Complete 1-99 Fishing Guide for OSRS

What's going on guys, my name's Theoatrix and welcome to my updated level 1-99 fishing guide.

I'm revisiting my old guides and improving them, so over the next few months you can expect up-to-date versions.

Guide Contents

Fishing Basics

Why Train Fishing

Pathways To 99

Barbarian Pathway

Tick Pathway

Tempoross

Fishing XP Boosts

In this guide I'll take you through three pathways to level 99, and I'll also talk about fishing XP boosting equipment.

If you'd prefer to watch a video version of this guide, you can watch that below. Otherwise you can continue down the page to read the written guide.

Fishing Basics

Fishing is a skill that's primarily trained by interacting with fishing spots around Runescape.

With the correct bait and equipment, your player starts catching fish and gaining experience.

Why Train Fishing

So why should you train fishing?

Leveling your fishing unlocks essentials for your account.

You need level 53 fishing to complete the quests for Barrow's Gloves.

You'll need 62 fishing to get the Quest Cape, and you'll need 96 for the Achievement Diary Cape.

The skill is also an essential source of food for Ironmen, and the rewards from Temporos are great for early game accounts and Ironmen.

Fishing also unlocks a range of money makers, and overall is a relaxed skill to train to 99.

Pathways To 99

So there's three pathways to 99 for this guide, and each of them have their own benefits.

The first pathway is Barbarian Fishing, which can be done afk or 3 ticked for faster experience.

It takes roughly 210 hours afking, and 120 hours 3 ticking.

There's the Tick Manipulation Pathway, which is the fastest way to get to 99 fishing, and that takes around 105 hours.

And lastly, I'll talk about training at Temporos, and getting to 99 there takes roughly 190 hours, and gives considerably more profit.

Barbarian Pathway

The Barbarian Fishing Pathway starts off with either questing or catching shrimp, then baiting sardines and herring to 20, then fly fishing to 58, and then barbarian fishing to 99.

As with most skills, questing is the most efficient way to level up at a low level.

Completing the highlighted three quests will get you from 1 to 27 fishing in an efficient manner.

These quests have little to no requirements as well.

You can also complete Taibwo One-Eye Trio and the Fremenik Trials quest to get yourself to 33, although those quests have higher requirements, but they are still essential quests for your account.

If you decide not to do quests, from level 1, you begin your fishing journey catching shrimps.

This can be done at a variety of locations around RuneScape.

Two easily accessible spots are at the southeastern end of Lumbridge Swamp, and there's spots south of Alkarid Bank.

To catch shrimp, you'll need a small fishing net, and it's going to take roughly 10 minutes to get from 1 to 5 fishing.

From level 5, you should catch sardines at the same fishing spots. For these, you'll need a regular fishing rod and some fishing bait, so if you're going from level 1 to 20, you can bring the small fishing net plus the rod and bait to save you from going to the bank.

After reaching level 10, you'll begin catching herring as well as sardines, which increases your XP rate. Going from 5 to 20 fishing will take around 30 minutes.

From level 20 fishing, you can start catching trout. Trout is caught by fly fishing, which requires a fly fishing rod and feathers.

There's a multitude of fly fishing spots around RuneScape.

There's a spot near the goblins in Lumbridge near the canoe, and Shiloh Village is the best place if you want to bank the fish, because there's one close by.

After reaching level 30, you begin catching salmon as well as trout, which increases your XP rate.

At level 20 fishing, you can expect around 20k XP an hour, and at the higher fishing levels, you can get around 40k.

This means that going from 20 to 58 will take roughly 5 to 6 hours, although you can 3 tick fly fish, which greatly increases your XP rates, and I'll show how to do that in the tick manipulation pathway next.

From level 58, Barbarian Fishing becomes an efficient way to train. Barbarian Fishing is done at Otto's Grotto, which you can get to with a Games Necklace to Barbarian Assault.

For Barbarian Fishing, you'll also need 30 agility and 30 strength, and you actually unlock Barbarian Fishing at 48 fishing, but fly fishing is still faster until level 58 since you unlock Leaping Salmon at 58.

To do Barbarian Fishing, you also need to partially complete Barbarian Training.

This means you'll need to speak to Otto about Barbarian Fishing and search for the rod under his bed.

So you fish here using the Barbarian Rod along with feathers, and you can train here AFK, or you can use the 3 tick method.

By 3 ticking, you increase your catch rate by 66%, so you essentially get 66% more XP per hour.

That means at 58 fishing, you'll get over 60k XP per hour 3 ticking.

So with these XP rates, it's going to take 120 hours to get to 99 3 ticking, and around 210 hours if you're AFKing at Barbarian Fishing.

I highly suggest learning how to 3 tick for at least some of your training to 99.

So this is how 3 ticking works.

You firstly need items that enable you to start a 3 tick action.

This could be creating herb tars, fletching teak or mahogany stalks, or using kebbit claws on vambraces.

When fishing, on the first tick, you start your 3 tick action, and on the second tick, you do nothing or drop fish, and on the third tick, you click on the fishing spot and then repeat the cycle.

The fish catching rolls on the third tick of the cycle.

For beginners, it can take some time to get the timing right, but RuneLite has a metronome plugin built in, which I suggest trying.

Overall, if you choose the Barbarian training pathway, I highly recommend learning to 3 tick.

Tick Pathway

This tick manipulation pathway is the fastest way to 99 fishing.

On the pathway, you'll begin with Shrimp, then 3 tick Sardines, then 3 tick Fly Fishing until 58, and then 3 tick Barbarian Fishing till 71, then 2 tick Harpooning to 99.

To train the fastest from level 1, you should begin with a net, regular rod, bait and 3 tick equipment.

Then, you'll need to go to any net bait fishing spot across RuneScape, and you start off fishing for Shrimp until level 5, and this takes 5 to 10 minutes to get to level 5.

Then, you can begin 3 ticking Sardines, and going from 5 to 20 will take around 15 minutes.

Since net fishing is the top option at a bait fishing spot, you need to use the Menu Entry Swapper plugin on RuneLite to change it.

With the plugin active, you hold Shift and right-click the fishing spot, then select Swap Left-Click Bait.

So, 3 tick Sardines is the fastest training method from 5 to 20, although it is more efficient in the long run to do quests, since quests are essential for most account builds.

After reaching level 20, 3 tick Fly Fishing is the next fastest method.

For Fly Fishing, you'll need a Fly Fishing Rod and Feathers, along with the items to start a 3 tick action.

The strategy is the same as Barbarian 3 Ticking, and 3 tick Fly Fishing nets you 30 to 60k XP per hour, which is a big jump from regular training.

From 58 to 71, 3 tick Barbarian Fishing is the fastest.

When you start out, you'll be getting almost 70k XP per hour, and as you level, it scales up to 90.

To get to 71, it's going to take around 7 hours depending on how well you can 3 tick.

If you'd like a full rundown of 3 tick Barbarian Fishing, check out the Barbarian Fishing Pathway of this guide.

At level 71 fishing, 2 tick Harpooning with a Crystal Harpoon is the fastest method in the game.

2 tick Harpooning is done by having 2 monsters attack you so that they hit you every 2 game ticks.

Then, by wearing a shortbow with no ammunition, your character tries to retaliate every 2 game ticks, and that starts a 2 tick cycle.

This means if you start fishing just after you get hit, your player fishes every 2 game ticks.

So 2 tick Harpooning is best done at the Piscorilius house. One very important thing to note is that this method is only worth doing if you have the Crystal Harpoon.

Otherwise, you're better off doing 3 tick Barbarian Fishing. So the Crystal Harpoon is viable from 71, and the Dragon Harpoon becomes viable above 90 fishing, so at 90 the Dragon Harpoon surpasses 3 tick Barbarian Fishing.

You get massive XP rates with 2 tick Harpooning, reaching close to 90k an hour at 71, and peaking at 135k per hour.

So overall, getting from 1 to 99 using the tick manipulation pathway is going to take 105 hours on average.

Tempoross

At level 35 fishing, players can face Tempoross for relatively fast XP rates and minimal effort.

The XP rates range from 30 to 80k XP per hour and vary depending on whether you choose to cook.

Cooking gives more rewards, but less overall fishing experience.

Temporos is slightly faster than AFKing at Barbarian Fishing, but not as fast as 3 ticking.

If you'd like to learn all about Temporos, I suggest checking out my complete Temporos guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=209AbE_Igik

Overall, Temporos provides decent rewards for low-level Ironmen, and on regular accounts the rewards are a great source of profit.

I would suggest training at least some of your fishing at Temporos to change up your training journey to 99.

Fishing XP Boosts

So now I'd like to talk about Fishing XP Boosting Equipment.

Upgrading your Harpoon greatly speeds up your fishing XP rates at Temporos, and with 2 tick harpooning.

You should use the Dragon Harpoon at 61 fishing, even if you can't equip it, and at 70 fishing and with Song of the Elves, the Crystal Harpoon becomes the best option in the game.

Another alternative is the Infernal Harpoon, unlocked at 75 fishing and 85 cooking, and this one is pricey to use, but is the best to use at Temporos if you're going for points.

From Aerial Fishing or Fishing Trawler, you can get the Angler outfit. It's recommended to get the outfit at Fishing Trawler, since it takes longer to get at Aerial Fishing on average.

The full Angler set increases the amount of fishing XP that you get by 2.5%, and the set is also needed to catch Minnows. With Spirit Flakes, you can convert the outfit to this Spirit Angler outfit, and with the full set, it acts as a rope, saving an inventory slot in Temporos.

Overall, the Angler outfit isn't something that you need to get, it's an optional upgrade, since the time that it saves you is not substantial.

While training fishing, you should make use of the Dragon and Crystal Harpoon special attacks, to get the temporary plus 3 fishing boost.

Having a boosted fishing level increases your fishing speed and overall XP per hour.

You can use Admiral Pies to boost your fishing level as well, and that lets you do methods that you haven't unlocked yet.

This can be handy to start catching Sardines from level 1, or if you're near 58 fishing, you can boost to start Barbarian Fishing early.

With Temporos in Old School, there's a lot of new fishing equipment to make use of.

The Tackle Box allows users to store common fishing equipment in one slot.

It stores a wide range of things, and is excellent for saving bank space.

The Fish Barrel is another reward from Temporos, and this essentially doubles your inventory space while fishing.

It allows you to store 28 Raw Fish inside, and this is excellent for Ironmen, for things like Karambwans.

Spirit Flakes are obtained commonly from Temporos, and these give a 50% chance of catching 2 fish instead of 1, but with no extra XP.

This is useful to speed up fishing money makers, as well as for Ironmen looking to catch Anglerfish.

Another reward that's useful is the Rada's Blessing, which is rewarded from completing the Achievement Diaries.

Each tier has a different chance of catching an additional fish, and this effect stacks with Spirit Flakes, and can be used with fishing money makers to get more fish per hour.

Guide Conclusion

Anyways, that's my complete level 1-99 fishing guide. Thanks for reading.