Building my village on my island in a lake made me realize I missed something; something that has been an essential part of humanity’s food supply and has been a job among people for thousands of years: fisherman. I would love to see a fisherman class added.
Required to promote a hearthling to fisherman a carpenter would craft a “fishing spear” using two wooden logs. The fisherman would then go towards a zone that must be placed over water and start fishing where the zone meets the shore. At level 1 he learns how to use a “fishing rod” which is created by a carpenter using a wooden log and a piece of thread. When the fisherman becomes level 2 he can use a “boat”; the boat is an item crafted by a high level carpenter that can be placed next to the shore and which a level 2 fisherman can use to move over water. When the fisherman improves to level 3 he learns to work with a net which is crafted by the weaver using multiple pieces of thread. He will set the net up as traps just as the trapper does on land, using a boat if possible or along the shore if no boat is available. At higher level more bonuses can be added such as increased rowboat speed, greater chance to catch fish and more.
Just like with the foods caught by the trapper, the fish caught by the fisherman is edible even though no time is spent by hearthlings to actively cook or prepare the fish. Allthough you could implement that a fisherman must take some actions and spent some time preparing raw fish before it is transformed in edible fish. However the cook can (off course) make all sorts of edible items using the fish, opening up a variety of new recipes.
The fishing zones have a variety of options as well. Just as with farming you can select how the zone will be worked. Default is that a fisherman accesses the zone in any way it can but you can set a zone to use from the coast only, preventing fisherman from boating there. Similarly you can set the zone to boats only, preventing fisherman from wandering along the coast. Furthermore you can select if the fisherman should only use nets in a zone, only use fishing spears/rods in a zone or if he can use both.