Jeweled Fishing Pole

Fishing strikes again. The Dalaran daily fishing quest awarded me the Jeweled Fishing Pole, which, although nicer looking compared to the Kalu'Ak Pole, I'll be continuing to use the latter, due to its underwater breathing bonus. For now, I'll be keeping this new pole in the bank as a vanity item.

Fishing 450

Approximately a month after patch 3.1 hit, I reached 450 Fishing, having started at 0. A month to reach 450 seems damn good to me and I don't think that would have been possible previous to the patch, with my rhythm.

On the other hand I found that once you get over 350 you can stop worrying about your skill, assuming you have a few items of that give bonuses to fishing.

During this month I was lucky to have a few rare items drop for me and I also managed to equip myself with some good fishing gear:

• Kalu'Ak Fishing Pole - I had this before but once I hit Fishing 300 I could equip it and it gives a nive +30 fishing bonus
• Weather-Beaten Fishing Hat - lucky bastard that I was, it dropped for me soon after the patch, from the Dalaran fishing daily. I haven't seen it since. Not only does this awesome hat give a +5 bonus to fishing, it also has a +75 lure that has a 10 minute duration and a 10 minute cooldown, making it a permanent +75 bonus in effect.
• +2 Fishing Enchant to Gloves - very cheap to get and I suggest you should put this enchant on a pair of gloves that you upgraded from, meaning that they will still have good stats on them, in case you get attacked while fishing or forget to swap them out after fishing.
• Sea Turtle Mount - I was very lucky to get this soon after patch 3.1 came out.
• Magical Crawdad - I was dreading having to fish for this mount but in the end I got it on my first Mr. Pinchy, from his last wish.
• Strand Crawler - another random drop from the Dalaran fishing daily.

I have yet to see any of the bucket croc pets from the Shattrath daily and I haven't had a single fishing line drop, which is a bit sad, as I was hoping to enchant my fishing pole. Furthermore, no Tiny Titanium Lockbox has dropped from the Dalaran daily.

Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with my fishing exploits post-3.1. My combined fishing skill (after all the bonuses) is 562 which means I can damn well fish anywhere in the game without getting junk.

Once again, I will heartily recommend Fishing Buddy which is an awesome addon for fishing. It just makes your life as a fisherman a lot easier and best of all, it tells you how many casts you need until you gain a skill point.

The only thing that bugs me right now is the Shattrath fishing daily. I'm tired of doing both the fishing AND the cooking dailies but unfortunately there doesn't seem to be an end to them until I get all the bucket pets and the remaining cooking recipes that I need. I just hope luck REALLY shines my way and all 4 bucket pets drop in 4 consecutive days. Fat chance.

Fishing Rocks!

I know you're hearing this a lot lately but I'm totally in love with the "new and improved", post-3.1 fishing.

This morning I got another reason for loving it so much: the Weather-Beaten Fishing Hat dropped on me from the Dalaran fishing daily. It seems that luck has been following me around this past week, what with the lucky drop of a Book of Glyph Mastery which brought me some cool cash and the Sea Turtle that I got just yesterday. Once more, this latest drop has to be a fluke. After all, it was the third time I was doing the fishing daily.

Here's my hunter in "full" fishing gear, well, at least what I have so far, namely the Kalu'ak Fishing Pole and the Weather-Beaten Fishing Hat. Handsome devil, ain't he?

Now the beauty of the Weather-Beaten Fishing Hat is that not only does it give a +5 bonus to fishing, but when used, it applies a +75 lure to your fishing pole. The lure has a 10 minute duration with a 10 minute cooldown, which in effect means that you will always have a free +75 lure at your disposal. Pretty frackin' sweet right!

Woot! Sea Turtle!

This patch is getting better by the day. Having just picked up fishing on my hunter main, I had the Sea Turtle drop! Frankly I wasn't expecting it, though I was hoping.


What's even more cool is that my fishing skill isn't very high. I was just 313 + 30 from the Kalu'ak Fishing Pole. I got the lucky drop in Sholazar Basin from a Nettlefish School node. Here are 2 screenshots of my hunter on the turtle. In the second one I'm swimming with the fishes.

So how can one get this pet. Well, El's Anglin has a neat guide on how you can increase your chances to get this mount. However, it's "easy" actually. Here's a quick checklist:

1. All you have to do is fish in any Northrend school. Make sure you fish in an actual school because the mount won't drop from open water.
2. Your fishing skill will lower the amount of junk you get so in theory a higher fishing skill will raise your chances to get the mount.
3. While the above does raise your chance to get the mount by a tiny bit, it's actually up to the Gods of Random whether you will actually get it or not. Case in point: yours truly. Though my fishing skill is still pathetic for Northrend and I still get a large amount of junk, I just got LUCKY. So you could have 575 total fishing skill and still not get the mount after 5000 casts, while a total "noob" like me will get lucky on his first try.

So if you want this mount my advice is not to sweat it too much. Just fish as you normally do and if you are not pressed for time try to exhaust every fish school you come across in Northrend. I'm thinking the drop rate on this mount has to be pretty high because I've seen lots of people with the turtle since the patch dropped. Now good luck anglin'!