Guide to the Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza

Currently there are no Season of Discovery specific changes discovered yet for this event. However, with the PvP Blood Moon event happening every 3 hours, there might be some interesting undiscovered changes waiting to be discovered, or at the very least the possibility of active FFA PvP being mixed in with fishing activity!

The Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza is a contest that players can enter to test their skills against other players. The event happens weekly, occurring on Sundays from 14:00 to 16:00 (server time), with any NPCs used to turn in fish and quests available until 17:00. All of these times are based on your server's time, not your local time.

The content requires players to catch 40 Speckled Tastyfish and hand them in to Riggle Bassbait in Booty Bay. The first player to do so will win and receive either a special fishing pole, Arcanite Fishing Pole, or a trinket, Hook of the Master Angler.

Anyone can participate, as long as they have the Fishing skill learned, but you should only aim to enter if you are a high enough level to deal with the mobs that are in the zone, as well as have a high enough Fishing skill to actually catch the fish.

You will just need to start fishing as soon as the competition starts. There is no other requirement to enter the competition.

The competition itself is actually very simple — for the first prize, you just have to hand in the 40 Speckled Tastyfish to Riggle Bassbait before anyone else.

There are a variety of different strategies you can use to do this, but they will require preparation, planning, and more often than not, luck. If you have friends to help you, especially on PvP servers, your chances of winning are definitely going to increase, but there is never a guaranteed win in the Extravaganza.

The most important thing to note when competing in the Extravaganza is that, no matter how much you prepare, you may still lose purely down to luck.

Firstly, you will need to prepare your character for the competition to give yourself any advantage you can. Even the slightest advantage in speed can be the difference between winning the competition and being stuck with some spare fish.

• Set your Hearthstone to Booty Bay inn, to ensure a swift return to Riggle once you have the required fish.
• Although any level character can participate in the competition, lower levels will struggle to avoid the mobs patrolling the coast, so get your character above Level 40 at least. This also ensures that you have a mount available for quicker travel times.
• If you do have a mount (you should), you can use speed-increasing items to cut down on travel times between pools.
  • Clear Zul'Farrak and complete the Ghaz'rilla questline to obtain the Carrot on a Stick trinket;
  • Enchant your gloves with Enchant Gloves - Riding Skill;
  • Attach Mithril Spurs to your boots, which are crafted with Blacksmithing.
• If you do not have a mount (your time is most likely better spent leveling or getting gold for a mount), you can use certain consumables and items to help you move between pools:
  • Enchant Boots - Minor Speed;
  • Swiftness Potion;
  • Swim Speed Potion.
• Use the best Fishing pole and consumables you can to ensure your Fishing skill is as high as possible, to reduce the chance of losing fish.

Normally, the easiest way to win is to team up with a friend (or group of friends, if you are playing on a PvP server).

There are 2 ways that others can help you in the competition: driving off other players or defending you from mobs and ganking.

The first way they can help is by pretending to fish in your pools, but cancelling their casts rather than taking the fish from you. This will give other players the image that this area is busy and will potentially drive them off in search of other, less populated areas.

Secondly, they can kill mobs for you that could interrupt your casts or defend you from groups of players that are roaming and ganking on PvP servers.

Note that, in order to prevent you from fishing, enemy players may enable PvP on non-PvP servers and stand/swim on top of your line, to try force you into enabling PvP by attacking them. Be wary of where you click if this is happening.

If your companion has nothing to do, they can always scout out pools for you to move to next, to avoid you losing time to searching for one.

It is important to make sure that you have a zone outlined that you will stick to; if you just have a general idea, you will spend most of your time running around trying to find pools and dodging other players.

Plan out an area and get there before the competition starts, to ensure that you have a spot and, if you are lucky, your presence will "scare away" other players.

Note that, you can only fish Speckled Tastyfish on the coast of Stranglethorn. You will not find any pools on the in-land rivers and lakes, as well as there being no pools on the islands off the mainland.

If you are the first player to hand in 40 Speckled Tastyfish, you will be able to choose from either of the two following rewards:

• Arcanite Fishing Pole — this is the only Fishing pole that allows Alliance players to reach 425 Fishing skill.
• Hook of the Master Angler — this trinket increases your swimming speed and gives you underwater breathing by turning you into a fish.

If you miss out on first place, you will still be able to turn in your collected Speckled Tastyfish to Jang, who can be found next to the main hand-in, Riggle Bassbait.

Jang will give you gold in return for every 5 fish you bring her.

While fishing during the Extravaganza, players will have a chance to catch rare fish that can be turned in to Fishbot 5000. Each fish has a corresponding reward and can be obtained by all players, regardless of how quickly they find the fish. These fish also will not spoil in your bags, meaning you can keep them and turn them in next week if you forget.

• Brownell's Blue Striped Racer — Nat Pagle's Extreme Anglin' Boots
• Dezian Queenfish — High Test Eternium Fishing Line
• Keefer's Angelfish — Lucky Fishing Hat