WoW Classic Stranglethorn Vale Fishing Extravaganza

By RenataKane Updated: 2025/04/27

Stranglethorn Vale Fishing Extravaganza OverviewSpeckled TastyfishArcanite Fishing PolePeaceful now, but wait until you're here with a few hundred friends and enemies...Quick Facts

Original Release: Patch 1.7.0 (September 13, 2005)

When*: Every Sunday, 2 PM - 4 PM server time (pools become unavailable at 4; turn-in NPCs available until 5 PM server time)

Where: Stranglethorn Vale for tournament; turn-ins in Booty Bay

*Daylight Saving Time (DST) not calculated into timing of global events. This will start 1 hour later during DST periods, if you live in an area where DST is observed.
What is the Stranglethorn Vale Fishing Extravaganza?Fishing Tournament!

Fish anywhere along the coast of Stranglethorn (Except for Booty Bay) and look for the schools of Tastyfish that will appear along the coast! Make sure your fishing bobber lands in the school, and you will be catching special fish instead of the normal Stranglethorn variety. The first person to catch forty Tastyfish can turn them into Fishmaster Bassbait in Booty Bay for a prize!

Even if you are not the first person to catch forty tastyfish you can still turn them in for cash, and there are special fish to be caught as well that will reward special prizes!

When is the WoW Classic Stranglethorn Vale Fishing Extravaganza?Differences between Classic and Retail Fishing Extravaganzas

There is only one tournament winner per server, per tournament in Classic. In Retail, there are three winners—first place has the choice of 5 rewards, second place a choice of 3, and third place just 1. Also, 50 players per region, per tournament earn the achievement for winning the tournament, progressing toward the Salty title reward.

There are fewer rewards in Classic (5) than in Retail (8).

In Classic, the target fish for the tournament, Speckled Tastyfish, can only be fished up from a Pool of Tastyfish. In Retail, Speckled Tastyfish can be fished up in any fishing node in STV, not just from a Pool of Tastyfish.

In Retail, the fishing tournament takes place in Northern Stranglethorn, which scales from levels 25-60.

Entering the Stranglethorn Vale Fishing ExtravaganzaFishing Tournament!

a fishing pole

at least 150 skill level in Fishing (minimum level requirement to fish in STV waters; 225 is better to avoid fish getting away)

How the WoW Classic Stranglethorn Vale Fishing Extravaganza WorksRiggle Bassbait

Let the Fishing Tournament BEGIN!

Pools of Tastyfish 40Speckled TastyfishSpeckled TastyfishRaw Rockscale CodRaw Mithril Head Trout40Speckled TastyfishRiggle BassbaitRiggle BassbaitGrand PrizeSpeckled TastyfishRiggle BassbaitFirst Place Prize for Winning the STV ExtravaganzaGrand Prize

Arcanite Fishing Pole - This is the very best fishing pole in the game and is usable at Fishing Level 300. It gives you +35 to fishing, which makes it incredibly valuable for fishing up difficult-to-catch fish in places such as the coast of Azshara.

Hook of the Master Angler - This trinket turns you into a fish and gives both water breathing and increased speed underwater.

Only one player per Stranglethorn Vale Fishing Extravaganza can turn inGrand Prize and win the tournament. Rare Fish Prizes and Money Rewards from the STV ExtravaganzaBrownell's Blue Striped RacerKeefer's AngelfishDezian QueenfishSpeckled TastyfishRiggle BassbaitFishbot 5000Apprentice Angler5Speckled TastyfishSpeckled Tastyfish disappear from your bags at the end of the 3-hour tournament and turn-in period, so make sure to do all turn-ins before then.Speckled TastyfishFishbot 5000FishingSpeckled TastyfishFishbot 5000

Rare Fish Caught

Reward

Benefits and Requirements

Brownell's Blue Striped Racer

Nat Pagle's Extreme Anglin' Boots

Increases fishing skill +5. Requires Fishing 1.

Keefer's Angelfish

Lucky Fishing Hat

Increases fishing skill +5. Requires Fishing 1.

Dezian Queenfish

High Test Eternium Fishing Line

Increases fishing skill +5. Requires Fishing 150. This is permanently applied to a specific fishing pole. Choose your pole wisely!

Winning the Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza: Tips and StrategiesCharacter Preparation Before the STV Tournament Starts

Make sure your minimum Fishing level is at least 150 ; 225 is better, to avoid getaways. 150 is the minimum needed to fish in STV waters, both inland and coastal.

Bind at the inn in Booty Bay before picking out your fishing spot. This will get you to Riggle Bassbait quickly, since he stands right near the inn. (And remember that a hearthstone has a 60-minute cooldown, so be careful not to use it for at least 40 minutes before the tournament starts. You don't want to have caught the winning number of fish and find out your hearthstone is on cooldown!)

Clear bag space. Speckled Tastyfish stacks to 20; you don't want to lose fish because you have run out of bag space.

Get any speed aids before the start: potions, water walking potions, speed enchants, etc.

Decide in advance which of the two winners' rewards you want, so you can choose quickly (the pole is the first reward, the trinket the second). You don't want to be in a position where another player turns it in while you're trying to decide!

Get out into Stranglethorn Vale and start scouting fishing spots at least 20 minutes before the tournament starts. You want to be ready to drop your line the moment everything starts, and you don't want to have to be trying to find the best place to do that seconds before the shout goes up.

If you can, be a tourist at a tournament before you're a competitor. That will allow you to go scout all the water routes during the tournament without the pressure of fishing. You can take notes on what parts seem the most crowded, where you see the most pools, etc., and use that for future tournaments.

Movement and Location During the STV Extravaganza you're better off trying not to move around too much.Speckled Tastyfish

Fish where others are not. This is sometimes easier said than done. I am not going to recommend specific sites because (a) it will no longer be a good low-population site just by mentioning it here, and (b) this will change from server to server and from tournament to tournament. As a general observation, though, the areas nearest Booty Bay and Grom'gol Base Camp tend to be the most crowded, especially for anyone who forgot to set their hearthstone to the Booty Bay Inn and wants to be able to get there quickly (Horde players have a flight path in Grom'gol). If there are more than 3 people in one small fishing area, don't stop to fish there. Keep moving. It takes more time to figure out if there are groups of fake fishers (see under Groups) than it does to get out of the area.

Group Coordination During the STV Extravaganza

Scouting. Other players can scout nearby nodes for you.

Fake fishing (casting out a bobber but not staying long enough for the bobber to go off) can fool other players into thinking an area is more crowded with active fishers than it is. Just be sure to stop fishing before the bobber goes off, because that still wastes an iteration of that node.

Make it look more crowded than it is. Just having a lot of people with you can dissuade other players from encroaching, since they will believe that it is a crowded area and not worth competing.

Optimizing Fishing Mechanics During the STV Extravaganza

Fish only in Speckled Tastyfish pools. Fishing elsewhere yields no Speckled Tastyfish and wastes time.

If you're not 100% sure your bobber is not in the pool, recast it until you're sure. It's faster than wasting time on a cast only to discover you weren't quite inside the pool.

Pools right next to the coast can throw errors that you're not fishing in castable waters. Sometimes changing the angle can help this. For example, instead of standing on the shore, wade out into the water (this usually happens with a pool in shallows). But don't spend too much time trying to get the angle right on a problem pool.

PvP Server Strategy During the STV ExtravaganzaKeep a Healthy Mindset During the STV Extravaganza

Stay calm and don't get angry. This is a competition, which means people are going to try to fish in the same pool as others and crowd others out. There is no "one to a pool" rule. Getting angry wastes time, and you're likely better off just moving off to another area if you get a group of persistent pool poachers.

The more competitors, the more competition for pools and the fewer fish any one person is catching. The less people are catching, the longer the tournament will go on. Be patient.

Don't get discouraged and quit prematurely if you're not having a good run of luck. It can take anywhere from 20-40 minutes for one player to get to 40 Speckled Tastyfish; if you're having bad luck, rest assured others are too. There will be a zone-wide announcement when there's a winner, so if you haven't heard the shout, keep fishing!

Panicking wastes time and causes mistakes. If you're at 39 Speckled Tastyfish and desperate for #40, it is better to take that moment to breathe and set up properly on a pool, rather than flailing around at the wrong distance to get to the pool. Remember that you can't control where other people are in the world!

People will use General chat to try to play with people's heads. Realize most people who are saying how many fish they have are probably inflating their numbers. If someone is claiming to have 35 fish in 15 minutes, they're probably trying to intimidate you and get you to quit. If this bothers you, turn General chat off.

Comments

Comment by Rothia

Originally posted by Kaivax - Community Manager - Blizzard Forums 2020-04-07

"We’re pleased to announce that our next WoW Classic content unlock will occur at the same time on all realms: 3:00 p.m. PDT on Wednesday, April 15.

Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza
The Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza is a grand new event set along the coasts of Stranglethorn Vale. Early on the appointed day, friendly neighborhood goblins will visit Ironforge and Orgrimmar 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!"

Comment by ZorbiusGaming

Hell yeah can't wait to finish my 19 twinks with Hat and Boots!

Comment by Deatheyes

Under the "Character Preparation Before the STV Tournament Starts" it says "Get any speed aids prior to the start: potions, water walking potions, speed enchants, etc."
I'd just like to note that Water Walking Potions are not in Classic. Shaman casting Water Walking onto you is the only way to gain that effect, RIP alliance

Comment by BlaiziuS

Mini-Guide for winning STV Fishing Extravaganza (from my experience)

First of all, a disclaimer: this assumes you are not in a premade group dedicated to trying to get one person to win.

Since this is a competition with only one winner, you have to be faster than any other player AND get lucky enough with your RNG.

This involves doing every single thing you can to speed up your fish time.

First, some prerequisites:

Be level 60 - this will prevent almost any aggro from monsters near the School of Tastyfish
225 fishing without any lures/attachments - this way you don't have to spend any time attaching lures
Epic Mount with both Minor Mount Speed enchant + Mithril Spurs - this ensures minimal downtime in between pools
Fishing Buddy Classic Addon - this will allow you to re-cast as fast as possible using double-right-click
An auto-looter addon - this will allow you to immediately loot the Speckled Tastyfish so that you can go right back to casting

Now, once you meet these, you are equipped to win.

Tips:

The most important tip of all - set your home at Booty Bay! This will ensure you get to the turnin as fast as possible once you get 40 tastyfish.
To go along with the tip above, I also recommend having 1 swiftness potion ready to go when you hearth back, just in case it comes down to the wire with someone, you'll be able to get to the turnin a couple of seconds faster.
I've found the best strategy is to fish at every pool you see, and as soon as it's used/about to be used, you should immediately mount up and search for the next one.
Each pool has exactly 4 catches. So if you see a pool with 1 person, you are generally guaranteed at least one catch (unless that one person has already caught 3 fish at the pool). If you see a pool with 2 people, there's still a decent chance you can get one catch. I generally skip any pool that has 3+ people fishing at it.
If you're on a PvP server, DO NOT ENGAGE IN PVP, it will only slow you down and whoever wins will be someone who did not do any PvP at all.
The best School of Tastyfish density seems to be along the western coast, in between Grom'gol and the Nek'mani Wellspring island.
casting technique - the cast area is a cone, you want the pool to be near the outer edge of the cone, this will maximize your chances of landing in the pool with each cast. This one you will improve at over time.

Now, even if you do everything as fast as possible, there's still some RNG hoops you have to get lucky at in order to win.

RNG factors:

pool spawning locations - the winner will be someone who got lucky enough to always be near a freshly-spawned pool
perfect casts - the winner will be someone who only needed 1 or 2 casts to land in the pools.
perfect catch-rate - The speckled tastyfish is not the only thing that can be caught in the School of Tastyfish! Other fish have a small chance of being caught there. The winner will be someone who had minimal bad catches (in my experience, you are only allowed 1 or 2 non-catches if you want to win)
minimal catch-time per cast - the winner will be someone who had to wait the least amount of time to get a catch each time they casted. This averages out over time, so in my experience where this comes the most into play is when there are multiple people at a pool and you get lucky and get a catch before everyone else does.
No PvP - if you are on a PvP server hope you get lucky enough that no one of the opposing faction decides to fight with you. The winner will be someone who didn't do any PvP at all (or had an escort group of people who kill anyone of the opposing faction nearby)

GL, and happy fishing.

Comment by darrowfell

Yojamba Isle and the coastline to the south of Grom'gol tends to have a lot of twink characters, in case you want to make the bastards suffer.

Comment by matthewgeraldfre

Thank you. Well written and concise. I also enjoy listening to your podcast! Love the guides.

Comment by humbe

The fishing pole with +35 looks nice.. But is there any point of having fishing skill above 300 in wow classic (pre potential TBC launch?). Is +fishing just a way to level fishing in higher level waters quicker? Or are there pools with interesting bits where fishing skill far above 300 is useful?

Edit: I found someone saying you needed 350 fishing to have 100% success rate in Zul'Farrak, but that is still achievable with 300 fishing and a cheap lure.. For this one to be interesting there should be places requiring like 400+ fishing to have 100% success rate.

Comment by Chonkwe

"If you can, be a tourist at a tournament before you're a competitor."

Bad advice. It doesn't cost anything to run the tournament. Just go and do it.

Comment by Voault

Turnin bugged as of 12/19/21 in phase 2 of TBCC, Riggle respawns about 10-20 minutes after each winner with another turnin available, allowing multiple winners or a single person to win multiple times on the same day.

Comment by Arxroth

I did check today just for sports and I did notice that now tournament seems to be repeatable so everyone can "win" and get the price.
This is only reasonable since one winner per week was way too few when there was hundreds of player contesting for the rod and the trinket.

Comment by Strath

Fixed it seems. July 31 2022

Comment by Kwahu

"Only one winner per tournament, per server" has always been such a stupid thing when you consider how many players there are, and how long you have to wait to try again. I also know for a fact there are many people that go out of their way to win it over and over (even after winning twice) just to make sure no one else can, which I really think should net them a ban.

Comment by Zarail

New changes have been made to the Fishing Tournament in Classic ERA. Do not worry if you not the first person to turn in the required 40 fish. Every 10 minutes the tournament resets and you can turn in the quest to complete. With that said, you may not be the only one standing in front of the quest giver. Some people do the honorable thing and create a line and turn in and complete the quest in the order you got in the line. However not everyone wants to wait in line and take turn. So its up to you on the course for action you want to take. The tournament is still only open from 2-4pm server time. At this time I can not say if you went back out and caught another 40 fish, time permitting, if you could turn it in again and get the other prize. Good Luck and happy fishing.

Comment by Komon

There's been, what i assume, a bug thats been letting people win roughly every 10 minutes when a layer refreshes. However, on top of that, the Tournament is now available on SoD servers on Wednesday's from 7pm-9pm Server time. So that's neat.

Comment by Zarail

"- Only one player can turn in Master Angler and win the tournament per Stranglethorn Vale Fishing Extravaganza. "
Please update your web site. For Classic ERA - the tournament will reset every 10 minutes after the first angler turn's in their fish, giving other angler's a chance to win. Technically up to 12 angler's will have the chance to claim their prize and be a winner.

Comment by NinjaLooterLoveU

In 13 min ONE person will turn in the fish. Next, twice, the goblin will say the quest is over, and you cannot catch any fish from Mixed Schools until 5pm. The Goblin said 50 people can win. Shadowlands Developers destroyed the quest.

Comment by NinjaLooterLoveU

Take Chris Metzen fishing on this event! I want it live streamed on Twitch. I want to see his face!

Comment by NinjaLooterLoveU

Show Microsoft how the Fishing Event works!

Comment by drewnashty

Classic SoD
There are no Schools of Tastyfish in the Inland waters during the fishing tournament, just schools of Greater Sagefish, Oil Blackmouth, etc. Been like this for weeks, no matter the layer

Comment by Sandiggity

not occurring on anniversary servers as of today.

WoW Classic Stranglethorn Vale Fishing Extravaganza

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