I won the Tournament last week and I wanted to share with others my strategy for winning.
First off, my husband and I both wanted to win this contest because we both wanted the "Salty" title. So we took turns competing. One Sunday, I'd fish while he ran around looking for pools, keeping the opposite faction off my back, and fishing in other peoples' pools if they were close by. The next Sunday, he'd fish while I ran around doing what he'd done the previous Sunday.
My husband won the tournament on Mother's Day. Everyone figures he won because it was a holiday and everyone was spending time with their family, but I'm sure we still had a lot of competition. I don't think winning it on a holiday makes it any less of a feat than winning it on any other day. You still have to beat everyone that's competing back to the quest giver.
After he won, I was able to compete in the tournament every Sunday and he'd run around scouting for pools and keeping the opposite faction off my back while I fished. Two weeks after he won, I won! It was a very busy Sunday for STV, or so it seemed since I had at least five other people fishing on Yojamba Isle with me when we normally just had one or two. This just goes to show you can fish in a busy location and still win.
Remember that everyone else is fishing near other people, too. There are no "hidden locations" in STV for fishing in this tournament. You want to find the area that has the fewest number of people to pools that you can. Remember it's the number of people to pool that is important, not just the number of people. If you are fishing in an area with 10 people and 20 pools, that's 2 pools per competitor, and you'll be better off there than you would be in an area where three people are fishing, but only two pools spawn.
Our chosen location every Sunday was Yojamba Isle and the beach just north of there. We had a nice circular route that we'd follow. There are usually few people fishing in this spot and little to no one from the opposite faction. We found that more often than not, people would start on Yojamba Isle, but they'd then follow the beach south to Grom'Gol Base Camp and Booty Bay rather than double back for respawned pools. So after the first 3-4 minutes, we usually had Yojamba Isle to ourselves.
The biggest key things to our strategy was 1) having someone scout ahead for the next pool so the one competing knew right where to go next, and 2) because of our watery location, Elixirs of Water Walking! These made it much easier to get around and enabled us to reach pools north of Yojamba Isle before other people. I always brought a stack of 20 with me every Sunday, but I usually only used 2-3 of them.
Good luck!
