El's Extreme Anglin' - World of Warcraft Fishing Guide // Fish Finder // Sea Turtle

This page summarises how to catch Sea Turtle. For a more detailed guide, see Catching the Sea Turtle Mount.

About Sea Turtle

• Binds when caught.
• Use: Teaches the Sea Turtle mount. Requires Riding skill 75. Level 30 is required to learn riding, and use the mount. Increases swim speed by 60%. The turtle is the same shape as the Riding Turtle mount gained from playing cards, but is a different color. They are probably related: One driven to extinction by greedy goblins, the other by over-enthusiastic anglers!

Catching Sea Turtle

Notes: Very rarely caught from any pool in Northrend.

Commentary: Catch rate is estimated between 1/2000 and 1/5000. Someone will always manage to catch a Sea Turtle on their second cast. But realistically, you should expect to spend days fishing for this mount: Pool fishing averages about 2 catches a minute, including time moving between pools. So 5000 catches would take over 40 hours of fishing.

Detailed Guide: Catching the Sea Turtle Mount - Strategies for catching the Sea Turtle, a rare mount.

Related Achievement: Turtles All the Way Down: Fish up a Sea Turtle mount from any fishing pool in Northrend. Strategy guide to Catching the Sea Turtle Mount.

History: 3.1: First caught.

• [*] % of Catch is the approximate proportion of all catches in this area/water, that are the named fish.

Images

Other Tomes

• Thottbot
• Wowhead
• Allakhazam
• WoWWiki
• US Armory
• EU Armory

Learn More

• Valuable Fish - Details the most valuable fish, and how to catch them.
• Pools and Wreckage - Describes how to fish pools such as schools or floating debris, where to find pools, and how to efficiently fish them.
• Wrath of the Lich King - Fishing changes in Wrath of the Lich King, the second expansion to World of Warcraft.
• Fishing Achievements - Introduction to fishing-related personal achievements.
• 3.1 Changes - Patch 3.1's changes to fishing, including new fishing poles and Wintergrasp.
• Catching the Sea Turtle Mount - Strategies for catching the Sea Turtle, a rare mount.
• Sea Turtle - Warcraft Mounts information.

Below are anglers' comments about Sea Turtle.

Turtle, in how many catches did you (not) get it?

1. fredje222, April 2009:

   Thought i just made this topic because the other topic isnt really about cathing it :p
   so post all stuff you fished here while looking for turtle and where you fished it :)

   Almost fished non-stop since patch released, 2500 catches done and still no bloody mount, this will be a tough one... Fished in the Frozen Sea just south of Boreans...

   Btw all my catches are fish caught (that includes pygmy suckerfish/crystallized water/reinforced crate) no junk catches (well a couple, because of missed pools)...

   Edit: 3000, still no mount
   Edit: 3500, still no mount
   Edit: 4000, still no mount
   Edit: 4500, still no mount
   Edit: 5000, still no mount
   Edit: 5500, still no mount
   Edit: 6000, still no mount
   Edit: 6500, still no mount -> changed the title :p
   Edit: 7000, still no mount
   Edit: 7500, still no mount
   Edit: 8000, still no mount
   Edit: 8500, still no mount
   Edit: 9000, still no mount -> changed my place from Frozen Sea too Grizzly Hills... lots more money to be made here
   Edit: 9500, still no mount
   Edit: 10,000, still no mount -> whopteefreakingdoo

2. Gihelle, April 2009:

   Nearing 600 casts now...

3. Gishey, April 2009:

   I'm up to about 850 casts at the moment. Nothing yet.

1. Meraxes, April 2009:

   I wasn't counting, but I fished about 30 in Fangtooth Herring Schools then 2 in a Glacial Salmon School. So around 32. Keep fishin!

2. m, April 2009:

   Caught it 30mins ago :D
   (Catch nr. 72 this evening)
   MfG
   Òóm

3. Zarnoth, April 2009:

   I'm at about the 1100 mark, still no turtle..Just had a guildy catch his at the 20th cast. Loading my gun now.

   *Update* 2200 still no turtle...
   *Update* 3000 still no turtle...
   *Update* 3500 still no turtle...
   *Update* 4000 still no turtle...
   *Update* 4500 still no turtle...

   *Update* 4724 FINALLY WOOT!

4. Numbers, April 2009:

   Id say it took around 200 casts for me. I just did the round in the Frozen Sea.

5. Cori, April 2009:

   THe Frozen sea is definatley best as theres loads of pools close together, took 10 cast's which seems to be realy lucky

6. osgald, April 2009:

   Got it on my 20th pool I'd guess, lake in dragonblight. Seems very streaky from the posts here...

7. ferenc, April 2009:

   about the same as numbers, around 200 casts from a fangtooth school in the small lake just on the west side of utgarde keep

8. Secretsauce, April 2009:

   Got it on my 5th cast, and yes I'm serious, it was in Sholazar Basin.

   I thought this was supposed to be difficult to get, did the blizzard people misplace a decimal point?

9. Eloderung, April 2009:

   Over 900 casts in various pools so far and zero luck on the mount.

10. Nonzor, April 2009:

    I got mine after 120-some casts in Borean Tundra (from a pool of Imperial Manta Ray), shortly after my server came online. Very cool to have the achievement done on the date that the patch released. >grin<

    Good luck to all you anglers!

11. setsuko, April 2009:

    I'm probably around 150 and haven't got it so far. This is slightly off topic, but due to the insanely large amount of people on my server, I'm having a very hard time fishing somewhere where people don't fish in my pools despite me being there first :(

    This of course -never- happened pre-patch.

12. Paralord, April 2009:

    So far I am at 880 or so fish and still no luck, I have been fishing south of Borean, mainly on the icebergs.

13. Kelushapa, April 2009:

    Just got mine after about 80 catches in an imperial manta pool in BT. In the little strip between the major land mass and the area where the Nexxus is located. Super lucky! Now just wish I could win an extravaganza, lol!! Good luck everyone!

14. droppings, April 2009:

    Got mine around the 800th cast. I saved all fish caught and counted that (not including the suckerfish) and ended up with 683. That also doesnt take into consideration a fair number of junk catches, crates, and crystals. Caught it in an Imperial Manta Ray school as i was following the coastline in HF

15. Vagg, April 2009:

    I just got my mount in Sholazar Basin, in the River's Heart area on my third pool of fish in that area. I fished for an hour or so in the Frozen Sea with no luck and went to SB to pick up a new egg from the Oracles and decided to try the few pools that were there. 15ish cast later there was my achievement.

16. Oom, April 2009:

    You don't think it has a higher chance to drop from higher level pools than the lower level pools such as Herring?

17. InfectedZombie, April 2009:

    Up to 945 casts. gotten 3 dark herrings, no turtle.

18. 222 more comments. Continue reading or reply »

Coralshell Turtle, a mount?

1. C Rage, March 2009:

   El says: For a summary of strategies, see Catching the Sea Turtle Mount. Original post:

   In the latest build, according to the data mining at MMO Champion, there is a new mount...

   Coralshell Turtle - Summons and dismisses a rideable Coralshell Turtle. This is a very fast mount, both on land and in water.

   And it has been reported here, that "The One That Didn't Get Away" has a baby Coralshell Turtle added to it. Could we finally be getting a fishing mount?

2. TheTacoMan, March 2009:

   i will kill someone in cold blood for a turtle mount....

   I've wanted one ever since i saw the one from the TCG, and seeing the Kal'ulk ride them around just made me want it more :(

3. Lebeline, March 2009:

   *takes 3 steps back from TheTacoMan*
   =) I really hope that it is fishing based, I'm just hoping its not like a fishing extravaganza 2.0 because that would suck

1. el, March 2009:

   The achievement lists a Baby Coralshell Turtle, although the mount is intriguing. If I've read the data correctly, the mount increases both land and swim speed by 100%. There's also a Baby Shark icon in the data files, so perhaps that rumored minipet really exists now?

   Hard to discover much, because the servers are restarting every few minutes at the moment. However, I did pull some Tangled Fishing Line and Driftwood out of Sholazar Basin. Both are junk, but I don't recall seeing them before.

2. TheTacoMan, March 2009:

   Two things i thought about:

   A: The 'Baby Coralshell Turtle' behaves like the oracles egg, after 7 days (or whatever) it grows into a full grown mount

   B: The baby Coralshell turtle starts a quest, in which you have to return it to a Kal'ulk village. As a reward, you get a full grown turtle mount

   Obviously, no-one is pulling a full sized mount out of the water, so this seems like a clever way to work around it

3. C Rage, March 2009:

   When reading the info, the first thing I thought of was those giant turtles that run the routes between the Tuskarr villages. A baby version of those of those would be about right for a normal mount for us. It is true that it wouldn't make much sense to catch a full sized mount.

   After puzzling it out for a bit, I have come up with a few more places to keep an eye on...

   A unimplemented achievement reward.

   An addition to one of the rep vendors, perhaps Kalu'ak?

   Or an addition to the Mysterious Egg.

   The more I think on this, the more possible places to look. Right now the servers are still down, so I can't even start poking around.

   Edit:

   Looking on wotlkwiki, they have a icon listed as "INV_Misc_Fish_Turtle_03.png" on the main page right now. We at least have a icon for now.

4. el, March 2009:

   (I don't wish to dampen your enthusiasm, but I believe INV_Misc_Fish_Turtle_01-3 have been in the data files since last summer. This, for the curious.)

5. TheTacoMan, March 2009:

   As the 'Baby Coralshell Turtle' is included in the one that got away, one would assume that you simply catch it as you would a dark herring. WHERE is the question. If it's related to the Kalu'ak, it could be anywhere in dragonblight, Borean Trunda OR howling fjord. My money is on it being catchable ONLY from the Frozen Sea (what kind of sea turtle lives inland?)

6. wisely, March 2009:

   If I have to take a guess,

   I would say the turtle pet will be a rare catch while the mount will be from rep award of the Kalu'ak.

   There are quite a few NPC in of the faction are riding on the turtle mounts currently.

   OR,

   this could be the new rep reward from The Silver Covenant, but I can't think of any relationship between them and this mount.

7. Gummo, March 2009:

   Another note, the turtle mount would be another "equalizer"; right now, DKs can use path of frost to cross water at full mount speed, so having a turtle mount would allow non-DKs to keep up.

8. el, March 2009:

   Official confirmation of, "A new (and very rare) special mount can now be caught from Northrend fishing pools."

9. Oom, March 2009:

   el wrote:

   Official confirmation of, "A new (and very rare) special mount can now be caught from Northrend fishing pools."

   Yea I just read it!!! I just hope the catch rate isn't something crazy like 1 in 10,000 or 20,000.

   Just gives me a whole new reason to skip Teldrassil and farm the Howling Fjord pools after patch for the achievement One That Didn't Get Away and the new mount!!!

10. Gummo, March 2009:

    I hope the "very rare" mount isn't soulbound; since it has a unique (as far as I know) ability to travel on land & water at fast speed, it would sell for quite a lot.

11. Genom, March 2009:

    Oh god. Another reason to spend inordinate amounts of time fishing and cursing.

12. wisely, March 2009:

    Other than the engineer / tailor crafted mount, there is currently no any other mount that is not soubound.

    So I would say mostly likely this will be a BOP mount, but still, this is a HUGE buff to fishing and no doubt will bring much more people into this.

13. wisely, March 2009:

    Also,

    I believe this mount will be totally unique than the DK or Shaman waterwalk skill,

    I believe this mount should be moving INSIDE the water or UNDER the water with fast speed.

    and thats a huge difference.

    Again, this is a pure guess, I believe the speed may not be as fast as the spedd of a fast ground mount, but I believe the speed inside the water should be at least faster than a glyhed druid.

14. narvil, March 2009:

    wisely wrote:

    Also,
    I believe this mount will be totally unique than the DK or Shaman waterwalk skill,
    I believe this mount should be moving INSIDE the water or UNDER the water with fast speed.
    and thats a huge difference.
    Again, this is a pure guess, I believe the speed may not be as fast as the spedd of a fast ground mount, but I believe the speed inside the water should be at least faster than a glyhed druid.

    Blue post

    Zarhym wrote:

    The current iteration of the mount will give a 100% speed increase on land and in water. :)

    These changes are taken from the latest version of the PTR notes and are subject to change.

    note it says IN water.

15. TheTacoMan, March 2009:

    So its out there, in the PTR currently, who's dedicated enough to try and catch it in the PTR and give us all a first opinion? :P

16. Calibad, March 2009:

    Salty Caliban is on the case.

17. TheTacoMan, March 2009:

    note that it specifically says pools, which is where it differs from the other 'one that didn't get away' fish, that could be caught in open water OR pools

18. 71 more comments. Continue reading or reply »

Biggest concentration of pools for turtle mount?

1. fredje222, April 2009:

   So the new turtle mount will be fishable from any pool in northrend, completly random...
   Like evry good fisher i'm gonna fish like hell till i get it :p but i was wondering where the biggest concentration of pools is for fishing it...

   So what do you think?

2. el, April 2009:

   I suspect the biggest (closest) concentration is in the Frozen Sea, just south of Borean Tundra. Sholazar Basin also has a lot of pools, fairly close together. Both are higher skill areas, which will tend to reduce the number of people fishing.

   Of course there are locations such as Lake Kum'uya (near Warsong Hold in Borean Tundra) where pools generally respawn fast enough to allow one angler to go round and round the same lake. So you might not need a huge concentration. Likewise, it is reasonably effective to fly round the coast of Northrend, or along the rivers of Grizzly Hills.

   There are other things to consider, such as who else is fishing, the value of the normal fish you are (mostly) catching, and whether you can (mentally) survive fishing the same handful of pools for days. Personally (over 6,000 pool catches so far - and no turtle), I have to keep on moving to new areas, just to break up the boredom...

3. fredje222, April 2009:

   tbh, i'm kinda glad you have 6000 catches and still no turtle
   how harder to catch, how cooler it will be to have :p

   thanks for the good idea's, seems their are enough good spots and moving around will be needed idd if i dont wanna go crazy :p

1. InfectedZombie, April 2009:

   i have the turtle mount from the tcg, he probably wont see the light of day once i fish this up!

2. heathisrael, April 2009:

   "Barely outpaces Hook of the Master Angler"

   Umm, not sure about that. The hook is 25% swim speed bonus correct? And the mount is 60%. Not to mention that you have to wait 30 seconds after equipping the trinket to use it so the mount is WAY better imo.

   The thing i'm curious about is what happens when you leave the water? can the turtle go on land or do you auto dismount??

   If it can't get out of the water, the mount will simply suck...just like the trinket sucks when you hit air bubbles (it knocks you out of form whenever you hit an air bubble).

   hopefully it'll give you 60% riding speed in AND out of water (so it'll behave like a lvl 30 mount out of water).

3. Dethwolf, April 2009:

   hmm yes offshore is probably best place to fish..until everyone reads our posts lol

4. fredje222, April 2009:

   meh, most of you are us servers anyway :p

5. Secretsauce, April 2009:

   So, brace yourself for the hate..... I just fished up the turtle mount. I went into sholazar to do the fishing daily (ghostfish), saw a nettlefish pool, 5 casts later.... TURTLE.

   One, this mount is not nearly as big as I thought it was. Two, I'm a little disappointed because I thought it was going to be a challenge. That said, I'm moving slowly through Dalaran on a cool new mount!

6. Azaguth, April 2009:

   I hate you.

   No, honestly, grats!

   Too bad my server JUST came up.

7. Boothby, April 2009:

   I fished mine up about an hour ago in the little lake by Westwind Refugee Camp. That area has a pretty good concentration of pools and rarely anyone there.

8. Nonzor, April 2009:

   Woot! I just fished up the turtle mount in Borean Tundra from an Imperial Manta Ray school. (I spent over an hour fishing in The Frozen Sea and had a bag of cuttlefish and monsterbelly, so was just fooling around looking for other pools.) Of course I mounted immediately - and was pleased to see that while riding underwater I didn't get a breath bar ... I wonder if that will change?

   Happy casting!

9. Secretsauce, April 2009:

   So..... is the drop on the turtle mount abnormally high for some reason? If all of us got one this quickly, and it took El 6000 casts to get nothing, maybe something is wrong in the coding.

10. Batter, April 2009:

    Fished up my turtle mount about a half hour ago in Borean fishing for Musselback Sculpin at around the 350 catch mark. I was shocked (and pretty pumped) that it dropped so soon!

    Good luck everyone!

11. el, April 2009:

    Congratulations and thanks for the reports. Keep in mind that random loot is random. So many people are trying to catch the Sea Turtle, it is inevitable a few people will be lucky.

12. shuuya, April 2009:

    I got my sexy turtle from Glassfin Minnow pools in Crystalsong Forest. I love this thing. :D

13. samboda, April 2009:

    Secretsauce wrote:

    So..... is the drop on the turtle mount abnormally high for some reason? If all of us got one this quickly, and it took El 6000 casts to get nothing, maybe something is wrong in the coding.

    It's a random drop with a low drop %, some will get it after a few catches, others after thousands, and others will never get it. And dont forget that this is a site about wow fishing so u will see other ppl posting that they got the turtle.

14. Meraxes, April 2009:

    Glacial Salmon pools in Grizzly were going to be my place. The salmon sells well and is used for fish feasts. Might as well do something productive while trying for the turtle.

15. Suran, April 2009:

    Got my turtle after 127 Salmons in Grizzly Hills.

16. Dethwolf, April 2009:

    Hmmm none of the turtles so far from what I see here and on the wow forums were from the frozen sea so far.........I figured the pools where u can see the giant turtle boat is the LOGICAL place to catch turtle mount

    Sigh 450 casts last night...I'll try to fishfor an hour or so tonight out there again

17. fredje222, April 2009:

    fishing next to warsong hold, going fine, lots of pools

18. 26 more comments. Continue reading or reply »

Sea Turtle Mount photos - share them!

1. Nonzor, April 2009:

   I've got a lot of people asking me to stop so they can take a better look at the turtle ... and I'd ask too, if I hadn't been one of the lucky ones who's caught one. Happy casting, everybody!

   <img src="http://i680.photobucket.com/albums/vv164/Nonzor/SeaTurtleMount-1.jpg" border="0" alt="Sea Turtle Mount, WoW 3.1">

2. fredje222, April 2009:

   bah i hate them stupid people that already have the mount, i wanna be the first to show it off!

3. el, April 2009:

   I'll put up some sort of gallery of the best images. Please either:

   • host them on another site (Imageshack, etc) and post a link - in this topic, or another forum turtle topic - there are plenty in the "catch" topic already, which is great; or
   • mail the best picture to el @ elsanglin.com.

   (There's no image uploading here, but it's probably a feature worth adding in future.)

1. Oom, April 2009:

   Got mine about an hour ago, with about 600 casts under my belt since patch:

   http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v477/Blood_Vixen/WoWScrnShot_041809_003709.jpg

2. Isa, April 2009:

   I got it yesterday. In, say, two hours.

3. Gihelle, April 2009:

   Here's my pics. Feel free to steal them like you did with the Lurker tutorial, El!

   (just kidding, it's actually an honor to be able to help :))

   http://img2.imageshack.us/img2/6492/turtle1.jpg
   http://img2.imageshack.us/img2/1908/turtle2.jpg
   http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/2288/turtle3.jpg

4. Bindar, April 2009:

   Here is me on my Sea Turtle (in the water off of Borean Tundra):
   http://picasaweb.google.com/NikonDahl/WorldOfWarcraft#5326239206357007986

   And here is looting the turtle:
   http://picasaweb.google.com/NikonDahl/WorldOfWarcraft#5326088718845828194

   While I was hunting for the turtle, my statistic "fish and other things caught" increased by about 2,600 (a moderate fraction of that were Pygmy fish caught in tandem with other things from pools).

5. el, April 2009:

   Indeed, Gihelle. I've started illustrating the Sea Turtle guide with pictures posted on the forum. I decided that was the logical place for a few of them. If anyone has any objection to being shown there, just let me know.

6. Kreight, April 2009:

   Well, for dumb looks I've got you all beat. A cow riding a turtle is pretty far up the goofy scale.

   http://www.woodenbadger.com/wow/turtle01.jpg
   http://www.woodenbadger.com/wow/turtle02.jpg
   http://www.woodenbadger.com/wow/turtle03.jpg

7. ausry, April 2009:

   Turtle Mount + noggenfogger + speedy = priceless.
   "Turtle cavalry... CCHHHAAARRRGGEEEE!!!!"

   http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d1/ausry/heroes-1.jpg

   ~Aus

8. Gizel, April 2009:

   Guess whos' me :D
   http://www.axiomfiles.com/Files/174460/flameleviathan.jpg

9. Gishey, April 2009:

   3.2K casts to gain it.

   Speedy's so happy to have a friend
   http://www.dontstealmydomain.com/content/turtlemount.jpg

10. Otter, April 2009:

    http://cadoangelus.com/images/SeaTurtleMount.jpg

    Here's my guy!

11. Sparhawk, April 2009:

    Took me abuot 950ish casts.

    http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/5928/seaturtlec.jpg

12. Spleen, April 2009:

    http://s47.photobucket.com/albums/f165/spleenseer/?action=view&current=WoWScrnShot_042009_185831.jpg

13. Genom, April 2009:

    I'll post a pic as soon as I can, but I just got mine tonight. So happy.

14. MightyFlub, April 2009:

    I managed to get mine last night with about 100 Frozen Sea casts :)

    http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3585/3459687139_3d67e54c98.jpg

    My guild was doing a Naxx 10 run at the time and the achievement message caused quite a reaction :)

    Of course I've made about 3000 casts going after Ironjaw with no luck so far. I'm going to switch and try for the sewer rat next.

15. Drrum, April 2009:

    Here's a screenshot of my friend Shunai (Stormrage) and her sweet new noggenfogger-downsized Sea Turtle! Her pet turtle "Speedy" is on a Papa Hummel's Pet Biscuit. That's me in my new chef whites, on my trusty old Saltwater Snapjaw mount, wearing Baby Spice. No Sea Turtle for me yet, but I'll post picks when I fish one up!

    http://www.fly-by-night.net/wow/3turtles.jpg

16. Drrum, April 2009:

    Drrum wrote:

    No Sea Turtle for me yet, but I'll post picks when I fish one up!

    Annnnnd...

    Less than 10 minutes after posting this, I welcomed my very own Sea Turtle to my stables. Caught off the western coast of Howling Fjord, after many hundreds of casts. Here we are on our first underwater ride:

    http://www.fly-by-night.net/wow/myturtle.jpg

17. trotil, April 2009:

    I was wondering if anyone caught this turtle in a river or a lake, cause judging by the name, i'd think it's only from sea fish schools, and even tho the only information i could find was that it can drop from any school, i couldn't find anyone actually finding it in inland fishing spots.(Or they just didn't say so in their post).

    Any feedback, anyone?

18. 12 more comments. Continue reading or reply »

Sea Turtle Problem

1. Sevira, April 2009:

   the main problem I have is not that i have over 3k fished objects and yet no turtle

   the problem is that I don't know if the turtle is really only fishable in schools

   in the english patchnotes it says "fishing pools"
   in every achievement-description where blizz talks about interaction with schools they call them "nodes" or "schools"

   in the german version they text implies that you can fish the turtle in every open water where you can fish

   additionally a friend of mine just got the turtle today and told me he was fishing in open water

   so, what to believe now?

   all I see on the internet is people claiming they got the turtle from schools
   but actually getting it from a school doesn't mean you won't get it from open water as well, right?
   I mean, is this just a bad translation in the german version or could it possibly be that hundred of people just missunderstood something?

   my english is a bit rusted and therefore I'm totally unsure if I just misunderstood something in the german and/or english patchnotes or if they just misstranslated it

   I mean, did anyone hear from someone else getting the turtle from open water?

2. Nonzor, April 2009:

   I've talked to a few people on my server who have gotten the Sea Turtle, and we all got it from fishing in a pool/school/node - that is, a specific, sparkling place that is named when you mouse over it. It's my understanding that it comes only from the pools.

   Best of luck!

3. el, April 2009:

   Open water Sea Turtle catches...

   • One-off claims are difficult to confirm. For example, there is no combat log record of where fish came from. And there are a plethora of freak events that can lead to such claims, such as a pool respawning where someone was fishing: It is statistically very unlikely to happen, but with enough people fishing, it will occur.
   • "Pools" is easy to mis-translate, because a pool could also be read as a body of water, like a lake. "Pools" isn't a Blizzard word. They would normally refers to "schools of fish", although they've used other words in the past, like "shoals". I use "pools" here because so many of these "fishing nodes" aren't schools of fish at all - Pure Water, Floating Wreckage. Node is a programming term, which I try and avoid using here.
   • Some GMs have also been reported as saying the turtle can be caught from any water in Northrend. I'm surprised they are giving game-play information out. Unfortunately most GMs simply read documentation, so are prone to the same misunderstandings as translators.

   In contrast:

   • The English patch notes, and the achievement, very clearly state "pools". Those tend to be written by developers/designers, so are likely to be more reliable.
   • One of the reasons most anglers are reporting pool catches is because the patch notes, achievements, guides, and the experience of everyone else they know says "pools", so that's the only place they are trying. But there is also a lot of open-water fishing happening. Most of the daily quest catches are not fished from pools. Millions of open-water catches: If there was anything unusual in the water, we would have heard about it by now.

   So...

   I cannot rule out the possibility that the Sea Turtle can be caught from open water. But "weight of evidence" is strongly towards pool catches. That said, I'm very interested in detailed confirmation of open-water catches.

   Added a bit on the word "pool":

   From a US dictionary:

   1. a (1): a small and rather deep body of usually fresh water (2): a quiet place in a stream (3): a body of water forming above a dam b: something resembling a pool (a pool of light)
   2. a small body of standing liquid
   3. a continuous area of porous sedimentary rock that yields petroleum or gas
   4. swimming pool [recreational]

   Curiously, that source cites an old-Germanic word " pfuol" in the etymology.

   None of those definitions can apply to seas, or large bodies of water. And therefore "Northrend fishing pools" are not the same as "fishable open water in Northrend".

1. el, May 2009:

   Crygil:

   "The word from on high is thus: 'The Turtle mount should, currently, only be found in pools throughout Northrend.' ... There has been some genuine confusion on this topic, largely due to reports of players receiving the Turtle Mount from something other than a pool. Hopefully, this alleviates some of that confusion. We're also looking into the legitimacy of claims to have acquired the mount, from other bodies of water."

2. Spoonzilla, June 2009:

   I was looking up this achievement on WoWhead (http://www.wowhead.com/?achievement=3218) and ManBearPgg linked a chat with a GM, who confirmed that this mount can be caught in open water.

   Chat: http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/431/seaturtlegmchat.jpg

3. Celwinde, June 2009:

   Spoonzilla, I've been given misinformation from GMs before.

   There was a level 80 white tiger mob in Skettis at one point. He was an elite rare mob that spawned in the back of the cave where the black tigers are located. When I found out about this mob and went to tame him on my Hunter, I discovered he didn't seem to be in game anymore. After a countless number of tickets were submitted to GMs by many Hunters, we were told by most of them they can't give out game tips and tricks. A few of them confirmed he was still in the game, but may have changed location, and some of them said he was no longer in game.

   Suffice it to say, it wasn't too much longer we found out for sure the mob really had been removed from the game without explanation.

   So even though it's a GM, take the information they give you with a grain of salt.

4. Azaguth, June 2009:

   an 80 mob in Skettis? Sounds like a fluke...

5. Alaylith, June 2009:

   Azaguth wrote:

   an 80 mob in Skettis? Sounds like a fluke...

   It was lvl 70, the highest level back then. ;)

   The cat's name was Hawkbane.

6. Isa, June 2009:

   I got it out of a pool.

7. seaborn, June 2009:

   This one is a tough subject. You seem to have a Gm saying one thing, other GM's saying another. my opinion is they put this mount in the schools so that the fish bots, as there are many, could not catch the mount. I don't know for a fact that it cant be caught in open water, but if it could, I think we would see a lot of the fish bots talking about how they got it in open water.

8. Xi, June 2009:

   The thing is, I know someone who fished it up from open water, and that person is trustworthy. If it's only supposed to appear in schools, then maybe the item is bugged. I've seen several posts online of people claiming to have fished it out of open water, too. I've no reason not to believe them.

   Thing is, people only really fish in schools, so most of the reports of people finding it are obviously going to be from schools.

9. Bogath, June 2009:

   I've spoken to a GM about this issue, he told me that "you need to be fishing in schools and the drop rate is the same everywhere".
   AND he told me the drop chance is about 0.01%.

   Screenshot:
   http://s619.photobucket.com/albums/tt273/bogath/Turtle%20Mount/?action=view&current=GM1.jpg

10. Xi, June 2009:

    So that's 1/10000?

    How many fish will I need to catch in order to have a 90% chance of getting it?/10% chance of not getting it, or however it works.

11. Gummo, June 2009:

    To have a 90% chance of catching it from the word go, assuming it's a 1/10,000 chance per cast, you'd need 23,025 catches.

    Chance of missing on every cast:
    (9999/10000)^23024 = .100006996776643337166645285289
    (9999/10000)^23025 = .099996996076965672832928620761

    For a 50% shot, you'd need 6,932 casts.

12. Xi, June 2009:

    Wow. 0.01% doesn't seem quite right, then? Quite a few people have the turtle, most seem to get it before 5000 catches. I would guess 0.02% is more likely.

13. justBrando, June 2009:

    I think its listed under the guide, but a great point is that the Dalaran fishing dailies require players to normally fish in open water. Considering the incredible number of people who do this, we would have known by now if the mount could be caught in open water.

14. Reply to this topic »

Sea Turtle text

1. Azaguth, June 2009:

   Is the text on the item itself ingame the same as the text found on the wowhead information?

   wtf is "quiclky"?

   I haven't been lucky enough to receive one of these yet, so I don't know.

2. Azaguth, June 2009:

   Apparently that's not a new thing, as there is a post in the wowhead comments about it from the beta, 3.0.9...what I'm wondering is, is it correct in game, and wowhead is just wrong?

3. Aliandro, June 2009:

   'not quickly', as in no increase in ground speed at all. Ground speed is 100% or normal run speed, swimming speed is about 108% of normal run speed. As for speed, glyphed aquatic form is faster and being mounted and using any of the walk on water effects is much faster.

1. Azaguth, June 2009:

   I do understand what was meant by the mistype.

   I rephrased my question just before you posted.

2. el, June 2009:

   The spell (that you read once you have learnt to ride the mount) says "quickly". The item you catch certainly used to say "quiclky" (you can see it here). I don't have a spare unlearnt turtle to check. It is possible the typing error remains in-game. I can sympathize with Blizzard on this - I read my own text endlessly, and still find errors years later.

3. Aliandro, June 2009:

   Oh, you were talking about the typo. Sorry, hadn't realized that.

   I really think the turtle should go at least as fast as water walking land mounts or even a bit faster.

4. Reply to this topic »

New Turtle "Jump" Animation

1. Anastrasza, May 2009:

   With 3.1.2, I guess they stealth buffed the turtle mount. Press the jump key and the turtle jumps and goes into its shell, 2 seconds later, it pops back out. Really cute! ^.^

   http://img41.imageshack.us/my.php?image=turtleinshell.jpg

   http://img41.imageshack.us/my.php?image=turtlejumpingout.jpg

   http://img34.imageshack.us/my.php?image=turtle2.jpg

2. el, May 2009:

   Looks great. There's also a video here.

3. Anastrasza, May 2009:

   I also just noticed that the jumping while moving animation was also changed to something cuter.

1. InfectedZombie, May 2009:

   Works on both the sea turtle and the riding turtle from the TCG.

2. Isa, May 2009:

   It made me really laugh when my mate told me to jump on my turtle! The first "jump" looked very lame, so this is a great improvement.

3. Reply to this topic »

3.1- Fishing mount

1. Daisyvondoom, March 2009:

   "A new (and very rare) special mount can now be caught from Northrend fishing pools." (from MMO-Champion )
   If you have any information on this, please do share!

2. narvil, March 2009:

   look here Coralshell Turtle, a mount? of course atm this is only speculation.

3. TheTacoMan, March 2009:

   I guess this ends the debate of what the 'Baby Coralshell Turtle' in the One that Didn't get away is

4. Daisyvondoom, March 2009:

   narvil wrote:

   look here Coralshell Turtle, a mount? of course atm this is only speculation.

   I saw that, but I figured that both it is just speculation and that once 3.1 goes live fishing for this mount will be popular enough that it deserves its own thread from the start instead of one started not knowing just what the deal was. Besides, the dark herring has had "Several" threads so it can't hurt to get a head start on over-posting about this catch, right?

5. Reply to this topic »

My turtle mount journey and how I caught it

1. bigpapapump, April 2009:

   First of all, I would like to thank you guys as this was a very helpful site. So, on with the show.

   In this count, I included crystalized water as fish as it takes the place of a fish. I did not include the crates caught nor anything in the count to replace them as, as odds go, the faster you are casting and fishing, the more chance you have of getting the mount. I did however walk out with alot of cobalt ore.

   I started on 4/16 in the afternoon and ended 4/20 at 3:30 am. The mount was caught in the pool closest to the river seperating Dragonblght and Grizzly Hills.

   The total fishing was done in the river snaking through Grizzly Hills and the Blue Sky Logging Grounds.

   The total by day are:
   4/16-200
   4/17-635
   4/18-1565
   4/19-1309
   4/20-83
   For a total of 3,792 fish.
   You were not kidding when you said you would have to catch thousands of fish. However, I hear that I will control the firecracker salmon market for sometime to come.

   I know you can catch the mount in any Northrend pool but if you put the time in and control an area, you will win.....eventually.
   Yubbyubb Turalyon Horde Hunter
   **** these numbers DO NOT include pygmy suckerfish as they are the secondary catch with the main fish

2. chad28, April 2009:

   Yay!! i caught one after only two hours - from the pool in crystalsong forest, theres nothing really special about it other than the fact that its uber rare. an super cute!

3. Cowkilleraus, April 2009:

   Got mine today, did the fishing daily in Borean Tundra and then fished all the pools back towards Wyrmrest and was happy to tag one.

   In reality, I probably only caught 100 fish at most. A few people in my guild have them now.

4. Reply to this topic »

Luck of the day

1. Szarsky, April 2009:

   *Slowly regains sanity*

   Hi fella anglers...

   Just some luck info....

   So today I thougth I need to fish, I have been lately trying to find the Hyacint parrot, but em bloody pirates are not very eager to give it up, so after 2800 kills, I decided to fish for some mental relaxation, as always I peek at El fabulous site for info and discovered the new turtle mount. .. Ahhhhhhhhh I made some coffee and prepared for a marathon session"some like that"..

   Flew to Borean thunder and started.. and fishing was good, no luck, but it made me relax not killing pirates, however after approx 1 hour got stuffed with fish not too much worth and decided to go for dragonfin and glacial salamon, "more profit" and too my luck second glacial pool contained a shell, It was a female turtle.
   She is ever so sweet and was more than happy for the previous fish i caugth, that she straigth away offered me a ride and told me she was mine forever.

   STATS
   just around the 200 catch mark.. unless it was enabled before patch, if it was! the number is mad...and not worth postable...

2. MarkCef, April 2009:

   Grats! I got mine last night, my fishing was around 328 at the time, using only a +75 lure and a +25 rod. Guildmates were so happy/jealous I got it, especially the GM who has probably fished over several thousand times in northrend, whereas that was probably my 300th time at the most. Quite happy with it, looks pretty small on my Draenei but still love it.

3. Szarsky, April 2009:

   :(

   Just discovered a critical flaw on the turtle mount!!!!

   I can´t fish while mounted in water......that is really bad!!

   ^ø^

4. Reply to this topic »

Where i caught my turtle and my story...

1. Czehvren, July 2009:

   Hello,
   Well let me get right to the point and say, i caught the sea turtle at level 67! I have been fishing in northrend sense i was 48 as well as outland... I couldnt wait to get to Outland really as it is my favortite place to be , just tonight i dinged 70 and did the fishing quests from old man barlo and the kind lady in dalaran! And off to catch Mr. Pinchy in just a sec.

   So far i have collected around 6k gold sense lvl 48-70 when i picked up fishing and cooking, and traveled the world of azeroth outland and northrend in search of bigger fish! but sense i was to low and my agro range was large for monsters, i had to find the perfect spot...

   The spots i found and first the spot where i caught the sea turtle is in grizzly hills just off the outpost where the taunkon or taunken live , there is a little lake i beleive its called ashwood lake? im not sure but its where you go to kiss the frogs for the argent tournie, i fish there a lot for glacial salmon , and surprisingly the pools spawn within 6min of despawning so, what i would do is i would arrive and have 3-4 pools spawnd fish from them all till none were left and within 6min of the last one another pool would spawn... so thats where i caught her! I swear i told my guildies every cast i think its going to be the sea turtle! Dream it also , 20 min didnt even pass by when i closed my eyes and thought of the turtle.. I was completely shocked, blown out of my mind, what i would do is place my cursor over the bobber close my eyes and hope i hear that achivement sound, i did this in the session i caught the fish , kinda freaky all that "law of attraction" stuff hehe...

   I didnt really read to much about the turtle before i caught it , fishing an cooking was a way for me to make money an i have been! so places where i fished at 48-67 where agro was a problem in northrend and outland...
   Golden darter in terrokar forrest the small lake outside shatt, catch is 24-29% open water if i remeber correctly , great seller, takes lots of patience
   Nettlefish in the rivers heart in scholazar, lake threshers would taunt me if i got to close to the water i could fish from every pool except one without getting in combat.
   Glacial slamon ashwood lake easy for horde to get to with FP being right next to it just one level 72-73 wolf my fav place to fish!
   Yes the frozen sea is good tons of tons of pools but could never sell the fish
   This is getting long

   well now adays its been 2 days sense ive had my mount i use it every time im in org going across the mail and the ah, across pools , and to show off.
   Im happy to be a accomplished angler and share my tips an thoughts on this site, and i hope to talk to you all and share my tips as well as hearing on what you have to say

   Never give up!

2. darkelf56, July 2009:

   Thank you, thank you, thank you for sharing such an interesting story. Believe it or not...I needed that!

   Dark Elf

3. Manginae, July 2009:

   Well on my 870th somethin cast to try to get the dark herring I snagged him in Howling Fjord the northern most lake by the horde camp. Anyways still havnt gotton the herring :_( so no salty.

4. Reply to this topic »

Level req Turtles All the Way Down

1. Danaz, July 2009:

   The achievement:
   "Fish up a Sea Turtle mount from any fishing pool in Northerend."

   Does this mean a lvl hm... let's say... 19 (^^) can just fish it up and not use it and still get the achievement? :D

   Do you get the ach when you fish the turtle up or when you use it?

   Thnx ;)

2. KHSebastian, July 2009:

   When you fish it up. If you manage to pull up the turtle, you'll get the achieve.

3. Danaz, July 2009:

   Yes thnx I figured that out but was hoping for confirmation. :P

4. Reply to this topic »

Fishing in WotLK

1. nonameform, July 2009:

   Looking back at how fishing skill had serious impact on your chance to catch something, I question why Blizzard has included BoP one hour lures that grant you +100 skill (Glow Worm). Sure they might be very useful for leveling your fishing, but when you're at 450 skill you might as well want to vendor them. At least I did so with some of my lures, but then I decided to save them, in case Blizzard makes them normal lures some time in the future and I will be able to sell them at AH/transfer them to my alts.

   In vanilla WoW days you had to have maximum fishing skill and had to use best fishing gear and lures available, so you could fish in Bay of Storms for money. In TBC you had to be well geared too to be able to catch fishes in Terokkar's lakes. Now in WotLK you need a maximum skill and a 75 lure to be able to catch all fishes you need for Fish Feast. Zones that require you to have more than 525 skill don't actually provide better fishes. How many of you actually made more than one Gigantic Feast?

   I only need to win STV Extravaganza now for my title (got as close as 39 fishes so far) and I'm wondering what I will do after that. Sure it might be fun for some people to win the contest twice for both the trinket and the pole, but I don't feel like doing it twice and making it harder for other people to get the title. Compared to the Undying title I have, Salty requires much more work and patience, as losing the contest several weeks in a row when you thought that you are about to win it, is really sad. Well, at least I can spend the rest of the contest time to fish for money and possible rare catches (got only one High Test Eternium Fishing Line so far, so saving it for an Arcanite Fishing Pole I hope to win someday).

   Overall fishing in WotLK seems uninteresting. Yes, I can make money by selling Fish Feast, as I have about 1k+ Northern Spices on my main char, but I want some excitement from the profession. I got all possible achievements, except for the one mentioned above and I want more. Maybe some really hard stuff like catching all those fishes, that got away. That would keep me busy for some time or catching 100k fishes, which isn't hard, but sure takes more time to get, than 1k for the title. I still have to see fishing rings and some of the rarer TBC fishing drops, such as crocs (make it an achievement too, come on), but all in all every time I think about fishing in WotLK, I get excited and then in a second I tell myself "Wait, there is nothing interesting to do actually."

   I'm not an angler, just a fisherman, a sissy by someone's standards as I didn't bother to level my fishing skill to maximum until WotLK arrived, but after that it became a way to pass time in game without mindless killing or farming reputation or whatever.

2. nonameform, August 2009:

   I wonder what makes people fish in a school that's already being fished from? In the last few months I've met several people who preferred to fish from "my" school while there were other schools around. While I do understand that sort of behavior during Extravaganza (only before winner is announced), I don't understand what makes people think that it's OK to share a school with someone. If I see someone fishing in a school, I just leave it to them and move to the next one. If there are no schools, I just wait for a new spawn and go to it.

   For me fishing from "someone's" school is as disgraceful as collecting herb/ore while someone fights a mob near it. I've even seen people from my own faction doing that sort of things to me, which is a real shame. I think of them as of spoiled kids, who just believe that everything belongs to them and that it's OK to make other people do half of the job for you. I bet they belong to the same group of people who never tips.

   Today while farming mats for 60 fish feasts for my guild, I've met three people who just couldn't resist the urge to fish from the same schools as I did, even though there were schools 10-15 yards away from it. With all those new people getting into the fishing, I certainly find it less enjoyable to fish with every passing day. Even though my Badapples list consists mostly of people who ninja loot, play their class poorly or just plain stupid people, it grows longer because I've started adding people who didn't tip or did something disgraceful in my opinion. I just wish Blizzard never bothered to make any changes to fishing at all. Compared to TBC, I see people fishing much more now, which actually makes it less exciting for me. Might as well just go to fish in Azeroth for all the rare fishes, just to be less annoyed of how crowded some pools are.

3. Hordriss, August 2009:

   Sad to say, I agree with the above poster - I'm also pretty much giving up on fishing in Northrend due to the sheer number of 'fishing griefers' (standing/mounting on bobbers, fishing from 'claimed' schools, etc.). I appreciate that Blizz want more people to fish, but for me, they're taken most of the fun out of it. And as for the ever-present gankers and gangs on mammoths at the Extravaganza... that's the only achievement missing from my title but even that isn't enough to motivate me to go back there.

4. Reply to this topic »

Just a quick thanks....

1. tru, May 2009:

   i would like to just take a moment to say a big thanks to the guys that run this site, The help that it gave me getting my turtle and lvling my fishing was gr8 took some time but i got it in time

   http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/430/wowscrnshot050809002234.jpg

2. wyrmsmom, May 2009:

   Gratz, tru. :)

3. Reply to this topic »

Spurs affect Sea Turtle on land, not water

1. Gummo, May 2009:

   On land, I go 100% run speed on the turtle without spurs, 104% with spurs
   In water, I go 108% run speed with or without spurs, as the Sea Turtle increases swim speed.

   I expect the other mount speedups (gloves, carrot, crop) will not affect the turtle's speed in water, and that a paladin's Crusader aura will not speed up the turtle's swimming speed (but will make the turtle faster on land compared to water).

   I don't think swim speed speedups will affect it, as they tend not to stack. You DO go the faster swim speed if you drink a swim speed potion and then mount up (about 135%, with or without the turtle mount). It's just whatever gives you the single highest swim speed.

   It's possible that spurs et al. are "working," but just like other swim speedups, the turtle mount is faster and they don't stack.

   It's also interesting to note that my priest can go just as fast on water using levitate (with the glyph to remove the feather reagent) and any +8% movement speed enchant to boots; adding his 2-point Body and Soul talent as often as possible gives him an average speed of about 120%

2. Reply to this topic »