Fishing
Equipment - Small net, lobster pot, fishing rod, feathers, heavy rod, summoning familiars, fly fishing rod, bait, and living minerals.
Lvl 1-99
===IMPORTANT NOTE=== Granite Crab: +1 Fishing (16 Summoning) Ibis: +3 Fishing (56 Summoning) Granite Lobster: +4 Fishing (74 Summoning) Use these if you can! They boost your Fishing level as well as catch fish [giving exp].
Method 1 Lvls 1-5: Shrimps - Head over to Draynor Village and fish some shrimp.
Method 1 Lvls 5-20: Herring - Grab a fishing rod and around 300 bait and go to Draynor Village. Simply fish there with your fishing rod and bait.
Method 1 Lvls 48-90: Heavy rod Fishing - Heavy rod fishing is better than Shilo Village fishing. You must search Otto's bed in his house south of the Barbarian Outpost for a rod. You also must complete the first stage of Barbarian Training. This method of fishing not only gets you 5k+ more exp per hour than fly fishing in Shilo Village, it also gives 1/11 of the exp you get in fishing to agility and strength! That's over 1M exp in both skills to 99 fishing! Dropping the fish is the best method for disposing of them. Cutting them with a knife is acceptable because it gives you 10 cooking exp per fish you cut, but now that the "cut x" has been implemented, it's much slower. If you drop your fish [recommended] you'll need quite a bit of feathers. If you're cutting your fish [not recommended], you only need to bring feathers for the first inventory of fish. Then you can use the fish offcuts, caviar, and roe to get all of the fish from there on out. Remember, cutting gets you some cooking exp and doesn't lose you money [feathers lose a tiny bit of money], but it's much slower.
XP: 45-55k xp/hr GP: 0 gp/hr
Method 2 Lvls 48-90: Shilo Fly Fishing - This method is better than lobsters in my opinion for Free2Play and also Pay2Play. Fly fishing in Shilo Village [or the Barbarian Village if you are Free2Play, or cannot access Shilo Village for some reason], is just behind heavy rod fishing in exp per hour once you hit lvl 48. If you're fishing in Shilo, there is a player made guild in world 22 you can have fun in. Bank all your fish you can get, unless you're training at the Barbarian Village. If you are training there, drop all of your fish because it's definitely not worth it to bank all the way from there.
XP: 42k xp/hr GP: 0 gp/hr
Method 3 Lvls 40-62: Lobsters - If you want just a bit of money, but a much slower method, fish lobsters. If you're Free2Play you can't really earn money, but you can still fish them on Karamja. If you're Pay2Play though, fish in Catherby and bank.
XP: 20-25k xp/hr GP: 50-60k gp/hr
Method 3 Lvls 62-90: Monkfish - Once you hit 62, never again should you do lobsters, so this respectively becomes the #3 method. Catching monkfish is the course many people take to 90 fishing, mainly because it earns close to 25M cash. It's not great exp, but it's not bad either coming in at around 35k per hour. This method it actually the most efficient method time wise if you are not able to earn 250k cash per hour somehow. If you make less than 250k per hour, this is definitely the best method for you. Also remember fishing monkfish requires the completion of the quest Swan Song. I found this quest pretty difficult at level 80 combat, so if you're not able to do that quest, either fly fish or heavy rod fish, and I guess if you want to make some cash and fish, you can do lobsters.
XP: 35k xp/hr GP: 120k gp/hr
Method 4 Lvls 62-90: Lobsters - Coming in #4 method is lobster fishing. I really don't recommend this way all that much because if you can do SWAN SONG you really should do it...monkfish are worth every bit of it. Lobsters get you a mere 20k per hour compared to monkfish's 35k per hour [at least that's what I average] and monkfish get you nearly 75k more per hour in money. But many people can't do Swan Song and don't want to do Shilo Village fishing because they want to earn money, and if only you fall under those conditions, I recommend lobster fishing for you.
XP: 20-25k xp/hr GP: 50-60k gp/hr
XP: 50-60k xp/hr GP: 230-275k gp/hr
Speed - I would say this scale is a 4 on a scale of 1 to 10, because you can get pretty fast exp at Shilo Village fish and rocktails...other ways might be more like a 3.
Uses - Well, fishing is a very important skill, giving us the option to last longer in combat and fish things for our neighborly friends in RuneScape quests. It will also give you a fairly good money source.
