Deviate fish = LOTS OF GOLD
Get yourself to The Barrens and into the Wailing Caverns instance. You can catch the Deviate fish outside the instance and even in the pool outside the cave but you'd be crazy to fish there as alliance since this is horde land and a popular low level instance. There are several safe spots in the instance but Ive found for ease and convenience, that the stream just past the first batch of raptors works great. There is a yellow named elite turtle that just trucks around doing laps in the pool and 1 wandering ooze you have to deal with. Other then that, its a totally safe spot. The turtle is non aggro but after he struts by for the 25th time you'll find yourself wanting to make turtle soup.
Catch rate:
Ive found that it actually varries from trip to trip (kinda like real fishing). Sometimes I'll be catching a deviate at around 1 per every 2.5 fish or around 40% of the time. On slower days it breaks down to about 1 in every 4 fish or 25% of the time. Its never less then 1 in 4. Take into account the occasional no catch and the rare "fish got away", you SHOULD be catching 1 deviate in every 5 casts on average on your worst day. Average cast time for a catch is around 30 seconds (this is purely an estimate based on my experience and NOT hard data). That means youre catching around 2 fish a minute or 1 deviate fish every 2 minutes. What does all that mean in simple terms......30 deviate fish an hour.
Why Deviate fish?:
Deviate fish are diffrent from any other fish in WoW because they have this wierd effect on the eater. They do all kinds of crazy stuff from making you huge (or tiny) to shape shifting you to even putting you to sleep. Deviate fish are also used in 2 alchemy recipes.
These recipes are low level and can be learned by your level 5 AH whore. The trick is getting them. They are a rare and I mean RARE drop in the barrens. I farmed for 2 weeks trying to get them and finally broke down and ought the giant growth for 30g. Even if you dont have the recipes you can still make great money fishing these up. People just love these just for goofing around with kinda like Nogginfogger.
Money money:
Now that we have a bunch of fish in our bags, its off to the AH. On Bleeding Hollow, I can sell a stack of 20 deviates for 12g any day of the week. You can milk it for a few more silver if you split in stacks of 10 (6.5-7g per ten) but I like the simple quick sale of 12g a stack. If you are fortunate enough to have one of both of the recipes, you can make even more. The going rate seems to be around 1g per potion or cooked fish. I sell the giant growth pots for 4.75g per stack of 5 and they sell well, though slightly slower then the raw fish.
The break down:
Let's analyze the numbers. You fish for 2 hours and catch 60 deviate fish. Thats 3 full stacks of 20 fish. An uncooked stack sells for 12g so for 2 hours work you made 36g or 18g an hour (excluding travel time). Now if you cook or pot up the fish, your cash is significantly more. Each 5 giant growth/savory deviate delight equal 5g. We caught 60 fish so thats 60g. That comes out to 30g an hour.
Conclusion:
Do this once a week and it's a damn good supplement to your grind income and can pay for nice weapons and enchants. It's not exactly a epic mount cash grind strat but a damn fine way to keep your gear fresh. As a rogue Ive had both weapons blues or purples and both with firey enchant since around level 34 and this strat is a major reason. If you have the balls to bot fish these guys, the money could be ridiculous.
Disclaimer:
Like all my strats, I suggest you resist the urge to be retarded and list ALL YOUR FISH AT ONCE. Don't be a lazy ###### because all it does is kill the strat for everyone...including you. The key to marketing is creating the appearance of scarcity. That keeps the price up. Don't go into the instance and fish for 15 minutes and come back here crying, " WAHH WAH!!!! Cowboy lies I only caught 2 deviate fish..WAHH!!!" All my numbers are based on an "over time" formula. Anything less then 2 hours per fishing session is going to give you diffrent numbers and even 2 hours is kinda low. If you want the cash, make the time investment....simple.
