning tributary holding some excellent trout. To watch just login or join now