1st fishing tournament on my F2P 45 mins into it. Funny thing was it was from a fishing pool some feral druid was trying to block my casts by going bear form. Didn't work out as he planned.
I had opposite ends of the spectrum; my ally priest got it on the first try, 10th cast or so with 26 fishing skill. My horde druid took 8 tries over 3 months, and I didn't count the casts cause it got too depressing.
Cook tastyfish, so you could keep them indefinitely (cooked ones wouldn't count towards the competition turn in any more).
Let you trade in, say, 500 cooked tastyfish for an item of your choice.
While RNG may have a valid place in PvP for things like crit/proc/hit chances, it has no place in gearing when it makes such powerful items so hard to get.
(I'd also add a rare fish to the pool's loot table, that rewards a recipe for Rumsey Rum Black Label