Fishing is one of the gathering skills in RuneScape 3, and it is available for F2P and members alike. The training methods you can use will vary depending on whether you're a F2P or a member. All you need to train your Fishing skill are fishing tools like a fishing rod and bait, which are consumable. They will differ based on the fishing spot type, and you can find them in your tool belt. Check out our skills hub for more RS3 skilling guides.
The higher your fishing level, the more variety you'll unlock, as you can fish from more fishing spots. As you level up your Fishing skill, you will also increase your success rate when fishing, which means you'll fish faster and get more fish and XP.
F2P
As a F2P player, you only have a few options for additional items to make your fishing life easier. You can use urns for extra XP and a shark outfit if you're lucky enough to have one, as this is an amazing quality-of-life fishing outfit that will automatically destroy the fish you catch so you don't have to drop the fish yourself since all of the fishing methods involve dropping the fish. Suppose you want to earn some cash while fishing. In that case, consider something other than this outfit and either fish near a bank which will somewhat decrease your XP per hour, or use magic notepaper to note your fish, which will decrease your profits compared to traditional banking.
As a F2P, you should head towards Lumbridge or Taverley and fish crayfish until you reach level 20. You won't need any bait for this, and getting to level 20 this way should take you less than half an hour unless you are banking all of the fish.
Once you reach level 20, you'll need to grab a stack of feathers which you'll use with your fly fishing rod to catch trout from a trout/salmon fishing spot. You can do this in Lumbridge or the barbarian village. However, the barbarian village is the more popular location since you can use the permanent fire nearby or the bank at Edgeville. At level 30, you will start catching trout and salmon, which means you'll get even more experience per hour. You should keep fly fishing until 99 or 120, as this is the best method all around for F2P.
Members
As a member, you have far more options when it comes to equipment and other perks you can use to take your fishing to the next level. For example, you can use the fishing outfit for a 5% experience boost. You can get the outfit from the Fish Flingers minigame. If you want more quality of life, it is much easier to obtain the shark outfit after 70 fishing as a member, and if you want to catch more fish, you can also use Call of the Sea auras. They last for 1 hour but can be extended for up to 2 hours with Vis wax, and they will boost your catch rate between 3-15%.
Another thing that can boost your catch chance is summoning a waterfiend. You'll also get more fish as the waterfiend familiar can store up to 20 fish. You'll need level 50 summoning for this. There's another type of familiar that you can summon, starting with level 16 summoning, and they will give you an invisible boost to your fishing level, increasing the speed at which you catch fish.
If you don't care about profits but want to maximize your XP per hour, you can use skillchompas. They will replace the bait, but you'll use one each time you attempt to catch a fish, regardless if you catch it or not, and you'll get 10% additional XP for each successful one. You'll get 5% of the XP if the attempt is unsuccessful. Besides this, they will increase your chance to catch fish by up to 5% depending on the type of skillchompa.
To get the most out of Fishing as a member, you should build an aquarium in your player-owned house, as you will then unlock additional fishing perks. If your magic level is above 88 and you have unlocked the ancient magicks spellbook, you can use the crystallize spell to boost your experience and not fill your inventory. With the light form prayer, you can further boost this spell at 80 Prayer for even more XP.
There are also 2 consumables you can use: the Torstol incense sticks for up to 2% XP boost and the perfect juju fishing potion, which increases your chance to catch fish. Other useful items for fishing are Whopper-baiting scrimshaws, the crystal fishing rod, Tavia's fishing rod, fishing rod-o-matic, fishing accumulators, relics, the shark tooth necklace, and the fishing cape.
