The next item on the ingredients list for a fish feast is the prawn-esque Musselback Sculpin. These fish are found in several regions of Northrend however the best place by far to catch them is Lake Kum'uya which is just south of Amber ledge in the Borean tundra. This lake has several pools which respawn fast enough that you always have one to head for. The advantage of this tight concentration of pools is that you save yourself a lot of traveling time and therefore increase your hourly earning rate.

There are a few mobs around the lake that may attack your peaceful fishing trip but because this is a starting area of Northrend they shouldn't be an issue to a level 80 character.

For this experiment I fished till I had caught exactly 200 Sculpins which took 90 minutes. During that time I also fished up materials and suckerfish worth a total of 100g. As per last week I am 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 these.

If sold raw these go for 85s each on my server which is a very low price considering that last weeks Glacial Salmon went for 1g26s each. The only explanation I can come up with is that more of the Nothrend fishing dailies send fishermen to areas where the Sculpin can be caught. A lot of fishermen doing the dailies like to catch a few fish to sell on the AH whilst they are doing the daily and this results in a higher supply. As anyone with a basic understanding of economics knows: higher supply = lower price.

The other two options you have involves cooking the fish into either Grilled Sculpin for a +60 attack power and +40 stamina buff. Or by adding spices you can make the better Poached Northren Sculpin which gives +80 attack and +40 stamina. I however highly recommend not cooking these fish if you intend to make a profit. The Poached Northren Sculpin is listed on my AH tool as selling for 14s each. This would mean you lose 71s of value per fish by adding spices and cooking it. However the most likely outcome is that none of the cooked fish will sell at all and you'll be stuck with a bag full of stinky fish.

The reason for the poor saleability of this product is that there are much better consumables for people to use if they are after a boost in DPS. According to 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 which feeds an entire raid as oppose to one person. For people wanting a DPS boost without sharing their fish with the raid there is also the option of buying the Blackened Dragonfin which is just as easy to make as the Poached Northren Sculpin but provides a +38.74 DPS boost.

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

Similar to last week I also ended up helping a new fisherman. Whilst I was moving around the lake fishing the pools I noticed there was a level 70 sitting in the middle casting into open water. After about half an hour I took a break from fishing and decided to say hello to him and asked what he was up to. It turned out this was his first character and the only reason he'd come to Northrend was to try and fish the turtle mount. I explained to him that it could only be caught from pools. Showed him what pools looked like and that he should try to get the weather-beaten journal which would give him the fish tracking ability. He was so happy to get this help that he offered me all the stacks of fish he'd 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'll probably try to help you back.