Ol' Salty

Yes, my first real post on my Shaman/Death Knight blog is unrelated to either. As we progress through the lives of Koji and Anguish, you will see that WoW has hooked me in a lot more aspects than just killing things. Two in particular are fishing and achievements.

I can't really explain my interest in either. Fishing I don't find particularly entertaining. It is sometimes boring, and recently (which I will get to momentarily) can be extremely tedious. It does have financial benefits; you can get pretty good money from fishing; but I have lots of money and have nothing to spend it on. Regardless, I am hooked on it (no pun intended... I hate puns). I can't explain it, but I keep on doing it, on both characters.

Achievements are another interesting subject matter. Aside from a few achievements, like the ones that offer titles, mounts, companions, or other little nifty toys, they are just for show, there is really no utile benefit (excepting the black, plagued, and violet proto-drakes, they are 310% speed). I have never really compared mine to other people, though I'm sure there are many who have friendly competitions with them. Regardless, I like aiming for achievements. When they were implemented, I went back and did all the old world dungeons, I did the exploration, and have done a lot of the old world quests for Loremaster, though that's on hiatus for the time being. Regardless, they too have a hook that I can't really explain. Good job Bliz on a creative concept.

Getting back to what this is all about, fishing and achievements. Specifically, the fishing achievement: Accomplished Angler. Reward: just the silly title "Salty". No pretty rod, nothing else. Yet this is an achievement that I have worked a lot on. It isn't an achievement that requires skill at your class, though you do need to know a fair deal of tricks to get some of the more difficult requirements. The biggest thing it requires is patience. You will be doing a whole lot of fishing, a lot just sitting in the same place, perhaps for hours on end, until you get that one rare catch. Worth it? I sure don't think so, but I'm going after it anyway.

I only started really working on this achievement when I won the Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza a few weeks ago. I had won it on 2 or 3 old characters but Koji is fairly fresh, I started him only a few months before WotLK (though I already had a shaman in the past). But I digress. I only started then because that is probably the hardest part of the achievement. There is one winner a week, 52 winners a year. That makes it pretty rare. Maybe that is some of the allure of the Salty title.

Just to get our feet wet today I'll be focusing on the few simpler requirements that don't really need a guide. Over the next few days I'll go over them all in depth. Here is what we're looking at.

Let's just go down the line of easy ones.

Grand Master Fisherman: As it says, become a Grand Master Fisherman. You'll be attaining this eventually no matter what, you need that skill for Northrend. Nothing to worry about.

The Old Gnome and the Sea: Successfully fish in a pool. You'll be fishing in pools, most likely a lot of them. Nothing to worry about.

1000 Fish: Hmm, I wonder what you need for this one. If you are starting fishing fresh, you'll definitely get this along the way. If you already had max skill going into WotLK, you'll still definitly get this along the way. I don't think it's possible to have such good luck that you can finish all the achievements without thousands of casts.

Okay yea, that was all blatantly obvious, sorry. I thought I would be able to cover a few more than that without any real thought, but I'm sure you all want a break, this got a lot longer than I expected. No worries, I'll be going into the other ones soon.