Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza

The Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza is a grand event set along the coasts of Stranglethorn Vale. Early in the day, a friendly neighborhood dwarf/goblin will visit Ironforge and Orgrimmar respectively to inform aspiring anglers of the grand tournament and give instructions. At the appropriate time, the shout will ring out across Stranglethorn to bait your hooks and cast your lines!

Will you be the master fisherman that gathers the necessary amount of tastyfish to win the grand prize? Can you reel in the right fish to receive some of famous Nat Pagle's fabulous fishing equipment? Will the make its triumphant return onto the heads of anglers everywhere? You'll soon find out!

Description
The Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza is a weekly fishing event held in Stranglethorn Vale. There is a highly competitive fishing contest and a more casual rare fish turn-in for this event.

When it happens
Currently, this event is held every Sunday from 2pm-4pm (server time). The turn-in NPCs are available until 5pm (server time).

The competitive portion of the event
The contest is to catch 40 and to turn them in to Riggle Bassbait in Booty Bay before anybody else does. The mechanism of the turn-in is a quest,, which only the first person each week to complete it can complete.

The rewards
The winner of the competition can pick one of:
 * - the best fishing pole currently in the game (for fishing), +40 Fishing Skill
 * OR


 * - a trinket that grants you a swim form

The Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza prizes are Bind on Pickup, so each character must win their own.

How to catch Speckled Tastyfish

 * Speckled Tastyfish can only be fished from a 'School of Tastyfish', which spawn along the coast of Stranglethorn Vale, but only during the two hours of the event, and never in Booty Bay.
 * Schools of Tastyfish are a kind of Fishing pool and look like churning circles of fish. Your tooltip will say "School of Tastyfish" when your mouse points to one.
 * When the event starts, travel up and down the coast, looking for a School of Tasty Fish.
 * With your fishing pole equipped, face the school and cast.
 * Your bobber must land inside the school in order to catch the event fish, so cast again each time the bobber lands outside of the circle.
 * Once a certain number of Tastyfish have been caught from a school (3 or 4), the school will scatter and you'll need to find another School of Tasty Fish.
 * When you have caught 40 Speckled Tastyfish, turn them in immediately.

Preparation

 * At one time a skill of 130 was required to catch anything other than trash from the Schools of Tastyfish, but in patch 3.3 this changed. At the present, any successful catch, i.e. anything other than No Fish Were Hooked, from a pool will result in catching what that pool contains.  This means that anyone with a fishing skill of 1 can, theoretically, win the Extravaganza.
 * A skill of at least 100 is highly recommended, however, so that you may learn Find Fish. With the Find Fish ability, Schools of Tastyfish will appear on your minimap. Try to acquire a  and learn the ability prior to the event.  They can be found in trunks and chests fished from any school in Kalimdor or the Eastern Kingoms.  Junk pools drop chests more often than fish pools, so these are a better source for the book if you are farming it.
 * Practice fishing Fishing pools prior to your first Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza, so you know how the placement of the bobber in the circle works.
 * Set your to the Booty Bay inn to expedite your turn-in.

Friends

 * Bring assistance. Take turns on who assists/competes in a given week (but don't switch roles within a week during the competition.)
 * Friends can spot spawning Schools for you.
 * Stranglethorn Vale has level 31-40 mobs. Friends can help with this if you need help.
 * You can deplete 'their' School of Tastyfish by fishing it.
 * On a PvP server, the Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza is essentially a battleground. Ganking is a valid contest strategy. Come with many friends.

The non-competitive fish turn-ins
You can continue to fish Schools of Tastyfish after a winner has been declared. You can safely fish all the way until 4pm; the NPCs for the turn-ins (Jang and the Fishbot 5000) will stay around for an hour after the tastyfish schools depart.

Tastyfish turn-in

 * Even if you lose the competition, you can sell your Tastyfish to an NPC, Jang, in Booty Bay for certain amount of money for every 5 you catch.
 * How much money you get depends on the level you are:
 * Levels 1-60 will get per 5 ( at level 10)
 * Levels 61-69 will get per 5
 * Level 70s will get per 5
 * Levels 71-79 will get per 5
 * Level 80s will get per 5
 * Turn-in value can also vary based on your reputation with Booty Bay.
 * Tastyfish only last for 4 hours, so don't bother trying to save them.

Rare fish

 * There are rare fish you can also catch in the Tastyfish schools, which you can turn in to the Fishbot 5000 NPC for special rewards.
 * These fish do not expire, and can be saved to be turned in during a future Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza.

Rare fish turn-in rewards

 * Turn in a and receive  - +5 Fishing Skill
 * Turn in a and receive  - +5 Fishing Skill
 * Turn in a and receive  - +5 Fishing Skill Enchantment to Fishing Pole

Rare fish that does not require a turn in

 * Catch a - Very humorous level 40 one handed mace! (removed as Rare Fish Reward after patch 2.4)

Additional info

 * Only one Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza prize is given out each week per server - this is effectively a seven day cool down per attempt to obtain either prize for any character.

There are 52 Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza events per year per server (plus a cumulative fraction that varies with leap year that amounts to an occasional extra one). Since the Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza was added on 13 September 2005. So as we approach September 2010, there will have been roughly 250 Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza events per server. Estimate that some significant portion of players will have picked each prize, say between 30% to 70%, and that we can discount characters who have won more than twice, consuming a prize that they already had. That says there should be around 75 to 175 Arcanite Fishing Poles and a corresponding 175 to 75 Hooks of the Master Angler per server this coming September.