Since fishing behind fortified walls has been nerfed, like in safe wells, thru grates over submerged cisterns, I've given up on fishing, too. That was a food satisfying design, I used prior to Toady nerfing it. [34.11] doesn't seem to even produce shells. I must either be picking shell-less embarks all the time or its nerfed. Not sure what is going on with fishing, but something changed for the worst. I don't bother with fishing.
I roll with lots of hunters. They give me a mobile restraint, to attach a hunting dog onto. What I do is open up my cavern areas, in advanced world generation, however. As I hate when they can't find ranged warfare down there. A more open, less dense cavern, is ideal for subteranean hunting. Troglodytes are great to hunt. On the topside, I use hunters too, but haven't had any luck burrowing them. So I dunno.
There needs to be somekind of restraint on them when they hunt up top. So many times, they die first thing, when a Siege occurs, making them kinda weak. But in early game, they can be lots of fun. One thing I found, is I sometimes need to edge on the animal respawn, by sending my militia out to wipe out those flying raven, that seem to linger on the edge of the region, 4 z levels off the ground.
Hunters just don't find some of these critters, specially the flyers. Not sure if that's a bug or not. But a militia squad will. Assisting the hunters now and again, with the squad keeps the HUNT action progressing smoothly. Sincerely, Knutor