I Am the Master Angler!

You may remember me writing about wanting to win the fishing tournament back in September. I didn't post about it again after that, but in game I kept at it pretty faithfully week after week... it became such a routine that even the husband knew that I was not to be disturbed between 1 and 1.30 pm on a Sunday because that was fishing time.

I also took a screenshot whenever the winner was called out each week, to be able to keep track of my progress. Unfortunately it was nothing to write home about most of the time - I'd usually have only between 20 and 30 Tastyfish at that point, so I wasn't anywhere near claiming victory myself. One time I even got so caught up in chatting with a guildie that I completely lost track of what was going on and even missed the winner being called altogether. There was only one exceptional run, where I was actually on 39 fish and casting for my 40th by the time the winner was announced... that one stung a little.

I didn't really get any closer to figuring out a secret strategy to winning throughout all those weeks. Besides the RNG of getting "trash" out of the pools sometimes, it mostly seemed to be down to the distribution of players along the coast, but that was very unpredictable as well. For a while it felt like I was doing pretty well for myself at the relatively unpopular, very northern end of Stranglethorn, but then it got busier every week, until one time I ended up competing with three or four people for a single pool there and decided to say "screw it" and relocated.

I also learned that one of my guild's main tanks had actually won the fishing tournament before, as he whipped out the trinket that allows you to turn into a fish when we went to kill the giant shark in Azshara one day. I asked him whether he had any advice for how to win and he responded with something along the lines of: "Nah, it's all RNG. Just keep at it and you'll win after a couple of weeks." As I had been trying for more than two months by that point, I wasn't feeling particularly heartened.

The funniest fail came only a couple of weeks ago, when the yell about someone else having won went out and I recognised the name of another guildie who had joined only recently. I congratulated them and asked how long they'd been trying to win, just to get the response that it was actually their first time, and they couldn't even use the Arcanite Fishing Pole they'd just won because their fishing skill wasn't high enough. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry!

The week after that I skipped the tournament in favour of an Uldaman run on my pally. I hadn't really intended to skip it, because I was kind of hoping that we'd be done in time for me to log back onto my hunter, but I didn't mind missing one week. In a way it turned out to be a good thing anyway as I had already positioned my hunter for the tourney but later found out that I'd actually forgotten to set her hearthstone to Booty Bay like I usually do. Imagine if I'd got my 40 fish and then hearthed back to Ironforge by accident! As it was, the guild tank used this opportunity to take part again and got his second win.

It was the week after that when things finally worked out in my favour. I'd like to think it was because a friendly mage (who is also the aforementioned tank's partner... I think?) made a point of wishing me good luck after I'd "let" the tank win the week before due to my absence. I ended up fishing along the middle stretch of the coast and for once it wasn't too badly crowded there. Also, another thing that might have made a difference was that I noticed for the first time that pools were actually spawning before the yell had officially announced the start of the tournament - I think I already had two Tastyfish in my bags before the event was supposed to have started "officially".

Anyway, I got my forty Tastyfish with only a minimal number of "wasted" casts, hearthed to Booty Bay, handed in and that was that! It was a joyful day. I was asked if I was planning to try for a second win to get the trinket as well but I honestly don't know. I don't care about that prize as much as I did about the fishing pole, and as hard as some may find it to believe, I actually found the tournament to be quite an adrenaline rush whenever I was having one of my better runs and it felt like I could be getting close to winning. I'm not sure I can deal with all that excitement a second time around!