Last week I got 220 tastyfish, 2 racers and a queenfish (I got unlucky on rares again, but I regularly catch several of them), starting from the 100 fishing needed to use fish finding. That's with a DK on tow, but I still average 160-180 tastyfish without. With 9 fishing hats across all my characters I average 2-3 weeks of fishing per hat (my best being 2 characters getting a hat in one competition, and the worst being 8 weeks of fishing without any luck).
You maximise your chances of catching the fish you want, by maximising the number of fish you catch each week. You give up before the competition is over, and you seriously reduce your chances.
Here is how fishing pool spawning (and most spawning throughout WoW) works:
- There are a set number of locations that may have a spawn appear at them.
- With no-one removing them, there will be an upper limit as to how many of those potential locations can actually have a spawn.
- When one is removed, it will be replaced, within a certain time, at a random location that does not have a spawn (which can include the one you just removed, but at a low chance due to the number of empty locations).
- When a lot of spawns are being removed, due to a lot of players in the area, so that a different lower limit is reached, they no longer respawn at a random location on a timer, but respawn, still at a random location, but now immediately.
(In situtaions other than with the fishing competition, the upper limit might actually be the same as the number of possible locations, so when left alone there are no empty spawns, and the lower limit may be at 0, so forced respawning can't happen and no mobs can be present. Also, in some cases hitting the lower limit can force respawning of seval replacements together, eg. almost all the Crown Thugs for the Valentine's event appearing when there are just a couple left).
Assume that we have 20 locations, an upper limit of 10, and a lower limit of 5.
Now also assume that there are mobs that make fishing half of the area less attractive than fishing the rest.
If everyone clumps up in the easy area, fishes the pools there, and the fished out pools have a 50/50 chance of either respawning in the area that's being fishing, or in the other, unfished half, then eventually, if fished enough, the 5 pools will be in the area that isn't being fished, as they will all have respawned next to the mobs.
The ones that can appear up to the limit of 10, then also have a 50/50 chance of appearing where people are willing to fish them, or in the unfished area, but they will be spawning on a timer, limiting the rate at which pools can be fished in the easier area, and they too can all be pushed into the area with mobs.
If you want to maximise the number of pools that can be fished, you have to move, spread out, and somehow either fish out or make available to be fished, those pools that aren't so easy to get to. It also helps everyone's chances to remove the pools fast enough that they are on instant (forced) respawn, so the more fishers the better (if there are enough fishers, then you hardly have to move at all).
- If you have a high level escort that can protect you or give you a water walking buff, fish in the areas with the toughest mobs. By fishing there, you push spawns back into the easier areas for everyone else. You will probably have more than you can fish where you are anyway, because everyone else will be pushing the spawns into your area. A DK is good for one person, because otherwise you have to clump up to make use of it's buff, but a L24+ shaman can give a 10 minute buff to everyone on their faction as they go past.
- If you can't fish an area because of mobs, spread out to cover as much of what you can, as you can. If everyone clumps up, then eventually there will be no pools in that area, and you will have to move anyway.
- Move around. Pools will always be where people aren't fishing, so always keep moving to stay away from other people.
- If you can help each other to take out a few mobs and get access to some more pools, do it, otherwise those pools will remain unfished for the duration of the competition. Unfished pools can reduce the pool respawn rate for the whole competition, if they allow the limit to go above forced respawning into timed respawning.
- Do not sit and wait for spawns, spend your time looking for them instead. If you rely on other people to take on all the effort of causing pools to respawn, then you can also rely on them giving up and not being there to make things so easy for you in future.
Finally, always have beer. Just like IRL, fishing is much more bearable with it.