F2P Fishing Guide

Seawasp

Seawasp

Legend
Seawasp's Salty F2P Angling Guide


Intro

So you’ve noticed that sweet hat all the cool twinks are sporting. You’ve seen sea turtles flying past you as you swim. Your jaw dropped as that angler standing next to you pulled out their shiny golden fishing pole. And you’re jealous of course. Well no more. Welcome to your guide on f2p angling.

Disclaimer: This guide will not make you a better WoW player. Fishing as much as this guide suggests will undoubtedly make you a worse PvPer. This is not a real guide for bettering yourself as a toon, or as a person. Also, you can’t get salty without linking accounts. I know. Sadface. Fair warning.

Contents
Sunday Tournament
Questing
Mounts/Vanity
Gearing
Achievements
Macros/Addons
 
Sunday Tournament
A nice guide with more info was previously put together by Rhaellia here. Every Sunday between the hours of 2pm and 4pm PST (That’s CET for EU realms, and your in game calendar will give you the correct time for your realm timezone) it comes time to head down to one of WoW’s most beautiful zones, Stranglethorn Vale, for your chance to catch some rare fish and win fabulous prizes.

Prep: Before the Tourney you’re most likely going to want to set your hearthstone to Booty Bay. The inn can be found just up the ramp from the goblin bank and directly below the alliance flight point. If you’re not familiar with the locations of the Tournament turn in NPCs, Riggle Bassbait, Jang, and Fishbot 5000, they can be found on the docks just outside the inn. You will not need to pick up any quests from them beforehand, but depending on your server, seconds will matter when you’re trying to win so scout it out and know where they’re at. Then go to the stretch of water you plan to fish and wait for Riggle to shout the start.

Locations: You’ll hear a lot of people having a secret or lucky spot to fish. To be honest though, the only consistent thing I’d recommend considering in your location is to find a stretch of about 5-8 pools where you will not be killed by mobs. There are several sections along the river in northern stranglethorn and along both coastlines of northern stranglethorn and the cape of stranglethorn that you should find viable for most classes. I’ve personally won contests fishing on various toons everywhere except the western coast next to Booty Bay (but I’ve heard of people being successful there as well). Experiment with different locations over several weeks. The one biggest advantage you can have will be simply being where others aren’t.

Go Time: Once you hear Riggle’s shout, just fish the pools in your selected spot. You’re trying to be the first, second, or third person to catch 40 speckled tastyfish which will be fished from any pool in the zone. Don’t worry that the pools retain their original name and will sometimes give you their named catch. This is normal. Because tons of other people are going to be fishing as well, pools will be respawning very fast. This is why I recommend simply fishing a small stretch and then doubling back. It is smart however to simply continue fishing in one direction when you know others are fishing the respawning pools behind you.

Done: Riggle will yell out when each of the three winners for your server make their turn ins. If three winners have not been announced when you reach 40 tastyfish, hearth strait to Booty bay and run over to Riggle to choose your prize.

Items of interest:
Winners of the contest have their choice of 1 of the following:
Arcanite Fishing Pole, Hook of the Master Angler (Only 1st place)
Boots of the Bay, Dread Pirate Ring (at least 2nd place)
High Test Eternium Fishing Line (3rd place)

Some rare fish can also be caught from pools during the 2 hour contest (continuing after winners are announced). RNG is obviously going to be sporadic but I’ve seen an average of 1 rare fish per tourney if fishing the whole time. These fish give additional rewards when turned in to Fishbot 5000.

Brownell’s Blue Striped Racer rewards Nat Pagle’s Extreme Anglin’ Boots
Dezian Queenfish rewards High Test Eternium Fishing Line
Keefer’s Anglerfish rewards Lucky Fishing Hat (Always link this in f2p chat when you get it because yes, you are that awesome)
Rockhide Strongfish, an unusable lvl 45 mace (completes “one that didn’t get away” achievement)​
 
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Questing

Cataclysm daily fishing quests are available at skill level 1 for your f2p toons. I’m not going to walk through the quests themselves as they are pretty self explanatory but there are a few notes to be made about them. You can find 3 fishing dailies each day (one in each of Stormwind/Ironforge/Darnasses for alliance and Orgrimmar/Thunderbluff/Undercity for horde and each giving 250 reputation for the city you complete the quest in). You will only be able to complete one per day. The quests reward a Bag of Shiny Things, and usually 1 fishing skillup. Those items you want, they’re in the bag (except for the teamster's skull which is of course fished in undercity or blackfathom deeps)!

Bag of Shiny Things may contain some pretty sweet junk items in addition to:
Swim Speed Potion
Swiftness Potion (probably the best ways to obtain small quantities of these before getting the recipe)
String of Alligator Teeth (a stackable neck slot item)
Weather Beaten Journal (teaches pool tracking)
Recipe: Captain Rumsey’s Lager
Weather Beaten Fishing Hat
Strand Crawler (minipet)
Bone Fishing Pole
Jeweled Fishing Pole​


Mounts/Vanity (And by vanity I mean super essential)

1. Sea Turtle: On land, this guy just runs at your normal speed. However in water you get a nice +60% speed (which comes out just barely faster than your normal land run speed I believe). This is nice for many conventional aquatic treks but you will die of fatigue trying to get to Vashj’ir so if that’s your goal know that it’s possible solo with druid swim form or for linked accounts the Azure Water Strider.

To fish this guy up the traditional approach is to just head to Northrend and start fishing pools. Some additional options are fishing pools in Cataclysm zones, and probably the easiest option for f2ps, Darkmoon faire pools.

2. Giant Sewer Rat: A pretty cool vanity pet, especially if you’re rocking a goblin or gnome. Fishing this guy is super straightforward. Just head down to the Dalaran sewers and fish open water.

3. Sea Pony: Fish open water or pools on Darkmoon Island for this sweet vanity pet.

4. Strand Crawler: See “Questing” above for your little beach buddy.

5. Titanium Seal of Dalaran: A coin you can casually flip. Your own personal RNG. Get the achievement “The Coin Master” by fishing away at the Fountain of Eventide in Dalaranfor all those coins and go pick your seal up from Jepetto Joybuzz since you will be unable to retrieve it from your mail. I highly recommend reading the flavor text on the coins as you fish. Lots of fun stuff. One of the least boring grinds in the game.

6. Savory Deviate Delight: Pick up the recipe, a not too rare zone drop in the Barrons, and cook up some deviate fish caught in the oasis’ or wailing caverns to transform into a pirate or ninja.

7. Dark Herring and Dustbringer: Rare and Super-Rare respectively Northrend catches. Dark Herring is fished from Fang-toothed Herring pools. Dustbringer theoretically can be fished from any Northrend pool or open water (I personally have never caught one). They are both useless. However, if you catch one you are obligated to link it in f2p chat because, once again, you are that awesome.

8. Old Crafty/Old Ironjaw: Fished up from any water in Orgrimar/Ironforge respectively. Drop rate isn’t too bad but if you’re going cross faction on one toon things can get fun. There are a few good spots for alliance around the waterfall in the Valley of Honor. I recommend /laydown for extra “stealth”. For horde, you’re pretty much at the mercy of the Alliance with only one spot. You can try fishing from the far side of the pool in the Forlorn Cavern and just do some friendly emoting when random allies start checking you out. Each of these fishies are equipable as an offhand and give a +5 Stam bonus.

9. The 1 Ring: Very rare catch from open water in many low level zones. One important thing to note is that, as reported on El’s Extreme Anglin Guide, this ring does not figure into any quests…aside from the one that takes you to Mordor.

10. Stendel’s Wedding Band: Fish up Stendel’s Bane from Stendel’s Pond in Westfall and loot till your eyes bleed. Then rinse and repeat. One of the potentially useful twink items from fishing with +6 crit on the finger slot.​
 
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Gearing

BiS is highly preferential when it comes to fishing. It boils down to one thing though. Do you want to stack fishing skill, or do you want to stack swag. Both are viable. Neither will save you in that 1v5 you just jumped into the middle of in WSG.

Note on Big Iron Fishing Pole found in the shellfish traps off the coast of desolace. This pole is unobtainable due to a looting bug. Thanks to SPQR for catching this!

Head

Lucky Fishing Hat (+5 skill) BiS
Weather Beaten Fishing Hat (+5 skill)
*Note that the free +75 lure on the +5 skill Weather beaten fishing hat is inferior to luring with +100 Aquadynamic Fish Attractor sold by many fishing vendors in limited quantity.​
Darkmoon Fishing Cap (+5 skill) Caught from pools and open water on Darkmoon Island
**From the fishing I’ve done and a bit of outside research I would highly suggest everyone who wants the Darkmoon hat to fish the island while leveling their fishing skill. There was an old bug that prevented looting at level breakpoints (and when you’re f2p capped you’re on one) and when this was repaired it seems apparent that the fishing hat was not added to the loot table at those breakpoints. You may also very rarely obtain this hat from Darkmoon Prize Boxes.​

Neck

String of Alligator Teeth (stacked) BiS
Any of Griftah’s talismans (find him in Shattrah or rarely at the Darkmoon faire)

Shoulders

Whatever transmog you perfer

Back

Whatever transmog you perfer

Wrist

Whatever transmog you perfer

Hands

Fingerless Gloves (Grandfathered)
Whatever transmog you perfer

Waist

Whatever transmog you perfer

Legs

Whatever transmog you perfer

Feet

Boots of the Bay (+15 skill)

Finger

The 1 Ring (BiS)
Dread Pirate Ring (also arguably BiS)
Stendel’s Wedding Band

Trinket

Hook of the Master Angler (BiS)

Pole

Arcanite Fishing Pole (+40 skill) (BiS if stacking fishing skill)
Darkwood Fishing Pole (+15 skill) (BiS if you’re stacking awesome), fish this one up from a variety of lvl 15-30 zones. Beware, Drop rate is lower than anything I know of besides maybe the Dustbringer.
Jeweled Fishing Pole (+30 skill)
Bone Fishing Pole (+30 skill)
*Be sure your pole is enchanted with High Test Eternium Fishing Line and lure liberally.​


Equipable Fish!

Thanks to pole-less fishing, you can carry fish around in your hand while angling to your heart's content.

Mud Snappers: 10, 12, and 15lbs
Catfish: 17, 19, 22, 26, 32lbs
Redgills: 34, 37, 42, 45, 49, 52lbs
Groupers: 40, 47, 53, 59, 68lbs
Salmons: 15, 18, 22, 25, 29, 32lbs
Mightfishes: 70, 85, 92, 103lbs
Lobsters: 7, 9, 12, 15, 19, 21, 22lbs

Old Crafty
Old Ironjaw
Steelscale Crushfish Fish him up from lvl 20-25 zones, Northern Stranglethorn, or Darkmoon island (open water or pools). Thanks [MENTION=13311]srsbsns[/MENTION]! Can't believe I forgot this guy. One of my favorite hunter weapons, and as aptly pointed out, bis for all classes that can equip it in arenas with angler friendly rules.


Buff

Captain Rumsey’s Lager (+10 Skill)
Rumsey Rum Dark (+10 Stamina)
*With the scaling of Hala Whiskey Rumsey rum is the best stam food buff for F2P. Fish it up in many 20-25 zones from pools of wreckage. You’ll also stock some up if you’re a regular at the stranglethorn fishing tournament.​


Achievements Available for F2P:

While it is possible to catch Mr. Pinchy on a F2P the item requires lvl55 to use and therefore the magical crawdad box and its associated achievement are not possible under normal circumstances. If your account has the grandfathered DK glitch, go get it :). Thanks Crystalpall!

A note on the "Salty Title" from completing Accomplished Angler. While unattainable for a pure F2P, you can complete all achievements with the exception of The Lurker Above, Mr. Pinchy's Magical Crawdad Box, and Old Man Barlowned. A lot of you may be sitting on a semi-dormant linked account like myself, and as pointed out by the wonderful commenters on this guide, most of the hardest achieves are just as efficiently done on your always active free account!



Macros and Addons

FishingBuddy: gives you a nice tracker for catches across specific zones and allows for some simplification of casting/luring options.​


Conclusion

Tl;dr: Fish. It’s worth it. Kinda. Yeah, no, it's definitely worth it.​
 
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Thanks so much for the corrections and feedback! Looks like I confused a couple of things from having got them on my p2p account. Those items are now removed and I'll do a further check through later for more errors. Again, thanks for reading and pointing that stuff out.
 
Crystalpall said:
Also the lurker above is not possible, we cant enter the instance.

If you correct the mistakes this is gonna be a really good guide!
Click to expand...

Thought so :(. I just know that a lot of you guys are way smarter than me when it comes to getting around some of those roadblocks. Edit made and TY!
 
Arrrgh, don't forget ye Steelscale Crushfish, BiS for Fish Slappers Only arenas. She's a fickle wench though—some say she do be grandfathered—I say they aren't using the right bait.

Also, regarding Salty. While you cannot complete all of it as a f2p, sadly, you can, however complete much of it as a f2p...for free. The hardest achievements to get, with the exception of Mr. Pinchy, are just as easy to do on a f2p as on a p2p, so when you finally get over yourself and link to a p2p, you will have a lot less to do for the title, and can spend your valuable p2p time getting Glad (or god forbid raiding).
 
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