The Fishing Artifact - How I Farmed Artifact Points in Suramar

I'm trying a format that's structured as a guide in this post. Farming this way saved me a ton of time so I thought i'd share it and maybe help someone else. Also, if you don't enjoy fishing for whatever reason, don't read, just stay away! 

Legion is here, I was extremely sceptic and felt the least excited for this expansion compared to any other. And I wasn't hyped about Cata, Mists nor WoD either, but i'm actually enjoying myself alot in Legion. Always managed to enjoy myself in the past expansions as well, but this is the most fun i've had at the beginning of a new expansion. The preparations I made have paid off, so i've avoided time sinks better than ever too. Really. (Move onto the damn topic already, Grayz!) Right, here's a post about my Underlight Angler that I received 3 days ago, but that I only farmed points actively with for 2 days. I had a day off the day after I got it. Was busy watching Narcos. Couldn't fish and watch it at the same time. Total time spent casually farming points, with a solid plan, was less than 8h total. Would've been faster if I actually was entirely focused on fishing and realm hopping as fast as possible and maximizing each bait's up time.

First off if you want to get the fishing artifact check this guide on Wowhead. It is pure greatness. I'll only focus on players that already have the artifact and want traits farmed as fast as possible, although you could level fishing from 1-800 with the same strategy. It would require more time though, since you don't have the chance to fish up entire pools of fish with one cast without the artifact.

Getting to this specific part of the fishing adventure in Legion starts out very slowly, but once you have the fishing artifact and begin spending points in it it becomes a breeze and your fishing is taken to a whole new level of pure enjoyment (not joking). And by the way, this was written during patch 7.0.3. Let's go.

Addons I recommend that speed up the process:

Bankitems, Tradeskillmaster, Altoholic or any other addon that shows what you have in all of your bags/banks/guild banks across your account. You can only have one bait in your bags at any time so mailing baits from another toon, if you buy them, speeds things up. 

Server hop or Cross realm assist. A must have so that you can find pools faster. Join random realms until you find one with pools really close. 

Tomtom to see the locations I was using. I had 4 spots that I used. I'll link them later in the post. There's probably better spots out there, but to me it was more important to get going as soon as possible and stick to the places that felt efficient enough for my needs. Also I wanted to be as near Shal'aran as possible. 

1. Make sure that you've selected the 1st trait in Dalaran, so that the artifact is active.
2. Fly to Suramar. Set your Hearthstone to Shal'aran, but only if you intend to level fishing artifact seriously. Hopefully you will have unlocked the Inn. If not, make sure your bags are alot more empty than my were.
3. Use the portal to Ruins of Elune'eth to speed up how fast you travel to a fishing node. It's available if you've come that far in the Suramar questline. It doesn't take too long, but i'd only do it if I intended to quest seriously in Suramar, especially on alts. Avoid most of the Legion time sinks, unless you really want/need to do them! That's my motto. And that motto has been iterated and optimized since WoD. (But that's another post, Grayz! If you ever write it that is).
4. Make sure you have your fishing artifact equipped at all times when fishing! If it isn't you won't see the 50 points in the tooltip of the rare fish nor will you receive points when you throw the fish back into the water. An example of how the tooltips change can be seen here (adds to fishing levels) and here (adds to your fishing artifact).
   
   
   
   
   
5. The 1st bait is a bait you should buy as many of that you can afford because it's these baits that are the sole reason I love farming fish in Suramar. (It uses the exact same mechanic as the Frenzied fox that spawns from Foxflowers for Herbalists). The bait is called Sleeping Murloc. You use it, a murloc spawns and the murloc throws Seerspine Puffer on the ground that you can loot by running over them. Toss the fish into any fishable water to gain artifact power (with the fishing artifact equipped! Of course I messed this up a couple of times, that's why i'm reminding myself, retro actively).
   
   
   
   
   
6. If you have the gold buy 20-40+ Arcane Lure and these 2 baits, Enchanted Lure and Demonic Detritus, to catch the rare fish found only in Suramar. If the baits are cheap and plentiful skip the Arcane Lures. Although both the lures and baits can come in handy later even when you no longer actively farm artifact power, depending on which fish you're in need of. For me fishing is relaxation + gold related since i'm avoiding PvE as much as possible for 2 reasons; Hunters are extremely boring in PvE without their utility and the worst time sinks in WoW are usually tied to PvE content.
7. Remember, baits are unique, so while fishing use the baits as you receive them so you can keep on getting new baits (which becomes alot easier the higher your fishing artifact becomes). At some point using Arcane Lures almost becomes completely unnecessary depending on if you want to min max everything or not. Prioritize using the Sleeping Murloc bait. Use it in a place where no other players can run over your precious fish, Sméagol. 
8. Go to one of these locations or another if you know a better option. Use server hopping to optimize the location you have chosen. My goal was to stay as close to Shal'aran as possible since there's an Inn and a mailbox there, if you've quested long enough to get it. But after a while I didn't really need the lures I had in the mailbox. It was more efficient to just keep on hoppin' and fishin'.
   
   
   
   
   
   - On the mini-island in the river with the sleeping Meredil Thrashmaw. 2 nodes spawn that don't require any killing at all, once you know which mobs that aggro and how. There's a 3rd node towards the south, but it requires killing at least 1 mob. There's also a 4th node that spawns towards the north which requires killing at least 2 mobs. /way 34,1 45 The Meredil Island
   - Near the rocks just outside of the Shal'aran entrance. There's a fishing node below the waterfall. /way 34,3 48,6 The Meredil Rocks
   - Across the river. Almost infront of the Meredil Thrashmaw. /way 37,2 53,3 Infront of the Meredil Thrashmaw
   - There's 2 pools nearby, but the mob density doesn't make it worth it in my opinion. This was the first location I found. /way 37,4 56,9 High Meredil Mob Density
   
   
   Stay there and server hop when you've fished the pools of interest. You can decide if you want to clear mobs to fish more pools nearby or if you want to server hop to guarantee a pool that's nearby. From what I could tell there's a set amount of nodes and eventually i'd know where to expect pools as I server hopped.
9. Decide on when you'll Hearth back to Dalaran to upgrade your fishing artifact. I did it in this order to get the most valuable traits for my playstyle as fast as possible;
   
   
   
   
   
   - First I chose Bloodfishing and Mossgill Perch Angling which was worth more than Cursed Queenfish Angling, seen from a gold making perspective, and I got my 1st golden trait, Underlight Blessing. I could finally walk on water like Go'el, I mean Green Jesus. Or is it Thrall?
   - After that I stayed the hell away from anything else on that side of that traits cause I wouldn't be questing a lot in water any time soon. So then I got Runescale Koi Angling and maxxed that out. That way I could walk on water and have an increased chance at looting an entire pool in one cast which would speed up my artifact farming project. Other players might choose to get this 1st but for me water walking is alot more important. By far. The Raft cast time adds up. This buff shows up within 2-3s of equipping the fishing artifact automatically.
   - High Mountain Salmon is the reason I even care about fishing, besides just enjoying a break from all other grinds that my Hunter could do. So I maxed out Highmountain Salmon Angling, so that when my artifact was at a good level, i'd be able to farm them as fast as possible. They're by far the most valuable fish for various reasons. Their scarcity adds to their value as well.
   - I got Better Luck Next Time which is a real kick in the face and actually takes up bag space (which I realized now while typing) but it's mandatory if you want Way of the Flounder. Which was the last trait that I needed before I decided that I was done with actively leveling my fishing artifact.
   
   

Sadly the rare fish doesn't always stack, so I threw them back into the water once my inventory almost got filled. If it would've been possible I would've waited til I had 50-100+ rare fishes before I began tossing them in.

If there's anything that i've forgotten i'll update the post and highlight the edit. Happy fishing and remember to avoid the time sinks if you are to keep your sanity throughout this entire expansion.