The next item on the ingredient list for a fish feast is the prawn-style musselback sculpin. These fish are found in various regions of Northrend, however the best place to catch them is Kum’uya Lake, which is located south of the Amber ledge in the boreal tundra. This lake has several pools that reappear 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 rate of profit per hour.
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 me 90 minutes. During that time I also caught materials and suckers for a total value of 100g. Based on last week, I’m saving my 200 Sculpins to turn into fish feasts for a later article, however we can see what other options you have for selling them.
If sold raw, these cost 85s each on my server, which is a very low price considering the last few weeks Glacial Salmon sold for 1g26s each. The only explanation I can think of is that most of Nothrend’s logbooks send fishermen to areas where the Sculpin can be fished. Many fishermen who do the newspapers like to catch some fish to sell in the AH while doing it daily and this translates into a greater supply. As anyone with a basic understanding of economics knows: higher supply = lower price.
The other two options you have involve cooking the fish in any of the Sculpin on the grill to get +60 attack power and +40 stamina buff. Or by adding spices you can make the best Poached Northren Sculpin which gives +80 Attack and +40 Stamina. However, I highly recommend not cooking these fish if you intend to make a profit. The poached Northren Sculpin is listed on my AH tool which sells for 14 shillings each. This would mean that you would lose 71 cents of value per fish by adding spices and cooking it. However, the most likely result is that none of the cooked fish sells and you will be left with a bag full of stinky fish.
The reason for the low marketability of this product is that there are much better consumables for people to use if they are looking for a boost in DPS. 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 feast of fish fueling a full raid as opposed to one person. For people who want a DPS boost without sharing their fish with the raid, there is also the option to purchase the Blackened Dragonfin, which is just as easy to make as the Poched Northren Sculpin, but provides a +38.74 DPS boost.
For those interested in the hourly rate if they sell this raw fish, the math would be (200 * 85 = 170g). Add in the 101g for other things you catch while fishing these and you get a total of 271g. Dividing that by 90 minutes and times by 60, you get a pretty weak 180g / hr.
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 casting in open water. After half an hour I took a break from fishing and decided to say hi to him and asked him 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 to fish for the turtle mount. I explained that you could only fish in puddles. He showed him what the pools looked like and that he should try to get the tanned 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 because it was mostly junk fish, but the moral of the story still exists. Help others and they will probably try to help you.