If you have high level fishing, not including the threads, you can get the derby fish in open water too.
I’ve stopped hunting blood pools seems faster to fish in open water verses all the flying around and competition. Was able to get them decently with 300 fishing (only like 3 threads) and enough buffs to get me to around 385 fishing.
I don’t think the Roaring Anglerseeker lure has ever worked, but the pools aren’t too hard to find along the northern coast in Hallowfall.
I don’t like that mechanic because you can spend all your time clearing out garbage pools and someone else will come along while you are doing that and fish out the good pools that just spawned half way across the zone.
That fishing derby is best done when you have maxed out fishing and have over 450 fishing skill because then you can sit at the quest giver and just fish in the open water. Hunting for pools is just crappy. I failed twice because I just couldn’t find the pool I needed.
All those lures actually work if you read what they say. The only time I have had problems is when it said you have to fish in a certain zone and I wasn’t.
Translate this one for me, if you please.
just have to fish from a pool in one of those two zones - I have never had a fail on that, although I think that one does take a little longer to get than the other lures.
I, in fact, don’t know how the Hallowfall Fishing Derby works. Thank you very much for your informative post 
Sort of sounds like zenith mortis and the large groups of people that just sit at a rare spawn spot that doesn’t spawn unless you clear other rares around the area.
I’ve stacked it to 50 and gotten nothing but the other fish types from the pools. I have a much quicker time just finding an Anglerseeker pool
I think it’s the “guaranteeing” verbiage in the tooltip that makes me a non-believer.
Now that’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time. A long time…
Clearing the pools is obviously intended, since you get marks for catching every other fish type that you don’t need for the weekly.
Unfortunately it’s a timed event, and fishing out the “bad” pools takes time. I failed the quest on one account last week because stuff came up IRL and I couldn’t get a Sanguine Dogfish in time. When I can, I try to just fish what I need out of the “good” pools and leave the rest of it behind instead to do my part.
I’m personally of the opinion that it would work better as a 24-hour event instead.
I have had high fishing for months now, I could just be getting them from just normal RNG but I haven’t bothered with the specific pool except at the start.
I like seeing posts like this that help me think I actually understand how something in this game works. Instead of being looked at like I’m a crazy person when I get an opportunity to start rambling about it. 
This is far and away the least Sunday-ey thread I’ve ever seen.
Fellow anglers are always welcome in my eyes. Nothing but love for you all.
It’s the classic altruism vs selfishness conundrum.
When everyone is altruistic and fishes the garbage nodes, it’s the most advantageous thing for you to be selfish and snipe all the good pools, but when everyone does it, it doesn’t work because there’s nothing but bad pools.
I don’t see why this can’t just be a weekly quest.
Great conversation, I love this!
I have only my own experience, but I am doubting that it is “mine copper to find tin”. Though I do think that clearing any pool will spawn another pool. I have flown in Hallowfall with no one else fishing at 2am and I have seen blood pools, a lot of them.
I think that the One Great Solution would be a lot more fish in a pool than five. Fishing should be a stop-to-relax thing, not a race from pool to pool – we do that for mining and herbing and it is not so fun for the gestalt of fishing in a game.
I think that we see different experiences in low pop vs high pop servers, the game has named mini-zones and on a high pop you might get a hyper-spawn event if everyone was fishing every pool, and no one would have to even move; if inside that mini-zone.
I think that the maxed out algari fishing pole is terrible, it will give me the rarer cursed fish instead of the slum shark that I want. I am back to the Underlight Angler for water walking.
And, finally, the interest in the Derby is waning. The first weeks it was fight and get angry over every pool but now, even on a Saturday morning with the weekend warriors, the number of people fishing has fallen a lot.
Yes! That’s the one that was broken for me as well. Wowhead comments seem to have trouble with it too.
Yeah, that can happen. But if said person was also clearing some pools, then you could find one of their respawns too. I know it’s an idealistic approach, but I intend to play like that anyway.
I usually clear every third “bad” pool I see until I have 2/3 of my fish, then I start really going at it, especially if I have over 40 mins left. Only ever failed the tourney twice on all characters combined (Because Royal Ripples ;_; And I use steady flying, so RIP getting that one. 
)
As far as the best start, though, I read an interesting discussion saying it’s best to “camp” a small area of the map where 4 - 5 pools spawn, and just keep clearing out whatever spawns there. That was heavily suggested for the Royal Ripples in Azj’kahet, specifically. I’m not a math person, but it sounds solid to me. XD
Yes, agree 99%! (The other 1% is that it’d be ok for it to just be a weekly quest in general, as someone else posted. I do kind of like having a scheduled “event” day, though.)
I do love the fishing community. The Legion events were so great - I wish they’d bring something like that back. Soooo many good convos and chill vibes in those parties! I much prefer the co-op fishing events to the competitive ones. 
People need to really get over this one, especially during the fishing derby. We’re on the clock and no one “owns” fishing pools. Blizzard could have long ago made pool tagging a thing and they did not intentionally. It’s a limited resource that will just respawn elsewhere maybe as an even more desired pool. If you want to limit your competition, go to another zone that has that type of pool, very few are one zone specific. Heck, I have a canned emote I sometimes use when someone lands to fish a pool I found “/em hands %t a beer.” to tell them I don’t mind (only works same faction, obviously or it might be misconstrued), it tends to help if I later land at a pool they found first.
If you are having trouble getting one specific fish, consider helping out a crafter and purchasing a lure for that kind of fish or keeping a supply for the rarer kinds of fish for the derby. It’s better than throwing a fit because some other guy that is in the same boat is just trying to catch the same fish in what you consider “your” pool. They tend to be way cheaper when the derby isn’t on or before it really gets going as profiteers will tend to buy them out for the needed fish and relist at a higher price.
The only suggestion I have though is if you are fishing for a specific fish and you are in a pool for that fish, get your one catch and move on. Especially is it is a “trash” fish like the Angleseeker necessary today that doesn’t really have much use beyond checking the derby off. You really gain no benefit after the first one you catch and it isn’t really like you will catch other things from that pool (except maybe REALLY rarely). Focus on what you need for the quest and to catching one of as many different types of fish as you can to maximize marks unless the pools aren’t spawning the kind that is needed, then yeah fishing them out can roll the dice again for everyone.