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Comment by 21795

This is the quest completed by the first person to win the Kalu'ak Fishing Derby each week. Like the Booty Bay contest, there is a quest for winning, and a quest for all the later anglers ("Better Luck Next Time"). And you don't take either quest until you have the catch.

The contest (currently) starts 14:00 Saturday. Simply fish pools (schools) in Northrend until you catch a Blacktip Shark. Technically found anywhere Pygmy Suckerfish can be caught, but the catch rate is higher from pools (possibly except Glassfin Minnow Schools). Then turn in to Elder Clearwater in Dalaran. If you are the first, you can choose between an heirloom ring (with 5% experience bonus) or a pair of fishing boots (+15 skill, with a daily teleport to Booty Bay).(##RESPBREAK##)258##DELIM##Sas148##DELIM##

Comment by Malma

This is amazing for all the Bloodsail Admirals that wanted the Salty title! YAY!

Comment by 35894

This is preemptive. I know some people think this will, “...make the Salty title harder to obtain...” because of the heirloom ring, but I love this idea. I believe that Blizzard did this for 2 reasons: to level the playing field for the salty title and to potentially reduce the burden on anglers during the Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza.

As it stood before, some servers, especially PvP, became cesspools of poor sportsmanship during the STV tourney. In order to win, some people have posses that bobber hop faction mates with kodos, open trade windows, and run up and down the coast ganking whoever from the opposing faction may be in sight, not to mention having a couple of well geared Bloodsail Admirals run to Booty Bay to create mass hysteria, killing the quest guy. I understand that ganking is all part and partial to rolling on a PvP server; you signed up for it when you agreed to go swimming in the shark tank. I myself am guilty of this on behalf of guildmates. When other groups do that, you have no choice if you want to win but to resort to the same tactics (much on the order of a nuclear arms race), and I’m sure Blizzard has realized that this detracts from the WoW experience and leaves a bad taste in some people’s mouths.

With this tournament, it’s next to impossible for any single group to decide who the winner will be since the playing field is spread out over the entirety of a new continent. You cannot cover all of the fishing holes sufficiently to guarantee that no one else has a decent chance, so anyone who has one level 80 has as good a shot as anyone else given proper preparedness.

The institution of the tournament doubles the number of people who can earn the Salty title in a year. This means all those achievement @#$%^s who might foul up the STV tourney have two chances to earn the achievement per week and don’t necessarily have to resort to the aforementioned game stratagem. With more people earning the title this way, this should alleviate some of the burden on the original tourney, balancing out gameplay.

Yes, there is a vanilla item offered; big deal. Some people are going to fish only for that, true. It doesn’t matter. There are twice as many chances to show everyone who sees you how much you love fishing by displaying your hard earned title, and this guarantees that the title is still hard earned, not simply given away. You may down rate me for trying too hard, but a logic failure on your part doesn’t not make you an idiot. I know I have a double negative – it was intentional.

Comment by 445281

Is it true you require now no level of any type to fish in the pools?. Like, any lv 1 fishing skill can fish up around and get the shark?-.

Comment by 460039

~~The official patch says this is on Wed 8pm but right now it is 8:30pm server time but I don't see the npc Elder Clearwater spawning at the Eventide spring.~~

Edited, it is on 2pm Saturday.
It actually starts at my server time 1:58pm, the NPC yells out. And at 2:05 someone won it!

Be prepare for it, this could be very serious competition:
I stone my mage at camp winterhoof, howling fjord. And I see a few people camping fishing pool when time close, thinking of how many people want the ring!
I kept fishing until 2:20, I didn't get the shark, got a few suckerfish.
I have 450 fishing + 30 from the kulak fishing pole, I am not sure if higher fishing skill will actually work better.

Good luck.

Comment by Drazard

Won the contest today at 2:06 server time.
Turning the quest in gives you 5000 rep with The Kalu'ak, along with 26 gold, 46 silver

http://i778.photobucket.com/albums/yy65/Drazard3/WoWScrnShot_121209_170648.jpg

http://i778.photobucket.com/albums/yy65/Drazard3/WoWScrnShot_121209_170648.jpg

http://i778.photobucket.com/albums/yy65/Drazard3/WoWScrnShot_121209_170651.jpg

First one on Spirestone with it;D

Comment by 267292

I was the frst winner on Thrall server, yesterday. I fished in the body of water between Dragonblight and Grizzly Hills. I had fish finder on, I have the epic fishing pole, and I used a glow worm bait just in case. I have a 310% flying mount, and as a hunter I do have a movement bonus. Other than that, I think it was luck. I got the shark on my second pool. I have the port to Dalaran from the ring and I used that instead of hearthing because it is closer to the fountain, and then I just ran. I was shocked to be the winner, and the whole thing was over in 11 minutes.

I hope people find this helpful.

Comment by 500301

If you're not the first person to bring this in, do you still get a reward like the buyback for tastyfish in STV?

Comment by DukeFireBird

I just won it yesterday on Drenden. Got very lucky, catching the shark on the 17th cast in pools around Scholzar Basin.

Had an action bar consisting of CAST, HEARTH, MOUNT.

Crusader Aura active at all times, Ka'luak Pole, Fishing hat, boots, +100 lure, and water walking. I was astonished to learn that I did win this, and my guild congratulated me on the achievment, and now I have a new ring to level an alt with!

Comment by JondanDex

Is it possible to run this quest twice? Both rewards look pretty neat

Comment by Killgore9998

I have two questions about this, neither of which anyone seems to have answered yet.

1) Is there a quest that you need to pick up in order to be eligible to fish up the shark? (I believe the answer is no, but I would hate to be ineligible without even realizing it)

2) The NPC that yells the announcement that the contest is starting is located in Dalaran. So, presumably, if you want to maximize your chance of winning, you won't hear the announcement, because you're already at a pool somewhere starting to cast. The announcement doesn't echo through all of northrend, does it? How is it possible that some people here posted that they won AFTER hearing the announcement in Dalaran and then traveling to the nearest fishing spot (which would probably take at least a couple minutes of precious time), unless they were just incredibly lucky for having no one else (with any brains) to compete with?

Comment by 64303

Entirely luck based. No matter your fishing skill (could be 1), no matter your speed, where you fish or how you fish. Any water (pool or no) that can drop pygmy suckerfish can yield a shark. Pools drop pygmy more, so pools are your best bet for a shark. However, if you want, you can camp in one spot and fish open water and still have a shot at winning.

Comment by MrFix3

Couple of tips to win this contest:

- Have water walking elixirs so you can easily fish any pool without aggroing mobs on the shore. This helps along the coast of Borean Tundra (for example).

- Initially I thought I'd be sly and fish out by the pools in the Frozen Sea (where you get the Bloated Mosterbelly for the fishing daily) off the coast of Borean Tundra. However, I noticed that I did not get the announcement of the start of the tournament in my chat window, so I suspect that maybe this area may not have the shark in pools. I fished about five or six pools before getting paranoid and heading in to the coast.

- Even with this late start (about 3 mins into the contest) I fished up the shark in about another two minutes. I immediately portaled back to Dalran (Kirin Tor ring) and ran to the quest giver...beat the next person by about five seconds. So although this contest ends really quickly, don't give up until you hear the announcement that there is a winner.

Hope this helps with your attempts to win this contest.

Comment by 323093

Either I'm very unlucky or once a winner is announced it is not possible to obtain a Blacktip Shark. Spent over half a hour fishing Fangtooh pools, and nothing. This is after an initial 10 minutes in Grizzly Hills.

Comment by Aenonar

Didn't get any winner yell nor the ending yell when I were fishing in the frozen sea, out by the icebergs in Borean Tundra, wasted an hour thinking I still had a chance at winning.

Didn't find any shark either, even with over 300 fishes caught in pools... Had some problems with the elixir of water walking out there as well for some reason, it only worked temporarily on very few "points" in the water, not at all like shamans water walk or priests levitate works.. Could barely use it as an emergency mount up if I had slipped off the iceberg or something, could definitely not use it for fishing there. Would continuously just drop down into the water again after a while, if I managed to find a "hard" point in the water. Really odd.

Comment by cloverman84

Won this today - flew from my VoA raid to scholazar basin 5 mins after the comp had started.. put on my hat fishing lure and fished it up on my first cast :D

Hearthed and beat a Night Elf that came to hand in a split second after me.. Also got my last 40 Kalu'ak rep to ding exalted and grabbed my rod to go with my new boots. A good day all in all :)

*downrated lol? Back in 3.3 when this was posted it was something to be proud of.. don't see why people in 4.3 are downvoting. Jealous much?

** lol just noticed every comment on this thread has a negative rating :p someone's upset the've never won this...

Comment by Elastik

Just lost the fishing derby due to my slow loading. I was standing next to the npc for over a minute waiting for him to load and saw someone else win in the chat. What a facepalm moment. Upgrade your computer if you want to win this. :P

Comment by FuxieDK

Today, Elder Clearwater seem to sleep late, atleast om my server...
The event was anounced at 13:56:07 and started at 14:01:07..

Comment by FuxieDK

2) The NPC's yelling can be heard all over the Northrend, so simply stay at a pool when the time is close, you will hear it, for sure!

Except in "The Frozen Sea"...
However, there are no Pools in The Frozen Sea, so eventhough Suckerfish does drop from there, the chance of catching the shark, is minimized..

Comment by Silvertale

This contest seems like complete bull to me. Every time now, I've been constantly fishing in pools in Grizzly Hills/Howling Fjord for about half an hour without ever seeing a shark.

The winner is usually announced within the first 5 minutes of the contest. It just feels really frustrating when people seem to get it so easily, and I don't even see a hint of it in 30 minutes.

Is there any amount of fishing skill that you need to fish it up or something? I use a lure, pole and hat that brings my skill up to 585... So I'm starting to wonder if I need 600 skill or more to fish it up.

Comment by weirdunclebob

Annoyingly, if I'd been alliance, I would've won this today as my hearthstone would've taken me to the alliance inn in Dalaran which is much closer to Elder Clearwater than the horde inn. As I was clicking the complete quest button, some alliance angler won the comp. Small (no doubt unintentional) bias toward the alliance. Grr. >=(

Comment by 532125

I just won on my second week in about 4 to 5 minutes. I was fishing in the lake west of Camp Winterhoof. The lake itself had around 6 or 7 pools. I ran out of pools and followed the east-most river down to the middle portion of the zone, fishing pools along the way. The place was empty and had minimal travel time. Good luck.

Comment by 469022

Last week i won the Kalu'ak Fishing Derby and i would like to share my experience.

I've been hunting this achievement for at least 5 months. I did all the preparation mentioned here and in other various sites, but i had no luck with Booty Bay fishing contest. The reason was that the place was small, always full of people, and there was too much pvp activity. My best catch before a winner was announced, was 33/40 fishes and my worst only 20/40 fishes. Also there were always players of both factions covering the quest giver, so even if you had 40/40 fishes, it was impossible to turn in the quest without attacking an opposing faction player. So, after about 7-8 attempts i stopped doing the contest.

When new patch went live i decided to participate on the Kalu'ak Fishing Derby. Having done all the other fishing achievements, i knew the best places of pools in Northend and how fast they re-spawn. By far the best place with pools and really nice re-spawn time, is the place around Skorn in Howling Fjord. This was the place that i fished the turtle and the dark herring. But i didn't go there to try my luck, because i knew that this place is well known by most of the players hunting fishing achievements, and it would be full.

So i tried the second best place with fishing pools which is Sholazar Basin. The best place in there, with many pools and good re-spawn time is the lake at (38,38), but again it didn't go fish there because it had many people. So i picked an empty spot at The Lost lands at (68,42) and made the route as seen on the map. Around these pins there is at least one pool assuming that no other has fished recently.

I managed to catch the shark, on my 5th attempt on the contest, and on my 15th cast, which was the 4th pool that i fished in, and it was around (58,55). The time from the beginning of the event until turn in, was 6:30-7 mins. So if you are the lucky one, you won't need more than 4-5 pools. Also make sure your hearthstone is not at CD. On my last cast, i found out that mine had 2 more mins on CD. I hot-keyed the Kirin Tor ring while i was attempting my last cast, and to my surprise a few seconds later i got the shark. I teleport to Dalaran, mount on my chopper and run like hell to the quest giver. At that time i see another player there, but as it turned out he was just curious of the new quest giver.

The preparation i did is the usual:

PVP gear/fully buffed just in case a player from the opposing faction attacks you.
Hot-key all the necessary things you need (fishing pole, flying mount, ground mount, water walking potions, hearthstone, Kirin Tor ring, Potions for extra fishing skill),
As a Paladin i had Crusader Aura on.
When you land near a fishing pool, try to land on ground instead of water, because the water walking potion isn't working all the times. Also try to be on the side where you can see the fishing pool better.
Wear headphones to listen the sounds better.
Make sure that your hearthstone/Kirin Tor Ring is NOT on CD.
Disable addons. This way the Dalaran loading screen will be quicker.
Make sure you have decided which reward you want from the quest giver at Dalaran.
Success (?)

I hope all these helps you winning the Kalu'ak fishing derby, and the Salty title.

Comment by wooderino

I was lucky enough to just win today's Fishing Derby.

Although this event is completely based around an RNG, if you're persistent then your chance should come sooner or later. I've been fishing for this every Saturday since the event came out and the vast majority of the time would fish for 45 minutes - 1 hour and never even see the shark, today it showed up in a Nettlefish School in Sholazar at 2:04 PM.

As others have said, location and skill are not a factor. As long as the pools drop the pygmy suckerfish you should be good anywhere in Northrend. I did have 450 fishing with +40 skill from gear, but as other posters have stated above this is entirely unnecessary.

Comment by 541018

I have to admit I was quite disappointed by this quest. I am a Salty title holder shortly after the release of WotLK, and have just come back to the game after a 6 month break. Winning or losing this event isn't really one of those "ruin my day kind of things", just exceptionally unsatisfying.

I tried the quest for the first time not 20 minutes ago, and by 2:01 server time a winner was already announced. At that point I asked myself, "Well done Blizzard. While I am happy you have given people a better chance at doing an exceptionally hard to obtain Achievement, you took any little measure of skill out of it."

I will have to admit, I didn't earn my title on a PvP server. Honestly, I think you have to be somewhat crazy to have tried to even do this on a PvP server when there was only the STV event. However, even on a PvE server there's quite a bit of competition, and catching those 40 fish took a little planning and effort.

Things like having the correct level of fishing skill, taking a little time and effort to know where the fishing holes spawn, bringing some water walking pots for that extra edge, reading the flow of the crowd and working in the opposite direction. Catching those 40 fish wasn't easy at all, and it was by far the most rewarding thing I've done in this game when I handed in the quest and it announced to the zone I was a winner.

So now we have the Kalu'ak Fishing Derby. From what I saw today, it basically boils down to: Who is the luckiest SOB on your server?

At the very least they need to up the number of fish you have to catch, and force you to do a tad more than beat the RNG. I'm absolutely cool with opening the entirety of Northrend to the event, it makes sense especially in light of people on PvP servers, but I wish Blizzard would at least throw a little thought into making it skillful, even if it's only slight.

Comment by 548460

I'm about to try this new tourney for the first time tomorrow as it is the last achiev req. for my salty title. Thx for all the tips. Also after reading through all this I think that Bojyoko might just be on to something. I'm not afraid of a bit of a challenge, some skill should be required, even if its just strategical skill that comes into play.
So you have to catch a shark for this one huh? Spawns anywhere that pygmy suckerfish are caught? How about making us catch 2 things.. Lets say the shark is one and something else that doesnt spawn from the same kind of pools? How about a penguin? The catch to this could be that it much be netted anywhere that Iceburgs are found. The net could be obtained from the quest giver in Dalaran before the tourney starts and can only be used from 2 o'clock server time until a winner has been announced. Just food for thought.

WTB

Comment by 466069

Hm..

As of patch 3.3.2 14:04 on Eonar (6th march 2010) i won the derby on my lvl 72 druid.
Fishing skill 263 without any bait.

So i guess anyone who can fish in Northrend can do this. Just a matter of luck, not skill. :)

Comment by 14860

I won the derby at my first attempt today. I delivered the quest at 14:06 realm time.
- Most important thing is to decide a fishing route in your mind before the derby begins. Check the area for other fishers and change your route before derby if necessary. If you don't have find fish ability go for the fishing daily given by Old Man Barlo.
- Every second counts so consider every advice above, those helped me a lot.
- I got lots of whispers when I delivered, it seems I won by a few seconds differ. So if you are in a high populated realm get every kind of help that makes you faster. Trinket, potion etc. I used my rocket boots when I reached to Dalaran.
- Bring a friend with you if you think you can't handle a pvp encounter.

Good luck, you will definitely need it.

Comment by 262850

I won it today. I don't know if anyone else was close behind me, but the entire time I was fishing I had a warlock summon riding on me, and as soon as I fished up the shark I took it.

I multibox, so I had a team of 3 camping out in the Glorious Goods shop next to the fountain with a summon stone up full-time, refreshing it the instant it went down. So I saved both the 10 seconds to hearth back, and the run from the inn where my hearth was set (I play horde, so it's a ways).

I know not everyone multiboxes, but with a large enough guild you should be able to find a friendly warlock and 2 other people to roll summons on you and your guildmates as you do the event.

Comment by 47022

Honestly - it comes down to luck. After trying for literally months and months at this achievement, from location after location in Northrend, I can tell you all - stay out of Crystalthorn, but beyond that: it's only luck.

Comment by 112032

This is really nice, cought the fish in 5 min and teleported to Dalaran and won the competition in 5 min :) Was my 19th throw:) Logged on and saw the big fellow yell for a derby starting in 5 min, and went to Wowhead.com to read more about it and decided to go for that too:)

Comment by Koori

Wanted to add my 2 cents after winning today, you DO NOT have to fish out of a pool. I decided not waste my time flying from pool to pool and parked myself at a river in Grizzly Hills. Caught it my 20th cast ... longest 10 second hearth ever. Good luck!

Comment by jar4677

Lost this today by about 1/10th of a second. sigh

Comment by 86356

I just won the derby on my first time trying it! I have tried the STV one a number of times but never came close, and usually just got into fights with idiots.

The boots looked nice, but my main is 74 since I quit a while back and just returned, and I have many alts, so I went with the ring. I'll definitely try again for the boots. Sundays are harder, schedule-wise, I doubt I'll ever get the STV win.

edit- the rep reward is 5000 with the Kalu'ak, not 250,000. I was hoping to be auto-exalted, but 5k is still nice since I have a few more days of rep quests to finish. Brings me down to about 6 days instead of 8.

If anyone is wondering, my character is 74 with 430 fishing and a total of +100 from bait, hat and pole.

Comment by 552784

Won this derby today and got myself the boa ring. I scouted out the lake south of fort wildervar in howling fjord and found nobody there 5 minutes before the contest started, so I got my fishing rod on standby as I waited for the contest to begin. After 15 casts (about 5 fangtooth herring pools), I got the shark and proceeded to hearth to the alliance inn in dalaran. My computer is decent enough so that I didn't really need to bother lowering my graphics settings to make the load bar faster as it loaded pretty much instantly, at which point I immediately blew my nitro boosts and ran like hell to elder clearwater and frantically clicked on the ring reward. I beat the guy in 2nd place by about 10 seconds. I might also add that this was my 2nd time ever doing any of the fishing contests, the first being the previous week where I spent a half hour fishing in the same spot and didn't get a shark at all.

Comment by LexDozel

So who loves RNG?

Comment by dingdong34

i won this with 300 fishing so it really depends on you luck :P

Comment by Lotus

Managed to win this kind of on accident while farming for Musselback Sculpin in Borean Tundra.

There is a very nice area for MS just NE of Warsong Hold, I usually go there to farm my fish feast mats. Area is usually empty but slightly before the derby started about 6 people arrived to fish the pools for the shark. I simply flew off and looked for other sculpin pools to fish out of.

You can find some slightly scattered around the area west of the Lake mentioned above, along the coast line. It was fishing in these pools that I caught the shark, about 6 minutes into the derby. I was a little surprised and used my hearth to return to Dalaran. I chose the boots as a reward as I very rarely play Alts anymore and I think they will be of more use when Cataclysm hits with raising my fishing skill and maybe getting whatever new treats they intend to put in.

Just a reminder to you all, its not always the busiest spot that will catch the winning fish.

Comment by Zombloat

Blizzard in all their genius decided to break the zone-wide announcement that the event was beginning or that someone has won. Sat around waiting for the message before starting a minute after 2pm server time, my guildmate ended up winning after 5 pools, while I never got the fish after 50+ pools.

Comment by dietdelre

There's no announcement on Wrath classic servers, you have to watch the clock. Don't start fishing until it's 5:00pm server time, not local time. Save your casts as each pool is valuable and you don't want to waste them. If you're on a huge server like me, expect to get the fish in the first 5 minutes or you'll most likely lose that week. I got super lucky today, was sharing pools with a few other horde AND ally. you want to maximize your casts and this can be difficult if a lot of people share the same route/if you encounter PVP.
On medium-smaller servers you could keep fishing until 15 minutes.
OR on any size server have someone else stationed by the fountain in Dal, and they can tell you if someone has won the contest or not.

My Route:
Started in the river that is located in the east of Dragonblight.
Went east into the delta at Grizzy hills and fished my way to Venture bay.
Caught the Blacktip shark in an Imperial Manta Ray school near the ships. (caught at 5:05pm)

Good luck!

Comment by Arccai

I get the damn shark 3 minutes after it started, hs back and run quickly, no player is there! and, and same goes for NPC.......

F M L

Comment by Kurotan

I've been attempting this tournament every Saturday since WoTLK Classic launched. Still haven't won. Every week I see these people who come and accidentally win or win on their 2nd attempt. Every week I come back for more self-harm. I spent years attempting the Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza on retail and finally got it in Shadowlands. So it took me... like 14-16 years to win the Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza. Still haven't won this one on retail or in WoTLK Classic.

All I want is my BIS ring for my level 19 twink. Is that too much to ask for? :'c

Comment by FullMetalMoo

Seems like the boots are a tool to help win the STV fishing tourney.

Links

Kalu'ak Fishing Derby

Progress

The Kalu'ak have a long tradition of honing our fishing skills by putting them to the test every week.

The first person to catch and bring a blacktip shark to me will be rewarded handsomely, and be known as the greatest fisherman of the north... for a couple days at least.

The blacktip shark's favorite food is the pygmy suckerfish. Try fishing for the blacktip wherever you would normally catch the suckerfish.

	Blacktip Shark (1)

Completion

Rewards

You will be able to choose one of these rewards:

	Dread Pirate Ring		Boots of the Bay

You will also receive:

	Dread Pirate Ring		Boots of the Bay

Gains

Upon completion of this quest you will gain:

2,500 reputation with The Kalu'ak

See if you've already completed this by typing:

/run print(C_QuestLog.IsQuestFlaggedCompleted(24803))

Kalu'ak Fishing Derby

Progress

Completion

Rewards

Gains

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