Runescape skill of Fishing and fishing history.

Fishing was one of the first skills to be available in RuneScape, released on 11 June 2001. It is also one of the most common activities. Fishing lets players catch fish from fishing spots. It is the companion skill of Cooking. Caught fish may be cooked using the Cooking Skill, and are often sold to other players because of their ability to heal Life Points. When a player has achieved level 99 in fishing he or she may purchase a Skillcape of Fishing from the Master Fisher inside the Fishing Guild for 99,000 coins. Please see the Fishing Skillcape article for more information. The current minimum requirement to be ranked (at rank 2,000,000) on the hiscores for Fishing is level 57. As of 10 January 2011, there are 47,785 players that have achieved level 99 in Fishing.
The fishing skill was released on 11 June 2001, along with Karamja and the Pirate's Treasure quest. It was part of a large update that complemented the cooking skill. This update added many of the fish that are currently found in free-to-play, including shrimp, salmon, and lobster. In addition to the fishing spots on Karamja, spots in Draynor Village and Port Sarim were added.
On 27 February 2002, a members subscription service was created. Along with many new quests and fishing areas, big net fishing was released, which allowed players to catch bass, mackerel, and cod. In addition, players would sometimes fish up a casket. On 17 June 2002, the Fishing Guild was released. The Fishing Trawler activity was released on 28 July 2003. It allowed players to fish for manta rays and sea turtles.
On 3 July 2007, Barbarian Fishing was added to the game. This included Heavy Rod Fishing and Barbarian Hand Fishing. Heavy Rod Fishing allows players to catch Leaping trout, Leaping salmon and Leaping sturgeon. Barbarian Hand Fishing gives the ability to fish using bare hands, as opposed to using a harpoon.
On 17 September 2009, a major update to the fishing skill came in the form of the Living Rock Caverns. Players could fish for cavefish and rocktail, two of the highest-healing fish in the game. Fish Flingers, the first fishing distraction and diversion, was released on 23 March 2010. Less than a month later, Dungeoneering was released, which created ten different kinds of fish.