This chapter contains in-depth, technical discussion of some of the more advanced aspects of fishing. Not for the faint hearted.
"Now, I'm not saying you need to fish for 30 years or catch every fish in the sea to become a master fisherman. I reckon you just need to be determined - determined enough to sit on your duff for hours at a time, doin' nothin'." - Nat Pagle
Topics are:
- The Burning Crusade - Preview of fishing changes in the expansion.
- The Role of Skill - This topic considers the role skill plays in fishing, including how skill changes the proportion of fish that "get away".
- Zone Base Fishing Skill - This topic attempts to answer the question, what fishing skill will I need to fish in a certain zone?
- Gazetteer - This topic develops a simple gazetteer that shows which fish may be caught in which zones.
- Variation by Time - This topic explores how catch rates for fish vary by time of day.
- Pool Appearance - This topic examines how pools of fish appear, and suggests some basic rules and timings.
- Catching Deviate Fish - How to catch Deviate Fish, which may be cooked to make Savory Deviate Delight.
- Catching Furious Crawdad and Mr. Pinchy - How to catch Furious Crawdad, and Mr. Pinchy, who may grant you a rare Magical Crawdad pet (The Burning Crusade only).
- Catching Stonescale Eels - This topic answers the question, where is the best place to catch a Stonescale Eel?
- Catching Winter Squid - This topic explains the best place and time to catch Winter Squid.
- Fishing Elemental Water - How to fish Patches of Elemental Water, found in Azshara.
- Fishing Pure Water - How to fish pools of Pure Water in Nagrand for Mote of Water, which combine to make Primal Water (The Burning Crusade only).
Randoms in Fishing - A Warning
The mechanics of fishing and the catches from fishing are somewhat random. Experience may teach us that a certain fish can be caught in a certain area. But how long each cast will take to bite, and which type of fish will be caught first, are all influenced by chance.
This behaviour is important. It feeds the creation of unproven theories about the mechanics of fishing: Given enough "luck" I might easily convince myself that a certain fish is more likely to be caught when I face north, or when holding the pole in my left hand rather than my right. Differentiating luck from a genuine pattern can be difficult.
Gnomish engineers, keen to understand why their inventions explode unexpectedly, resolve this with numbers: The more times a certain pattern is observed, the more confident they become that the pattern is probably correct. Unfortunately collecting data on fishing is very time consuming. And the number of variables affecting fishing is immense - location, skill, time of day, and fish type, to name a few.
So, while I have tried to make the analysis here as robust as possible, most results are still "statistically" rather weak. Read with caution.