P.S. If you’re on my WoW server, I better not see you fishing around Blackwind Lake or it’s ON! You can have Lake Jorune.

Yesterday, however, I happened to glance at the clock and realized, sonuvabitch, it’s almost time for that fishin’ contest in Stranglethorn Vale! Hot damn! Not too late and not too hungover!

I hightailed it down south, checked on the position of the quest NPCs so I’d know exactly which boards to jump down for the fast turnin and headed for the coast to pick out a choice stretch of abandoned beach.

That abandoned beach part is what proved to be the most challenging. I’d find a spot with no players in sight and few minutes later, along comes an interloper. Then another, and another, until I gave up on abandoned and settled for relatively uncrowded.

The public conversation turned to the recent account hacking problems and the resultant rumors, the fishing contests in weeks prior, buying gold off ebay (really IGE and its many knockoffs, but everyone still calls it ebay) and all the level 60 hunters that spend their game lives in Maraudon doing whatever it is that hunters do in Maraudon all day. heh. I think we all know what they do.

Anyways, for comic relief, one of the server idiots arrived in STV to share some of his thoughts. O goody. (Extr**** in the screenshots)

That problem being solved, I returned to checking my cast accuracy and that all my lures were in place. No noob I when it comes to fishing!

In case you’re new to the contest, the idea is to catch 40 of the Speckled Tastyfish and turn them in to the male goblin NPC on the docks in Booty Bay before anyone else. Problems: the Tastyfish only spawn in small pools up and down the coast, the pools eventually despawn after a minute or so (respawning nearby, of course), there are only so many Tastyfish in each pool (so the rumor goes), and your bobber must land somewhere inside this four-foot round pool to have any chance at a Tastyfish catch. Advanced Strat: you want the pools to yourself, if possible, and you want to cast into that pool early, haul a few Tasties out and leave before it poofs. Time of the essence and all.

I don’t know the minimum level for catching Tasties, I’m a 300 fisherman with a few +fish items and lures so that doesn’t concern me. If you’re less than a level 40 character, you will get the shit kicked out of you from mob aggro along the coast. I know that much.

Better that you be a 60 rogue who can vanish if mobs dare approach, thereby aggro’ing the fisherman next to you. Heh. Was tough shit for that horde trying to cast into my pool.

Twelve minutes ’til Go Time and now, my end of the coast was CROWDED. ffs. I moved WAY up the coast and had barely nabbed some beach when the contest was afoot. I pulled in 12 or 13 fairly quickly before the down-south fishermen started crowding me.

Big problem, right here.

Bastards. The catch was scarce until I just figured, fuck it, mounted up and rode WAY the hell away. 20. 25. 30. Get the Booty Bay hearthstone warmed up for the quick port back to town. 33. Damn horde, SHOOOO. 35. 35. The fuck? Where’s a pool. Oh. 36. 36.

DENIED! 30-ish minutes, and the male goblin called a winner. Not me. Was so pissed, forgot to get a screenshot of the winner shout. Here’s the real bitch, our winner was a repeat winner — I’ve since read this has happened on several realms. Superior technique, I guess.

There’s a few prizes for the losers, besides a nicely-inflated price for reselling the Tasties to the female goblin NPC: a fishing hat, fishing line and some fishing boots, all with +5 fishing. I did land a pair of the boots, so to speak, although I was pissed at the time that the rare wasn’t a Tastyfish.

That would have been 37 Tasties in 30 mins, and with a little reworking of my technique … that top prize could be mine. Oh yes, it could be mine.

I did finish out the Tastyfish spawn, which lasts until 4 pm server time … good money for the turnins and I was hoping to score a hat. (DENIED!)

And I will be there, Riggle! It’s gonna take me a week to COMPLETELY rework my strategy, technique and equipment anyhow.

Of course I use all the popular UI mods for World of Warcraft that most people use: CTRaid, a DPS counter, equipment mods, Gatherer, etc. But, the best mod I use is a little fishing mod called Fishing Buddy.

After the Great Fishing Nerf of 2005, I rarely bothered with the skill, but FotonRogue has a need for some of the higher-end potions and food. And, there’s that dumass food, Savory Deviate Delight, that’s so popular as of late. All it does is morph your character into either a ninja or a pirate — no stat enhancements, heals or regens, just an appearance change — and on my server, one shot goes for 50 silver to 1 gold per. (wtf!)

Who am I to argue with gold in my mailbox? That’s right, I just peddle the stuff, collect my gold and keep my mouth shut.

So I’ve been doing a lot of fishing in the last month or so and that’s how I discovered Fishing Buddy and have declared it the best WoW mod evah. Not only does it allow you to cast your line with just a right click, it also keeps stats on the number and types of fish caught which makes it patently obvious what a con game fishing is now. I don’t even cover the cost of lures selling the junk fish back to an NPC.

Cue the Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza, which I really hope isn’t Blizzard’s answer to the months of complaints about the fishing skill since the GFN of 2005, because a weekly contest with a prize pool of ONE would be a rather stupid response. I’m just going to go with the assumption that it’s a nice little mini-content area, like the Darkmoon Faire-y, and some day, fishing might be repaired for real.

(Ya, and some day they’ll put bass boats in the game too. I can dream, can’t I??)

No matter. I cannot be deterred. I will be there in Stranglethorn Vale on Sunday afternoon, one of hundreds of hopefuls for the weekly prize (emphasis on “The”). Might take me a few weeks of contests to get into a fishing groove, even with Fishing Buddy giving me a leg up on the competition.

I’m probably better off hoping that most people lose interest by then. In fact, if I were you, I wouldn’t even bother going. I think I read that the contest has been cancelled for this week. Ya, cancelled. Not even worth the griff trip down to Bootay Bay.

Honest.