The next item on the ingredient list for a fish feast is shrimp-style Musselback Sculpin. These fish are found in various regions of Northrend, however the best place to catch them is Lake Kum’uya, which is just south of Amber Ledge in the Borean Tundra. This lake has several pools that respawn fast enough that you always have one to head to. The advantage of this tight group concentration is that you save a lot of travel time and therefore increase your hourly win rate.

There are some mobs around the lake that can attack your peaceful fishing trip, but since this is a Northrend starting area, they shouldn’t be a problem for a level 80 character.

For this experiment, I fished until I caught exactly 200 Sculpins, which took 90 minutes. During that time I also caught 100g worth of materials and sucker fish. As per last week, I’m keeping my 200 Sculpins to turn into Fish Feasts for a later article, however we can look at the other options you have for selling them.

If sold raw they are 85shillings each on my server, which is a very low price considering last few weeks Glacial Salmon sold for 1g26 each. The only explanation I can think of is that more of the Northrend logbooks send fishermen to areas where the Sculpin can be caught. Many anglers who journal like to catch a few fish to sell in the AH while journaling and this results in a higher supply. As anyone with basic knowledge of economics knows: higher supply = lower price.

The other two options you have involve cooking the fish in Grilled Sculpin for a +60 attack power and +40 stamina buff. Or by adding spices you can make the best Sculpin Poached Northren which gives +80 attack and +40 resistance. However, I highly recommend against cooking these fish if you intend to make a profit. Poached Northren Sculpin is listed in my AH tool and sells for 14s. This would mean that you lose 71s of value per fish when adding spices and cooking it. However, the most likely result is that none of the cooked fish will sell and you will be left with a bag full of stinky fish.

The reason for the low sellability of this product is that there are much better consumables for people to use if they are looking for a DPS boost. According to http://www.maxdps.com for a hunter (my main character) this fish gives a DPS boost of +29.86, which is exactly the same as the fish feast that feeds an entire raid instead of just one person. For people who want a DPS boost without sharing their fish with the raid, there’s also the option to buy Blackened Dragonfin, which is just as easy to make as Poached Northren Sculpin but provides a +38.74 DPS boost.

For those interested in the hourly rate if they sell these fish raw, the math would be (200*85s=170g). Add in the 101g for other things you catch while fishing these and you get a total of 271G. Divide that by 90 minutes and times by 60 and you get a pretty weak 180g/hr.

Just like last week, I also ended up helping a new fisherman. As I was moving around the lake fishing in the pools, I noticed there was a level 70 sitting in the middle launching into open water. After about half an hour, I took a break from fishing and decided to say hello and ask what he was doing. It turned out that this was his first character and the only reason he had come to Northrend was to try and fish for the turtle mount. I explained that he could only be caught from the pools. He showed him what the pools looked like and that he should try to get the weather-beaten journal that would give him the ability to track fish. He was so happy to receive this help that he offered me all the piles of fish that he had just caught in the lake. I refused as it was mostly junk fish, but the moral of the story still exists. Help others and they will probably try to help you.