Stranglethorn Vale Fishing Extravaganza Guide

Once every Sunday, on every server in WoW, there is a fishing contest in Stranglethorn Vale. It is one of the most celebrated and looked forward to regular events in all of World of Warcraft. Not only for the amazing prizes that can be won from it, but also because it is a staple tradition of playing the game. Players of both factions flock to Stranglethorn Vale every week to participate in the grand contest, and they likely always will… ya know, as long as some titanic, world devouring menace doesn’t destroy the zone.

The Stranglethorn Vale Fishing Extravaganza is part of Phase 4 of WoW Classic alongside the Zul’Gurub raid.

Fishing Overview

Fishing Leveling

Fishing Equipment

Fishing Tournament

Fish & Loot

Fishing Pools

Deviate Fish

Tournament Overview

The Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza, AKA the Booty Bay Fishing Competition, is a weekly, server-wide event that happens every Sunday between 2 PM (14:00) and 4 PM (16:00) server time. Dwarf and goblin NPCs will appear in Ironforge and Orgrimmar respectively beforehand, handing out Fishing Tournament! flyers. You don’t need this flyer to enter; just head to the zone and be ready to start fishing when the event begins. You’ll be fishing along the coast of Stranglethorn Vale, and turning in your fish to the event NPCs in Booty Bay.

The minimum requirement to fish in Stranglethorn Vale is 150 Fishing skill, but you will catch a lot of junk at that level (if you catch anything at all). To avoid wasted casts, you’ll need at least 255 Fishing skill total. You don’t need to max out your skill or apply lures beyond that level.

While the contest is open to characters of any level, the zone’s level range is 30-40, so lower level characters will be at a severe disadvantage without some assistance. They’ll be easily killed by the local pirates and wildlife and won’t be able to get around as quickly without a mount. This will be even more challenging on a PvP server.

The contest begins with a zone-wide shout from Riggle Bassbait, “Let the Fishing Tournament BEGIN!” The pools will spawn immediately when this happens. On your mark, set, fish!

Catching Speckled Tastyfish

During the event, numerous special pools of fish will spawn along the coast of Stranglethorn Vale. These pools are called School of Tastyfish, each of which will contain Speckled Tastyfish. (Unlike in retail WoW, Speckled Tastyfish can only be fished from these specific pools in Classic WoW.) These fish are used exclusively for the competition and have no purpose outside of it.

There are no pools in Booty Bay or inland, only along the coast outside of the town limits. You’ll find a map of all of the spawn points later in this guide. You’ll need to fish inside these specific pools, ensuring that your bobber is fully within the pool to allow you to catch one. Just like any other pool of fish, they will disappear after 2-5 casts. It is important to note that any player on the server can cast into the pool, which means that there will be a lot of competition to catch the fish.

To win the Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza, you must be the first player to catch and hand in 40x Speckled Tastyfish to Riggle Bassbait in Booty Bay. As you can imagine, this is an extremely difficult task when dozens of other players are competing at the same time.

The winner will usually emerge within the first 25-35 minutes of the contest and will be announced via a zone-wide chat message. In theory, once a player has made the turn-in, the contest is over. However, in all versions of WoW Classic so far, players have been able to continue turning in Tastyfish and “winning” the contest up until the four o’clock end time.

Even if that isn’t the case, you can still turn in your Speckled Tastyfish for gold after the contest is won. In fact, for lower level characters that stay near to Booty Bay, this is a decent method of generating income once a week. You get about a gold per stack for turning in the fish to Jang. Between that and the rare fish rewards, it’s not at all a bad way to spend a Sunday afternoon. Have fun fishin’!

Preparation

While there is no way to guarantee yourself a win, there are several things you can do beforehand to increase your odds. Here’s what you should do in preparation for the fishing contest:

• Reach at least 255 combined Fishing skill between your character’s skill level and your Fishing Equipment.
• Be sure to bring some lures if your Fishing skill is low (4 should be enough). On the other hand, if you don’t need the skill, you’re better off not wasting your time attaching lures that you don’t need to use.
• Be at least level 40 with a mount. Level 60 with an epic mount gives you much better odds.
• Anything that increases your speed is useful, either mounted movement speed (Carrot on a Stick, Enchant Gloves – Riding Skill, Mithril Spurs) or running speed (Swiftness Potion, Enchant Boots – Minor Speed). Water walking may also be helpful.
• Have your bags cleaned out so you have plenty of space and don’t have to waste time with inventory management.
• Set your Hearthstone to Booty Bay for a quick turn-in.
• Be on the coast of Stranglethorn Vale before the event begins.
• Bring friends! Even though only one person can win, you’ll be more likely to get it done with some help. You can work in a group from week to week until everyone gets their rewards. This will be even more important on a PvP server or if your character is lower level.

How to Compete

The tournament is often won in 40 minutes or less, meaning that you’ll need to catch at least one Speckled Tastyfish per minute. This is a fairly tight time requirement and doesn’t leave much margin for error. Here are some tips to help you compete in the fishing tournament:

• It is extremely unlikely that you’ll be the first to turn in on your first try. Take your time at first to familiarize yourself with what the pools look like, find a route you like, understand how much competition there is, and hopefully catch a rare fish.
• The instant that a pool disappears, you should immediately mount up and ride to your next pool. Have a constant idea of where you’ll go next to minimize downtime.
• Look at the image below to see where all the fishing nodes are located.
• The fishing pools respawn roughly 6 minutes after disappearing. Keep this in mind so you know when to circle back and fish in the respawned pool. Sometimes it’s better to wait briefly for a respawn than to run around looking for another pool.
• Stay in the water to maximize the distance between yourself and enemy mobs, but not so deep that you need to swim and can’t mount.
• Make sure your fishing bobber lands within the circle of the pool you’re aiming for. Don’t be afraid to recast until it does. Keep yourself positioned so that your average cast will often land in the circle.
• Avoid fishing near other players if possible. This will not only be safer on PvP servers, it will ensure that you have to do less running around to find pools.
• The western coast of Stranglethorn Vale is littered with aggressive mobs. There are far fewer enemies on the southeast coast, but this comes with the risk of more players to compete against for pools. Watch out for the elite level 47 giant that patrols the shore.
• If you don’t win for your first few tries, don’t give up! The fishing tournament is a mixture of planning, execution, and luck. There’s always a chance that you catch a rare fish as well, which will give you a nice reward.

Fishing Rewards

Winning the contest by turning in 40 Speckled Tastyfish to complete Master Angler will award your choice of Arcanite Fishing Pole or Hook of the Master Angler. You can only choose one, but you can compete again in a different week in hopes of getting the other. You should know in advance which of these rewards you’re going to pick so you don’t delay handing in the quest while you decide!

• The Arcanite Fishing Pole is the best fishing pole in the game, increasing your Fishing skill by 35 points.
• The Hook of the Master Angler is a trinket that allows the user to turn into a fish, gaining a swift swim speed and water breathing – basically Aquatic Form for non-Druids.

Even if you don’t win the contest, you can still get some very nice rewards from two other NPCs in Booty Bay. Jang will continue to accept Speckled Tastyfish in exchange for coin. He will give you 23 silver pieces for every 5 Tastyfish you turn in to him. Fishbot 5000 offers a variety of quest rewards for various rare drop fish listed below. Both of these NPCs will stay in Booty Bay for one hour after the contest officially ends at 4 PM.

These rewards require catching other, rare fish from Tastyfish pools. In theory only one of these fish drops per competition, meaning that if another player has already caught it then no one else will be able to – but that seems to have changed in WoW Classic, probably to compensate for the higher realm populations.

• Catching a Dezian Queenfish will allow you to complete the quest: Rare Fish – Dezian Queenfish, granting the High Test Eternium Fishing Line.
• Catching a Keefer’s Angelfish will allow you to complete the quest: Rare Fish – Keefer’s Angelfish, granting Lucky Fishing Hat.
• Catching a Brownell’s Blue Striped Racer will allow you to complete the quest: Rare Fish – Brownell’s Blue Striped Racer, granting Nat Pagle’s Extreme Anglin’ Boots.

At this point in Classic WoW, the Speckled Tastyfish are not time sensitive (in later versions of the game, they disappear after about 4 hours), so you can hold onto them, along with your rare fish, to turn in the following Sunday if you don’t make it back to Booty Bay before the quest NPCs disappear.