Master Angler of Azeroth

I think there should be at least a 2nd and 3rd place finisher just to get the achievement but not the pole or trinket. There are too many people on a realm and not enough time in the year to win this.

Dr. Stranglethorn, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Extravaganza.

The Reason Behind the Madness:

As un-fishermanly to do as it is, to win the contest you have to save all your attempts and energy for one go with all your guns blazing and zerg STV with a dozen or so of your closest friends. I have been trying alone off and on for years (as you can see in a frustrated comment below), and only the times that I helped someone else win or I organized my own did I participate in a victory. As rough as this achievement is to obtain, you can't just keep trying and hope to have luck favor you eventually. You can only do so much to improve your odds as an individual, so the only way you can try harder and significantly improve your odds is to decrease the odds of everyone else. AKA, kill them and befoul their waters with giant mammoths.

You Require Additional Pylons! (AKA Preparation):

Go to the contest alone a couple times to test the water (haha, a pun!) and find out where it's crowded, where it isn't, where the ganking takes place, and develop strategies to fish fastest. Don't even fish, just go up and down the coasts observing everyone else. Squirrel this information away and formulate a basic strategy for your real attempt. Any area you can have your private army pull a Sparta to isolate you with plenty of pools is ideal, like Yojimba Island or parts of the Eastern beach, but traffic by area will vary by server.

Then, organize a group to destroy STV. Vent is critical. Try to pick a day you predict won't be crowded for RL or in-game reasons. Pay all participants 100g (worked especially well for me), ask friends/guildies, promise them favors/I-owe-you-ones, and emphasize the PvP and the fact that it only takes half an hour. Basically, do what you have to do to get 6+ people. If you have enough for a raid (you should), make sure you aren't in it so you can fish up quest fish.

Releasing the Hounds:

For your personal guard, you will want a Paladin with you for Crusader, a healer (preferably the Paladin), and 1-3 DPS to fend off other raiding parties on a PvP server. On a PvE server, you just need the Paladin and maybe one more person. On a PvP server, this group will be hovering within 40 yards of you, keeping fights away from you (as being in combat prevents fishing), and throwing a line in your pool (but not looting any fish) to deter other potential fishers from coming over. On a PvE server, they are just making your pool look busy and scouting for competition/pools.

On PvP servers, everyone else heads up and down the coast and kills every opposite faction in sight or sits on bobbers with fat mounts if they are same faction. On PvE servers, you are just left with the fat mount option for both factions. You may also taunt those you are camping, hamsters and elderberries, etc. If you have the numbers for it, have two groups, one per coast, to ensure no lucky buggers escape your wrath. Have them scout where you are going to go or where you feel people aren't getting enough "attention", and have them look for pools if they have the ability. Tell them to zerg fishermen and not their protectors; a single corpse run should ruin their shots for first place, so don't linger with any one group unless they keep going for you (the fisher).

Teaching People to Fish Good and Do Other Stuff Good Too:

Use waterwalking pots if you are chose an area where, surprise, you are crossing water. Use vent to actively coordinate your raid. You will have free time to plot while you wait for bites. Turn up your sound so you don't miss any bites. Be quick about your recasts, taking chances near the lips of pools but being stuck with the cast because you already invested time in it sucks. When you get close to 40, have a small group go to BB (but NOT your guards) to ensure no one will be ganking you or camping the quest goblin, as it happens often. As an additional odds inflator, have them gank anyone with a fishing pole on their back running towards the quest acceptor and swim away. Above all, set your hearth for BB, or have a Warlock summon you next to the goblin so you don't even have to waste the precious 30 seconds hearthing and running to him.

Prepare for lots of QQ and vicious insults as you strut around Booty Bay victorious.

Best of luck on your murderous fishing rampage,
(Only One That Didn't Get Away from Salty) Tolki

I just won first place on my server! (yay!) Unfortunately, when doing the STV Fishing Contest for Master Angler of Azeroth I came across some problems and I'm hoping I can prevent others from making similar mistakes. Here's a few little pro-tips to ensure you get your shiny new Dread Pirate Ring and that ever so coveted Salty title!

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• First off, make sure you get the right time. I showed up about 2 hours early lol, but at least I wasn't late! I saw some mixed answers in other Wowhead comment threads and in Google searches and such. I assumed the contest would start at 2pm server time and found out shortly after getting there that I was wrong, it in fact starts at 2pm PST.
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• Secondly, bring some form of water walking. Some of the pools you need to fish from can be difficult to reach, especially if you're a shorter race like gnome, goblin, or vulpera. I personally just bought some Elixir of Water Walking and Draenic Water Walking Elixir off the AH. There was only a few of each up on my server so I bought a couple of both. You won't need more than 3-4 at the absolute max, but I ended up only using 2.
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• Third, buff up that fishing skill as much as you can. The chance of catching Speckled Tastyfish is increased based on your total fishing skill, including increases from lures and such. I personally have been fishing a lot in my Garrison lately so I went in with my Weather-Beaten Fishing Hat that I got from there and "The Broker's Angle'r" which you can just buy from any Shadowlands Fishing Trainer. Those two items add a flat 20 fishing skill on top of whatever you already have, plus the hat has an on use effect that will put a lure on your fishing pole for 10mins which adds another 7 fishing skill (which could be higher, but higher lures will cost you more gold.)
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• Fourth, set your hearth to Booty Bay. This is sincerely the fastest way to get back to the quest giver once you've got your 40 fish. It's not super important on lower pop servers but it does save some precious time. To those on higher pop servers, this may be the one thing that sets you ahead of your competition.
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• Last but certainly not least, TURN ON WARMODE. I play on a relatively quiet server and even showing up 2hrs early to the contest I ran into about a dozen other people preparing for the event. I was terrified of the competition so before I went back at the right time I turned on WM, thinking that anyone else competitively fishing while being prone to ganking is crazy lol. Thankfully I ended up being perfectly fine, I didn't see a single other player for the entire 14 minutes that I was fishing. There wasn't even anyone around the quest giver when I got there and didn't see anyone before I left.
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I hope this is helpful, and if you have any more questions about either the STV Fishing Contest or any other achievements related to Master Angler of Azeroth just reply to this comment and I'll do my best to answer. If this was helpful to you, I would really appreciate it if you left a like so others can also find this information later. Thank you so much, and happy fishing!