Pay-to-play Fishing training

Introduction
This guide describes the most effective pay-to-play methods to train the Fishing skill. Fishing is a gathering skill which involves obtaining raw fish from fishing spots. Fishing requires a range of tools such as crayfish cages and fishing rods, most of which are already stored in a player's tool belt upon their account being created. Catching some kinds of fish also requires players to use various types of bait, one of which is used up each time that a fish is caught. Levelling up the Fishing skill increases the rate at which players catch fish and gain experience while fishing. As players level up, they also gain the ability to catch fish which award greater amounts of experience when they are caught.

The experience rate estimates in this guide do not incorporate the use of any experience boosting items or bonus experience. They also assume that players are not banking the raw fish that they catch. Banking fish decreases the amount of experience players can gain per hour and, as most raw fish are not very valuable, is usually not worth the time taken from Fishing training. Players using the Evolution of Combat mode can drop raw fish by adding the raw fish to their action bar and pressing the associated keybind to drop the fish. As opposed to dropping items directly from the inventory using their right-click drop option, dropping raw fish via the action bar does not interrupt fishing.

Fishing outfit
Wearing components of the fishing outfit gives a percentage increase in the amount of base experience gained while fishing. There are four pieces in the set: the fishing hat, fishing jacket, fishing waders and fishing boots. Each item can be purchased for 140 reward tokens from the Fish Flingers minigame, therefore purchasing all of the set's pieces costs 560 tokens. If all pieces of the set are worn, then an additional set bonus effect is given.

Shark outfits
Parts of shark outfits could be won as a prize from Treasure Hunter between the 26 March and 30 March 2015. The shark outfit, burnt shark outfit and tiger shark outfit consist of head slot, body slot, leg slot, hand slot and feet slot items. When wearing a complete version of any of these three outfits, players gain the following bonuses:


 * Ability to toggle between receiving fish while fishing, or having fish be destroyed as they are caught (via a right-click option on the head slot item).
 * Chance of catching a fish is increased by 5%.
 * Living rock creatures in the Living Rock Caverns will not be aggressive towards players.
 * If a player owns a complete fishing outfit, then they will receive its 5% increased base experience effect while wearing a shark outfit.

Players who won all pieces of the shark outfit, burnt shark outfit and tiger shark outfit could combine these outfits' components to form the fury shark outfit. This outfit gives superior benefits to those given by the other shark outfits. Players gain the following bonuses from a fury shark outfit:


 * Ability to toggle between receiving fish while fishing, or having fish be destroyed as they are caught (via a right-click option on the head slot item).
 * Chance of catching a fish is increased by 7% (as opposed to 5% with the other shark outfits).
 * Living rock creatures in the Living Rock Caverns will not be aggressive towards players.
 * If a player owns a complete fishing outfit, then they will receive its 5% increased base experience effect while wearing a shark outfit.
 * 10% chance of catching two fish at once while fishing, giving double experience.
 * 60-70% chance of not using up bait when a fish is caught.

Call of the sea auras
Call of the sea auras increase a player's chance of catching a fish by a percentage while they are activated. These auras' effects last for one hour after they are activated. Players may use 5 or 10 vis wax to extend a call of the sea aura's activation time by 50% or 100% (costing or ) once per day. This effect must be applied before the aura is activated. Once a call of the sea aura has been used the player must wait 3 hours before using it again. Call of the sea auras can be bought using Membership loyalty points. All lower tiers of the aura must be owned before a higher tier aura can be purchased.

Volatile clay harpoons
Players can use reward points from the Stealing Creation mini-game to purchase proto-tools and volatile clay tools. These items can be transformed into a selection of skill related tools, including sacred clay harpoons and volatile clay harpoons. These harpoons can be right-clicked to grant Fishing bonus experience (it is not necessary for the harpoons to be wielded to gain bonus experience). Players are advised to play Stealing Creation within a group of players co-operating in non-combat games to deplete all sources of clay available more quickly. Once all the clay available in a game has been depleted the game will end early, allowing players to gain reward points in shorter amounts of time.

Both proto-tools and volatile clay tools cost 20 reward points per tool to purchase. When converting a proto-tool the player can chose which skilling tool it will become, but converting a volatile clay tool creates a random skilling tool. A volatile clay harpoon grants 29,340 Fishing bonus experience, while sacred clay harpoons grant 24,450 Fishing bonus experience. A skilling tool created from a volatile clay tool can be reverted back to the volatile clay tool and then converted again to potentially give a different tool. This may be done up to 10 times (the volatile clay tool is destroyed upon the 10th reversion); each reversion causing the tool formed from the volatile clay tool to have 10% less bonus experience available to be granted. Both sacred clay and volatile harpoons retain their form after being drained of bonus experience, and players can then use 20 reward points to recharge the depleted tools rather than purchasing new tools. Because of this players can maximise the amount of Fishing bonus experience that they obtain from their reward points by initially purchasing a volatile clay tool and then transforming and reverting the skilling tools created until a volatile clay harpoon is obtained. Players can then continue recharging the volatile clay harpoon, claiming 29,340 Fishing bonus experience from it each time they obtain 20 reward points.

Players with at least level 80 in Woodcutting, Hunter, Fishing and Mining will be able to gather clay from all possible locations in a game of Stealing Creation. With these levels players can gather enough clay during a game of Stealing Creation to gain 24 reward points per game that they play. Assuming games of Stealing Creation are completed in around 12 and a half minutes, players can complete 4.8 games of Stealing Creation per hour and earn 115.2 reward points per hour - enabling them to obtain 140,832 Fishing bonus experience an hour.

Summoning familiars
There are three Summoning familiars available which invisibly boost a player's Fishing level while they are summoned. This does not give a player access higher level content, but allows them to fish at a slightly faster rate.

Urns
Urns can be used to gain additional Fishing experience while training. When held in the inventory, urns are filled as the player catches fish. Only base experience gains counts towards filling the urn. Full urns can be teleported away to receive additional experience, equivalent to 20% of the Fishing experience gained while filling the urn. Only one urn is filled at a time, though players may own up to a total of 10 full urns. If a player owns 10 full fishing urns they must teleport at least 1 away before they can fill more urns. Urns are only tradeable in their (nr), non-runed, forms. In order to use a fishing urn the player must add a water rune to it; this makes the urn untradeable.

Skillchompas
Skillchompas can be equipped while fishing to increase the rate at which fish are caught. They also prevent players from needing to use bait while catching fish. When fishing with skillchompas equipped, a skillchompa is consumed each time the player's character attempts to fish - even if the action is unsuccessful in gaining a raw fish. If a player successfully gains experience from catching a raw fish while fishing with a skillchompa then they receive an additional 10% of the normal base experience. Each time a fishing attempt is unsuccessful a player gains 5% of the bonus experience that they would have received if the attempt was successful. For example when fishing rocktails players gain 380 experience each time they successfully catch a rocktail when not using skillchompas; using skillchompas grants 418 experience upon successfully catching a rocktail and 20 experience each time the player is unsuccessful in catching a rocktail.

At level 99 Fishing using crimson skillchompas to fish rocktails gives around 88,000 experience an hour if no other experience boosting items are used (compared to 45,000 an hour when not using skillchompas). In an hour of fishing using this method around 1,150 crimson skillchompas are used (costing ) while 160 rocktails are gained (worth ). If using crimson skillchompas while barbarian fishing, a player with level 99 Fishing would receive around 92,000 experience an hour, as opposed to 80,000 experience an hour without using skillchompas, and use around 1,400 crimson skillchompas (costing ).

Whopper-baiting scrimshaw
Whopper-baiting scrimshaws can be activated to give players a chance of attracting a big fish while fishing. This awards additional Fishing experience although the big fish are never successfully caught by the player (the player only catches a regular version of the fish). Whopper-baiting scrimshaws can be activated and deactivated when the player chooses, providing that a 10 second cooldown has passed. The inferior whopper-baiting scrimshaw gives a 15% chance of attracting a big fish to gain more experience and requires level 70 Fishing to use. The inferior scrimshaw is tradable, costing, and lasts for 3 hours. The superior whopper-baiting scrimshaw gives a 20% chance of attracting a big fish to gain more experience and requires level 80 Fishing to use. The superior scrimshaw lasts for 4 hours but it is untradeable. Players who have level 85 Fletching can unlock the ability to make superior whopper-baiting scrimshaws by gathering all 4 fragments of the whopper-baiting scroll in Player-owned ports. The superior scrimshaw can then be crafted from 10 ancient bones.

The additional experience gained from the scrimshaw attracting a big fish is equivalent to a proportion of the experience that is gained upon catching a normal fish while fishing, and varies depending on the type of fish being caught. When fishing at fishing spots which grant more than one kind of fish, players have a chance of catching big fish version of all the normal types of fish that they can catch. Inferior and superior scrimshaws award the same amount of additional experience for catching a big fish.

While barbarian fishing players would receive approximately 3,200 additional experience an hour using a whopper-baiting scrimshaw at level 70 Fishing and around 4,000 additional experience an hour using the scrimshaw with level 99 Fishing. At level 99 Fishing, a whopper-baiting scrimshaw would give around 3,600 additional Fishing experience per hour while catching rocktails. However, when accounting for the time taken to bank raw rocktails due to using this scrimshaw instead of signs of the porter, players could gain only approximately 45,500 experience per hour (as opposed to 45,000 experience an hour while using signs of the porter). The benefit of using a scrimshaw while fishing rocktails would be furthered decreased if players were using items such as fishing urns, as using these items would reduce the amount of inventory spaces available to hold raw rocktials and so increase frequency of banking.

Aquariums
Players with at least level 63 in the Construction skill can build an aquarium in their player-owned house for. When this room is built players have a chance of finding golden fish eggs and prawn balls while fishing certain types of fish in RuneScape. For each golden fish egg received players unlock a prawn perk. Prawn perks include the ability to do fly fishing and barbarian fishing without needing to use bait. When opening prawn balls players may find decorations which can be placed in their aquarium to gain an increased chance of finding golden fish eggs from a specific fishing spot, as well as a 2% increase in experience received while fishing at the location. The tribal mask decoration provides these bonuses while fly fishing at Shilo Village, the Fremennik longboat decoration provides these bonuses while barbarian fishing at Otto's Grotto and the Vorago decoration provides these bonuses while fishing in the Living Rock Caverns.

Summary
See here to calculate how many raw fish will be obtained during training.

Levels 1-20: crayfish
At level 1 Fishing players should begin catching raw crayfish. Fishing crayfish gives around 11,500 Fishing experience an hour between levels 1 and 20 Fishing. Assuming a player has no previous experience in the Fishing skill, they should be able to achieve these levels in around 23 minutes. Locations to catch crayfish include east of Lumbridge church and along the northern shore of the lake in Taverley, near Nicholas Angle. No bait is required when catching crayfish.

Levels 20-70: fly fishing
At level 20 Fishing players should start training by fly fishing raw trout. At level 30 Fishing players gain the ability to catch raw salmon and will begin to catch a mixture of both trout and salmon while fly fishing. This gives between 17,000 and 57,000 Fishing experience per hour, with level 20-70 Fishing. Feathers, costing each, are the required bait for fly fishing. There are several locations where players can fly fish trout and salmon; including east of Gunnarsgrunn, at the River Lum in Lumbridge and in Shilo Village, if the Shilo Village quest has been completed. To fly fish, players must use the “lure” option, as opposed to the “bait”, on fishing spots found in these locations.

From level 58 Fishing onwards players may begin fishing both leaping trout and leaping salmon using barbarian fishing techniques. Catching these fish gives the same amount of Fishing experience per fish caught as catching raw trout and raw salmon. Also, fish are caught at a similar rate using both barbarian fishing techniques and through fly fishing. This means that the two methods give an approximately similar rate in gaining Fishing experience between levels 58 and 70 Fishing. Barbarian fishing requires level 30 in both Strength and Agility and grants small amounts of Strength and Agility experience for each fish caught.

Levels 70-99+: barbarian fishing
At level 70 players gain the ability to fish leaping sturgeon and should begin training by barbarian fishing leaping trout, leaping salmon and leaping sturgeon. This gives around 63,000 experience an hour at level 70 Fishing and up to 80,000 experience an hour at level 99 Fishing. Players are also awarded 4, 5 or 7 experience each in both Strength and Agility each time that they catch a leaping trout, leaping salmon or leaping sturgeon. Barbarian fishing requires completion of the part of barbarian training which allows players to use a heavy fishing rod. Additionally level 45 Strength and Agility is required in order to catch all three types of fish. Feathers (costing ) or fishing bait (costing ) are required to catch these fish. The only location where these fish can be caught is the lake near to Otto Godblessed at the top of Baxtorian Falls, which contains the whirlpool entrance to the Ancient Cavern.

Alternative method: living rock caverns (levels 85-99+)
With at least level 85 players can start fishing in the Living Rock Caverns. Between levels 85 and 90 Fishing players can fish raw cavefish. At level 90 Fishing players can start fishing raw rocktails. In comparison to barbarian fishing, cavefish and rocktails are obtained at a much less frequent rate while fishing. Therefore fishing at the Living Rock Caverns can be used as less intensive training method at these levels. Players can also train on these fish to gain some profit as well as experience. Raw rocktails are worth each and raw cavefish are worth  each. Fishing bait is required to catch cavefish; when accounting for the cost of this players profit per raw cavefish caught. Accounting for the cost of living minerals, the bait required to catch rocktails, players can profit per raw rocktail caught. A pulley lift which can be used to bank raw fish is located near the entrance to the Living Rock Caverns. Alternatively, players with at least level 6 Divination can use signs of the porter to bank their raw fish (see this calculator to calculate the cost of using signs of porter to send raw fish to the bank).

Cavefish shoals and rocktail shoals are located in the western part of the Living Rock Caverns. The Living Rock Caverns are inhabited by aggressive living rock protectors and living rock strikers, though these creatures will only attack players who come within close proximity to them. Wearing any complete shark outfit will prevent the living rock creatures from being aggressive to the player. Wearing a complete magic golem outfit also has this effect, though it is recommended that players use a shark outfit or fishing outfit rather than the magic golem outfit if possible. Players may also find it useful to fish on world 84, the official Living Rock Caverns' world, as the presence of other players can reduce the chance of being attacked by the creatures.

Fishing rocktails gives between 40,000 experience an hour, with level 90 Fishing, and 45,000 experience per hour, with level 99 Fishing. A player with level 99 Fishing can catch around 120 raw rocktails an hour, giving a profit of (not accounting for the cost of signs of the porter).

Completing quests
See here for a list of quests that grant Fishing experience on completion.

Fish Flingers
Players gain Fishing experience as a reward on completion of a game of the Fish Flingers Distraction and Diversion. The maximum amount of experience that can be gained ranges between 137 and 23,197 experience, with levels 1-99 Fishing. Each game of Fish Flingers lasts 10 minutes. Theoretically, players could gain an experience rate equivalent of up to 139,182 Fishing experience an hour playing Fish Flingers with level 99 Fishing. However, it is not possible to do this as there is a 10 minute waiting period between games. Players can access Fish Flingers by speaking to any of the fishermen found at fishing spots throughout RuneScape and requesting to be teleported to the Distraction and Diversion's lobby. In the waiting period between games players can continue training Fishing by leaving Fish Flingers via the exit portal in the lobby, which returns them to the fishing spot that they were teleported from. The fishermen will announce when there is a few minutes left before a game starting - it is not necessary to enter the Fish Flingers lobby before this point.

There are no level requirements to play Fish Flingers, but players must have a Fish Flingers entry ticket for each game that they play. 2 entry tickets can be claimed daily by speaking to any fisherman and additional entry tickets may be found randomly while fishing at fishing spots throughout Runescape and while playing Fish Flingers. Players may only claim entry tickets from fishermen when they have less than 10 entry tickets, though they may find additional tickets even if they have 10 tickets already. There is no limit to the number of Fish Flingers games a player may participate in per day aside from the entry ticket requirement.

The aim of Fish Flingers is to identify the correct combination of bait, hook, weight and location to catch different kinds of fish. Each player may gain one hint towards a combination by asking a fisherman for advice, either in RuneScape or in the Fish Flingers lobby before a game starts. While in a game, players can discover further correct combinations through trial and error of different combinations. It is highly recommended that players play this Distraction and Diversion on the official Fish Flingers world (world 89) in order to share information about combinations with other people playing the Distraction and Diversion. As the experience awarded for playing Fish Flingers is based on the score obtained, players should aim to maximise their score when playing. Players can achieve the maximum of 48 score by fulfilling the following criteria:


 * Catching over 130 fish (5 points)
 * Catching 3 big fish (6 points, 2 points per big fish)
 * Assisting other players to catch 6 big fish (6 points)
 * Have a total weight of fish caught of 10,000 or more (20 points)
 * Catch a heaviest fish with a weight of 199 (3 points)
 * Catch all 6 fish using the 100%/perfect combination (8 points)

To fulfil these requirements players should prioritise catching the heaviest kind of fish, as this will allow them to simultaneously increase their total weight, total number of fish caught and catch a fish with a high weight. Players can also increase the number of fish that they catch by quickcasting. To do this players should quickly re-click a fishing spot each time a fish is caught, in order to skip the animation for casting the fishing rod.

Complexity 2 Fishing
Players who are familiar with the Dungeoneering skill can gain Fishing experience by collecting raw fish from fishing ponds while completing dungeons. To do this more effectively players should complete small solo dungeons with the dungeon complexity setting set to 2. With these settings, dungeons created will contain large numbers of fishing ponds and also be more straightforward to complete than dungeons of a higher complexity. While completing the dungeon players should open rooms as usual, but take time to deplete all fishing ponds that are encountered. Once the player has opened all the rooms in the dungeon and depleted all available fishing ponds then they should leave the dungeon (without killing the boss and ending the dungeon).

Fishing in dungeons requires players to use feathers, which can be purchased from the Smuggler upon starting a dungeon. Completion of tasks in the Daemonheim task set will allow players to receive rusty coins when a dungeon is started, which can be used to buy feathers. 100 rusty coins are given per task that has been completed. Completion of the medium tasks in the task set may also be helpful to players, as this allows 40 law runes and 40 cosmic runes to be claimed from the Smuggler at the start of every dungeon. These runes can be used to create and teleport to gatestones for faster navigation of dungeons.

A player with level 99 Fishing can obtain around 100,000 Fishing experience an hour when fishing in c2 solo small floors. The fishing spots spawned in a dungeon are scaled according to a player's Fishing level: for example a player with level 99 Fishing completing a solo dungeon would mostly find fishing spots containing raw cave morays and raw blue crabs. Players with lower Fishing levels would find fishing spots requiring lower Fishing levels to fish at, which give raw fish that give less fishing experience.

Players wishing to train both their Woodcutting and Fishing skills can use this method to obtain experience in Fishing and Woodcutting simultaneously. If wishing to obtain additional experience in Woodcutting, players must have a hatchet. Woodcutting inside dungeons involves an alternative set of hatchets which can only be used while dungeoneering and which may be stored in the specific Dungeoneering toolbelt. Players can then complete the method mentioned previously while additionally depleting all trees encountered. Players with level 99 in Fishing and Woodcutting can gain around 80,000 Woodcutting experience and 82,000 Fishing experience per hour using this method.

Divine fishing bubbles
Divine locations are items which can be made using the Divination skill. Divine locations can be placed to create a gathering hub from which players can harvest raw materials. Players can harvest from a divine location even if they do not have the Divination level required to make it. A placed divine location lasts approximately 30 seconds before disappearing. Players can gain a limited amount of resources from divine locations per day, with the daily limit resetting at 00:00 UTC each day. A player's daily limit of resources is dependent on their total level, up to a maximum of 250 resources with a total level of 2,500 or more (see the daily limit calculator on the divine location page). 20 or 40 vis wax can be used to increase a player's daily limit by 50% or 100% once per day, costing or. Gathering most resources contributes 1 resource towards the daily limit per item received, however some resources contribute more towards the daily limit. For example, each time a raw rocktail is obtained from a divine rocktail bubble counts as 4 resources towards the daily limit.

As players may only create one divine location per day, it is beneficial for players to harvest from divine locations as part of a group so that they can gain access to multiple divine locations. Up to 5 players may harvest from the same divine location at once. When other players harvest from a divine location, the player who placed the location gains the benefit of a 40% chance of receiving additional noted items as they harvest from their divine location. Harvesting a noted resource awards the same experience and contribution to a player's daily limit as harvesting an un-noted resource. Harvesting noted resources allows a player to gain more resources from a single divine location and therefore reduces the number of divine locations that they must use to reach their daily limit of resources. A good place to find other players to harvest divine locations with is near Challenge Mistress Fara and the lodestone in Burthorpe on world 2, especially around the time of day when the daily limit resets.

Players can gather from divine fishing bubbles if they have the required Fishing level. When gathering from divine fishing bubbles players will gain raw fish. Raw fish are obtained from a divine fishing bubble at a rapid rate and grant experience equivalent to that which would be received if the raw fish were caught from a fishing spot. Because of this, harvesting from divine fishing bubbles can award players large amount of Fishing experience in a short amount of time. For example harvesting a full inventory of raw rocktails from a divine rocktail bubble gives 10,640 Fishing experience in around 30 seconds.

To gain the most Fishing experience possible from harvesting divine fishing bubbles, players should harvest from bubbles that give the most experience per resource count used. Players should harvest from the highest level divine fishing bubble available to them until level 30 Fishing. Players with Fishing levels between 30 and 89 should harvest from divine salmon bubbles. Players with level 89 Fishing or more should harvest from divine cavefish bubbles. Wearing components of the fishing outfit increases the experience gained from harvesting divine fishing bubbles.