OSRS Best AFK Fishing Methods - Fast XP & Profitable Spots

Onur Author

Created - 10.03.2025 Updated - 18.03.2025

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Fishing is one of the slowest skills that you can train in Old School Runescape. Fishing involves you having the proper tools to catch specific fish and clicking on the same fishing spot repeatedly until you have a full inventory of fish. In which case, you can bank the fish or drop them on the floor to continue with more efficiency. You can make this process faster by tick manipulating, but this guide is not for sweaty players, instead, we are going to check out the best ways to AFK Fishing to reach level 99 in OSRS.

If you want to learn the fastest ways to reach 99 with maximum efficiency and a detailed dive into the skill overall, you can check out our OSRS Fastest Fishing Guide 1-99 guide!

How to Properly AFK

To properly AFK on Runescape, you can either use your phone to login or use a second monitor for OSRS. If you are using your PC, however, you must use Runelite, as there is a plugin that will help you massively. The name of that plugin is Idle Notifier. This plugin is automatically installed with Runelite, so you don't have to search for it. From the plugin menu, you can customize this plugin to give you sound, message, and, most importantly, flash notifications.

We recommend turning the flash notifications on as it will flash your client whenever you stop doing an action, easily notifying you that you are wasting experience!

AFK Fishing Guide 1-99

We are not going to go over every little detail about this skill in this guide, but as a friendly reminder:

• If you have level 60 attack always bring along your dragon or better harpoon and use its special attack for Fishing boost.
• You need to complete the Tai Bwo Wannai Trio quest for an easy AFK method.
• If you want the best AFK experience in the game, make sure to grind a little bit of Tempoross and get yourself a fish barrel.
• If you want to have and additional inventory slot, you can also grind some Molch pearls for Alry the Angler to purchase a Fish sack. After that you can combine your fish sack with your fish barrel to wear it in your cape slot.
• You can get a full Anglers outfit from the Fishing Trawler minigame for a 2.5% experience boost. Alternatively, you can get the spirit variant of the same outfit for the same effect from Tempoross.
• Fishing in the fishing guild will provide an invisible +7 Fishing boost.
• You can check out our Tempoross guide by clicking here!

AFKing fishing is different from other skills. Every player has their own personal favorite spot to fish and it is personal preference, so we will explore each and everyone.

Levels 1-24/33 Questing

The early levels are pretty slow. If you don't mind the slowness, you can skip this and start fishing shrimps. If you want to start with a boost and reach the better AFKing methods earlier you can do the following quest:

• Sea Slug
• Fishing Contest
• Freeing Pirate Pete from Recipe for Disaster

Doing these three quests will get your Fishing level up to level 27. If you want to you can stop after completing the Sea Slug and Fishing Contest. If you want to work a little bit more and start your Fishing journey at a higher level you can also complete the following to reach level 33:

• Tai Bwo Wannai Trio
• The Fremennik Trials

These quests have higher requirements, but you already need to complete the Tai Bwo Wannai Trio for fishing Karamwans, and The Fremennik Trials is a quest that any account must complete for its rewards, so the choice is yours.

Levels 1-5 Raw Shrimps

Head to the Lumbridge swamp and fish some shrimps until you reach level 5 Fishing.

Levels 5-20 Bait Fishing

Get yourself a fishing rod and some bait and fish sardines and herrings until level 20 Fishing.

Levels 20-40/62 Fly Fishing Salmon and Trout

We are very close to the AFK part, so don't worry. Fly fishing is one of the fastest methods for leveling up in OSRS, so you will reach your goal in no time. You can do this in Shilo village or Barbarians village. You will need to bring along a fly fishing rod and some feathers for this method.

Levels 48-99 Barbarian Fishing

Some of you who are familiar with OSRS are probably confused with this since abrbarian fishing is one of the fastest methods of training your fishing in OSRS. Yes, the regular way of doing this will not be AFK, but we are not going to use the regular way.

For this method, you will need to have the barbarian fishing training complete, have the rod and some feathers, and have a fishing barrel. Again, the barrel is a necessity for this method. After this, head to Mount Quidamortem in Kourend. Near the COX entrance, you will see some fishing spots where you can do barbarian fishing at. This spot is perfect as you are right next to a bank, and with the addition of the fishing barrel you are pretty much set to AFK and gain Strength and Agility experience at the same time.

Level 40-62/65 Lobsters

At level 40 Fishing, we have unlocked our first semi-AFK fishing spot, lobsters. Bring along a lobster pot, head to any spot you wish, and start fishing for lobsters. The experience rates will be much worse compared to fly fishing, but AFK time will be much greater.

Levels 62-99 Monkfish

This spot is one of my personal favorites, but it has a high requirement of completing the Swan Song quest. After this quest is completed you can freely fish monkfishes right next to a bank. This spot is incredibly AFK as you are fishing slowly, and the spots don't change around very often plus you have a bank right next to you to bank your spoils. Make sure to have a fish barrel for more AFKing.

Levels 65-99 Karambwans

If your AFK method of choice is karambwans, you must have a fish barrel, otherwise, this spot will become annoying really quickly. To fish karambwans, you must first complete the quest Tai Bwo Wannai Trio. After that, you must fish a bunch of karambwanji from the lake near Tai Bwo Wannai village. You can then equip your fishing gear and a dramen staff and teleport to the fairy ring code D.K.P.

The great thing about this fishing spot is the fact that it never moves. So you never have to move as well. This makes it so that your character can fish until your inventory is full; that is why the fish barrel is a must-have here, more so than in the other spots. If you don't have a fish barrel, this method is not recommended.

After your inventory is full, you can either drop all of them and continue or teleport to a bank using something like a dueling ring and repeat the process. Karambwans are always in demand, so it is advised that you bank them instead of dropping them.

Levels 80-99 Infernal Eel

If you are bored with other methods or if you don't have a fishing barrel, then this method is just right for you. To do this method first you will need to beat the Fight Caves to get a fire cape, which will give you access to the Mor-Ul-Rek area. Then you will need to get a pair of ice gloves and an oily fishing rod, which if you have done your quests, you should already have these.

Bring along a hammer, ice gloves, and oily fishing rods, and head to the Tzhaar area fishing spots. The great thing about Infernal eels is that, after catching them, you can use your hammer on them to smash them to get lava scale shards, tokkul, and onyx bolt tips. This makes it so that you never need to leave the fishing spot. You can either spam click your hammer and eels back and forth to get rid of an whole inventory really quickly or click once and let the game automatically do it for you, which takes around 40 seconds, so more AFK time!

Levels 82-99 Anglerfish

Another player's favorite fish to AFK is the anglerfish. Although not as AFK as some other methods listed here, it is still pretty decent. Being such a high-level fish, you will catch them at a slower rate, allowing you to AFK for longer periods of time. Also, the spots for this move around at longer intervals, making it a great choice for AFKing. Anglerfish is also one of the best foods that you can get in Old School Runescape, making this method more profitable than the rest.

Levels 82-99 Dark Crabs Best Method

This is the best method you can do if you really want to AFK. However, there are some things you must know for this method:

• This method is in Wilderness, so never bring items that you don't want to lose.
• We don't recommend bringing along any of your untradables as you will lose them in deep Wilderness.
• It is highly recommended that you complete the Elite Wilderness Diary since it more than doubles your catch rate of dark crabs.
• You need to bring along some cash to enter the area
• Just like karambwans, this fishing spot never disappears or moves, so you are set to AFK to your heart's content!
• There is an npc that can note your items near the fishing spot for some coins. You can use him if you want to try to bank the fish, or if you only care about experience, you can drop the fish.

Levels 87-99 Sacred Eels

This method is pretty similar to the laval eels. Just like lava eels, you don't need a fishing barrel for this method. You only need to bring along a knife. To access this method, however, you must have the quest Regicide completed. After that, head to Zul-andra and talk to the High priestess there for permission. After getting permission, you can fish at the fishing spots nearby. Once you have a full inventory of eels, you can use your knife to extract zulrah scales from them for some profit and inventory space.

The amount of Zulrah scales you get from these eels depends on your Cooking level. So more cooking level will equal to more profits:

• Levels 72-79: 3-5 scales
• Levels 80-87: 4-6 scales
• Levels 88-95: 5-7 scales
• Levels 96-103: 6-8 scales
• Levels 104-111: 7-9 scales