Just the other night, I finally completed all the requirements to be Salty and received my title. It took a lot of forum scouring and a lot of reading to gather the right information, so I figured I'd post a short log of all that I did and how I did it, to help others on their way.
Of course, I would attribute almost all of my success to El, whose site is just the definitive source of fishing information for WoW players, bar none. Thanks El!
I'll go through the achievements briefly, one at a time, and tell how I finished them.
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Northrend Angler - Fish 10 nodes in Northrend
(copied from Thottbot, credit to kitkibbles)
*Fangtooth Herring* - fresh waters in Howling Fjord
*Musselback Sculpin* fresh water in Borean Tundra (I got mine in Lake Hum'uya located directly south east of Amber ledge).
*Borean Man O' War* Off the coast in Borean Tundra (I got mine at the shrine of scales located just off the southwest coast of riplash strand).
*Imperial Manta Ray* off the coast in Borean Tundra (I got mine at riplash strand but there are tons in dragonblight at Moa'ki Harbor as well).
*Nettlefish* freshwater in Sholazar Basin... these fish are like fleas and can be found in all lakes and rivers there. I got mine in the seabreach flow just east of nesingwary base camp.
*Dragonfin Angelfish* Lake Indu'le just north of moa'ki harbor in dragonblight. I didn't see them anywhere else but they could be in other freshwater locations too of course.
*Glassfin Minnow* freshwater in crystalsong forest. They were everywhere in the river that runs through the area.
*Glacial Salmon* freshwater in Grizzly Hills. I got mine in the river located just south of Zeb'halak.
*Deep Sea Monsterbelly* salt water off the icebergs south of Unu'pe in the frozen sea, Borean tundra.
*Moonglow Cuttlefish* salt water off the icebergs south of Unu'pe in the frozen sea, Borean tundra.
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Master Angler of Stranglethorn
Ah, the dreaded fishing contest. This was my last achievement for Salty. I won after 2 serious attempts. This is exactly what I did-
- Hearthstone to Booty Bay Inn
- I fished the area directly south of Grom'gol. There is a water fall which separates the land. I started on the side furthest from Grom'gol. I fished exclusively in the first 6 nodes and only the first 6 nodes. When there were no nodes (which only happened once) I sat and waited for them to reappear.
- I used water walking potions to fish the nodes which were across the waterfall break in the coast.
- I caught 7 Oily Blackmouths, 1 Stranglekelp and 1 Firefin and still won the competition.
- I won in exactly 20 minutes and 41 seconds.
- The area only had 3-5 other fishermen when I was there. When there were 2 people at a node, I'd skip it and move to the next node, always staying between my 6 designated nodes. If there was not a fishing node with less than 2 people, I would run back and forth waiting for the next one to spawn.
- I used a macro to track the amount of Tastyfish I had. It was this...
#showtooltip Speckled Tastyfish
- The first time I tried, I caught 9 Oily Blackmouths and was quite angry at Blizzard for implementing a RNG in an already very luck driven competition. I lost at 19m 55s, with 31 fish. :)
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The One That Didn't Get Away
- I fished in Thunderbull Lake in Mulgore for the 15 pound Mudfish. It took me 1310 casts. I thought about going for the Herring, but it seemed like a hassle, because I wasn't sure if it dropped only from the Herring nodes or from the actual open sea.
- I parked myself in front of the TV at home, picked out three good movies, and started fishing.
- I set my cast to hotkey 1.
- I would press 1, place the mouse icon over the bobber, then proceed to watch my show. With the sound turned up, and no one else fishing, I could just reach down instinctively and right-click to pick up the fish. I would then repeat the process.
- I had Auto-Loot on and didn't worry about casting too fast, because the 15 pound mudfish is NOT BoP, so it does not require you to accept it.
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Mr. Pinchy
- I do the daily fishing quest in Terrokar anyway, so whenever I would do that, I would empty out all the Highland Mixed Schools in the area. This means the lake by the alliance town, the lake by the horde town, and the bigger lake up in Skettis. 3-5 nodes in both the Horde and Alliance rivers, and 7-10 in the Skettis area.
- They spawn rather slow, so after cleaning out the nodes I would find something else to do for 2 hours then come back.
- I caught Mr. Pinchy the first time in just 31 casts (very luck, I know). But this resulted in 2 Benevolent Mr. Pinchys and 1 Pinchy Blessing, so I had to do it again.
- I caught him again after about 600 casts. The first prize was a gift-box, and the second was the pet.
- I made sure that I paid attention while fishing, because he is BoP, so you need to click accept.
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I smell a Giant Rat
- In the underbelly of the sewer, on the pier next to the Inn, is where I fished for this guy.
- It took me about 1000 casts.
- He is BoP too, so watch out and don't go too fast.
- My best advice for not burning yourself out on fishing is to start chatting in /1 or /2 or in /g.
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Deadliest Catch
- I solo'd this as a 74 Frost Mage.
- First, you need to be in a raid group, so have a friend or stranger group with you, start a raid group, then head in on your own.
- Advise the person you are grouped with that he or she will be unable to complete any non-raid quests while you are doing this. (Took us forever to figure out why my girlfriend could not pick up mushrooms for the cooking daily in Dalaran hehe)
- You must enter ZG twice- First to pick up the jugs of ale which are at Nat Pagle's fishing site on the north side of the big lake which Hakkar is in the middle of.
- Then you must take them to Nat Pagle in Dustwallow Marsh and he'll give you what you need to fish up this guy.
- Then you need to fish the mudskunk nodes which are in the exact same place in ZG. (I fished the mudskunks the first time I went so I could just go straight to the boss the second time)
- Once you have the mudskunks and the lure from Nat Pagle, you can go to Nat Pagle's fishing site in ZG and fish up the boss and get the achievement.
- Fishing up the boss is all you need to do. No need to try to solo him ;)
- Once I fished him up, I Invisibilitied and ran out. Done.
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The Scavenger
(credit to jamras on thottbot)
Steam Pump Flotsam: Zangarmarsh, all over the lakes
Schooner Wreckage: Southshore, near dock and along coast line
Floating Wreckage: Tanaris, coast
Bloodsail Wreckage: STV, coast south of Grom'Gol
Waterlogged Wreckage: STV, Lake Nazferiti and along river
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The Coin Master
This is accomplished by fishing the entire collection of coins out of the tiny fountain in Dalaran.
- Copper is the easiest to catch, Silver second and Gold hardest.
- Only Gold coins can be thrown back into the pool to increase your chances of getting more coins.
- The buff from tossing gold coins lasts only 2 minutes, which seems to go by VERY quickly. Make sure you don't mis-click or go afk while you have the buff.
- I finished Silver before Copper, then Gold last. The last Gold coin I needed was Thrall's.
- There is a fishing vendor right next to the fountain who has lures for you to use.
- You CAN fish the same coin out of the fountain more than once. In fact, I had a stack of about 10 Danath's copper coin when I was done. I sold the dupes to the vendor.
- I had many instances of "Your cast didn't land in fishable water".
- It took approximately 500 casts to acquire the whole collection. This can obviously be reduced or increased by the random number generator, but you can help yourself by using Gold Coins effectively.
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Outland Angler
Not much to tell here, it's pretty easy.
(credit to rozlyn on Thottbot)
Brackish Mixed School - Terokkar and Zangarmarsh
Bluefish School - Nagrand
Mudfish School - Nagrand
School of Darter - Terokkar Forest
Highland Mixed School - Skettis
Sporefish School - Zangarmarsh
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Old Man Barlowned
Very simple-
There is a daily fishing quest in Terrokar. Each day the fishing quest is randomly chooses one of five fishing quests for you to do. Keep doing this quest every day and eventually you will get all 5.
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The Lurker Above
Fish up the Lurker Below in Serpentshrine Cavern
- This is definitely soloable.
- I followed this guide:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2GPZwpkwPg
Credit to TheZemalf (YouTube)
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Catch 1000 Fish
- Pretty straight forward.
- With the time you'll spend fishing for coins, the rat and The one that didn't get away, you will MORE than hit this. (It took me about 7500 fish to finish the achievement panel for fishing)
- Don't go out of your way to accomplish this, just let it happen on it's own while doing other achievements.
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The Old Gnome in the Sea
- Another fishing achievement which will come automatically by doing other achievements.
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Fish Don't Leave Footprints
Acquire the Fish Tracking ability
- By fishing out of "wreckage" nodes, you will often get boxes of level relevant profession loot. (Light Leather, Bolts of Mageweave, etc.)
- In these boxes there is a small chance to get the book which teaches you this ability.
- Run along the western coast of Stranglethorn Vale and you should at least find one or two wreckage nodes. Fish these until you get crates.
- Wreckage nodes are easy to spot, because they're not your normal, swirling water nodes. They actually have boxes and pieces of lumber floating in them.
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And that's how I got to Salty :)
I hope this has been helpful in answering some of those ambiguous questions one runs into after forum crawling for the easiest way to finish an achievement.
On a side note-
I did Old Ironjaw and Old Crafty as well.
- Old Craft was very easy. Simply get the Baby Crocolisk quest and go to Orgrimmar. When the loot box comes up, ignore it and keep fishing. After a dozen or so casts, you'll get Old Crafty.
- Old Ironjaw was the hardest fishing achievement I've done, to date. I play Horde, so I had to hide out in the Forlorn Cavern for 4000 casts. I got attacked and camped at least a dozen times. If you are Horde and you are going for Old Ironjaw, I'll give you these pointers:
Do not wear any items with Durability. Rings and Trinkets and Necklaces are okay, but don't destroy your armor by getting killed a bunch of times.
First, go to the back of the Forlorn Cavern. If you get attacked, move to the Lava in the middle of Ironforge (just behind the northernmost cog on the bridge in the exact middle of IF). You'll get attacked in both places, but at least you can escape some camping.
Do NOT fight back. This will only aggravate the Alliance more, and they'll end up camping your body. You are much less fun to antagonize if all you do is stand still and die. Plus, if you attack any NPCs, there will be a yellow message broadcast to all of Ironforge alerting them to your presence, so don't rock the boat.
It helps to fish during off hours (early morning and midday).
Make SURE you watch your screen and don't habituate yourself to casting over and over. Old Ironjaw is BoP, so you MUST accept him once the window pops up, and you don't want to have to do another 5000 casts because you were fishing too fast.
