r/RedDeadOnline • u/SmurfinGTA • Jul 08 '19
Player Guide Red Dead Online Player Guide - Hunting and Fishing
If you see misinformation please leave a comment, directly PM me, or my Discord is SmurfInn#4360. Even though changing Third Person Controls and other Settings is suggested, these tips are written as if default controls are used.
Hunting and Fishing <-- You are here.
Glitches and Exploits Awareness
Free Roam Event Map (Community contributions)
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Hunting and Fishing
Best hunting for Butcher and Trader Role: Go to Heartlands or Scarlett Meadows because of the Whitetail Deer and Whitetail Buck. Cougars and Panthers are more valuable but they don't spawn en masse like Whitetail. Both these areas are fairly flat with slopes that a Hunting Wagon can navigate. So just ride your Wagon around and shoot the 3-Star Whitetails in the head with a Rifle. Don't chase them too hard because you might crash the wagon. It's possible to turn around and spawn more. Whitetail hunting is strictly for efficient Material build-up for your Camp. Don't turn down 2-Star Bucks. Don't turn down 3-Star Rabbits and store them on the side of your Horse. Low levels should shoot and skin/pluck everything else besides valuable Whitetails and Rabbits for the XP and Award Gold. Donating Legendary Animal parts to Cripps also quickly fills your Camp Materials. You can donate a Sampled carcass if you physically turn it in or first put it in a Hunting Wagon. If you Fast Travel with the carcass it will skin itself but look unskinned. This may be changed in the future.
- The Hunting Wagon keeps all cargo when it is destroyed and brought back. Even if you disconnect and return. It can store 5 carcasses and tons of pelts.
- Legendary animals from Harriet's missions give Cripps the most materials. Free roam Legendary animals are also worth it and can be found with the help of the RDO Map. is a complete chart of animal prices from Cripps, the Butcher/Gus, and Harriet. The three most valuable are the Golden Spirit Bear (62.50), Payta Bison (58.75), and Sapa Cougar (58.75) and the least valuable is the free roam Zizi Beaver (22.50 Materials).
- Here#Legendary_Animals) is a complete list of Legendary animals and their info.
- Legendary Animals damaged by fire, explosives, or Toxic Moonshine cannot be skinned or sampled. Using Hangman to kill a Legendary animal will work but you will be constantly pulled and retrying. Free roam legendaries may require more than one choking.
- The Elephant Rifle ($580.00 through the catalog) is designed for an extremely powerful first shot on a Legendary. Aim for the head and be ready to chase it if it doesn't die. Its ammo can go through wood material and other weak objects.
- You can load your wagon up with carcasses then dismiss it to call your Horse. Fill up your Horse then Sell/Donate everything and call your wagon to do the same.
- You can fill your wagon and Fast Travel to Camp with the Wilderness Camp if you achieved Outlaw Pass 4 Rank 97.
- I have found 6 Bucks in this marsh area back-to-back and always in pairs.
- While focusing or aiming at an animal hit R1 to view a Description and the last sentence will tell you what weapon to use to get the best quality.
- Aiming at an animal while on horseback with L2 will make the horse auto-follow the animal.
- Killing most medium and large animals with the Bolt Action or Springfield helps preserve carcass quality. Use a high damage weapon (Express Ammo helps) and aim for the head. Fewer shots mean a better carcass which means more money. Sniper Rifles will also preserve quality. Normal-sized Birds are Varmint Rifle only. Use the Varmint Rifle or Arrows for rodent-like animals (Rabbits, Racoons, Muskrats, etc) and Small Game Arrows for Rats, Squirrels, and small birds. Use the Elephant Rifle on Legendaries only if you have a good shot. Then use a Rifle or Repeater to finish it off. Don't burn, explode, or poison it. Choking with the Hangman Ability Card will kill Legendary Animals but takes a long time.
- Big game with thick skin can be killed by Shotgun Slugs and remain perfect.
- You can either skin/pluck an animal for meat and other parts, or donate the unskinned carcass to Cripps for more money. In most cases, it is more valuable to donate to Cripps for your Trader business than selling animal parts to the Butcher/Gus. Selling animal Samples to Harriet is the least profitable.
- You can't skin Sampled carcasses but you can donate them if you physically turn the carcass or first put them in your Hunting Wagon. Do this for Legendary Animals. Don't Fast Travel with a sampled carcass. It will skin the animal even though it looks unskinned. Since this is using one Legendary carcass, even a normal carcass, for two profits (Harriet Sample and Cripps donation), this may be an exploit and is subject to change.
- Small birds put in your Satchel can be broken down and yield feathers worth way more than the carcass.
- Here is a chart of animal sell prices.
- Hunting alone is best. Your animal spawns won't be affected by nearby Players.
- Use stolen or tamed horses to store more carcasses. Ride the new horse and have your personal Horse follow you. Be sure to Hitch the newly tamed horse when you get off so it doesn't run away.
- Shoot a predator with a poison arrow. Hit it anywhere and it won't degrade the quality. Wait to kill and skin. Doesn't work for Legendaries.
- You can also lasso and drag another carcass to the Butcher/Cripps. It will not degrade the quality.
- Small, or "baby", Alligators give you great money and the same 15 XP per kill. They are small enough to stack their pelts on your Horse, unlike the larger Alligators.
- Use the Improved Bow as it uses less Stamina than the normal Bow.
- Use the Bow to kill animals without startling others. Aim for the head and use small arrows for small animals.
- Regular and Small Game Arrow can be picked up for another use.
- If using a Bow, use damage Ability Cards to add an arrow's impact. Horseman, Landon's Patience, and Peak Condition increase damage output. Focus Fire as well, but you sacrifice Paint It Black.
- If you place Bait to attract animals you and your Horse need to stay upwind to keep your scent away from the bait. Use Eagle Eye to see which direction the Bait's scent is flowing. Stay on the opposite side. Keep low and still. Even get rid of your Horse.
- Legendary Animal Pheromones only help show a Legendary Animal after it's been revealed. It doesn't help spawn new Legendaries.
- Be sure to collect all the arrows you fire to reuse. Poison and Fire Arrows will yield normal Arrows. Dynamite Arrows yield nothing.
- Cancel a Bow shot after pulling back by hitting Circle / B.
- A red Stamina or Dead Eye core will affect your aim, accuracy, and aiming sway.
- Red paws on your minimap are dead or sedated predators. Some deer and elk can be red paws if they were agitated/aggressive. Can happen when a predator is sedated. This means it will wake up aggressive.
- Getting drunk will disable your auto-aim.
- Drinking Coffee will sober your character. More than one cup may be needed depending on how drunk they are.
- You can't fish off boats unless you find are big boat and try to cast while very close to the shoreline. This is very unreliable.
- Use Eagle Eye when your rod is out and you can see exactly where to cast towards fish.
- Fish off a high spot like a rock to make reeling in medium to large fish a little easier.
- Easily kill animals and preserve their pelts by lassoing animals then knifing.
- You can skip the carcass skinning animation by standing your Horse over the carcass or skin the carcass in awkward terrain.
- You can Fast Travel with a carcass on your Horse.
- Carcasses and Pelts will disappear if you change sessions but will stay if you join a friend's session by joining their Posse.
- The Unblinking Eye increases the length of your Dead Eye and Eagle Eye for tracking
- At Bounty Hunter Rank 6 you unlock the Eagle Eye+ Perk which allows you to track animals while running on foot or horseback.
- At Naturalist Rank 16 you learn to track all animals for a longer period of time.
- At Naturalist Rank 5 you are able to spot Legendary Animal trails and spawns. Naturalist Rank 10 helps you narrow down Legendary search areas and Naturalist Rank 15 increases your chances of spotting Legendaries.
- The Ability Card Paint It Black is useful for tagging flocks of birds with the Varmint Rifle. Be careful because Paint It Black can also tag the wrong animal or body part, or even tag an animal more than once.
- Focus Fire or any damage card would work. Horseman, Landon's Patience, Peak Condition, etc...
- I would use Paint It Black for tagging heads, The Unblinking Eye for longer tracking time, Landon's Patience to build an increase of damage while I track with my weapon out, and Peak Condition for an additional, smaller damage increase.
- If I were hunting really tough animals like Panthers, Moose, Bears, etc I would replace Paint It Black with Focus Fire and Express ammo to help put them down with one headshot. Legendary Animals have more health so staking damage will also help take them down.
- The Blending Tonic ($22.50 through Harriet unless crafted from a pamphlet) reduces the range at which you can be detected by animals for a period of time.
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u/spillytalker Jul 09 '19
Something I don't see mentioned from people unless they have played the SP is the smell from your character. If you are hunting or using bait to catch an animal you need to stay upwind. When you go into eagle eye you can see the scent of your character by the swaying lines, same as you see from the animals. If the wind is blowing it towards the bait or animal then they will not show up or scurry away.
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u/yuch1102 Jul 09 '19
the chart is no longer accurate because R nerfed the prices. The Buck carcass is 5$ now
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u/jiujitsy Jul 09 '19
i have some tactics that conflict with your "hunting alone is best"
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u/Traveler_1898 Jul 09 '19
Would you mind sharing them? I can see animals being herded while hunted by a well coordinates team. However, I don't typically see large herds that would require that level of work.
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u/jiujitsy Jul 09 '19
yea no problem, its a system that i came up with, i gave the positions cool gamer like names, so I call it hunting in packs.
to give you the short version, one guy is main hunter and and calls shots, second guy is sniper, he keeps an eye on whatever the hunter spots, so it doesn't despawn.
the third guy is the "hound" he goes with the hunter and retrieves any kills that the hunter and sniper makes, this method ensures that you catch all animals around, and any animals that might have ran away during your initial kill.
so imagine you see a perfect deer, along side a 2 star. your sniper would lock on to who ever you told him to, using either a rifle with a scope or a bow, then you and the hound would make their way over to the deer, and you could kill any animals on the way to the deer.
this system allows you to priories kills and makes it so that everyone can get something.... i play on free aim, so it's more of a necessity for me, but it works well with auto aim
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u/Traveler_1898 Jul 09 '19
That's cool. And if it's fun for you, great. But I suspect a solo hunter could still net more resources from hunting than a each member of a group would. So if your definition of "best" results in hunting is the maximum amount of resources, hunting alone would surely be the best. But "best" could mean fun, in which case maybe hunting in a group of more fun and therefore the best.
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u/jiujitsy Jul 09 '19
best meaning the most resources, maybe try it first... then come tell me how you feel. this method allows for you to get perfect kills and still track everything with in your radius. hunting solo, even on auto aim, means that you will lose out on animals fleeing or you sacrifice pelt quality by taking random shots
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u/Traveler_1898 Jul 10 '19
How big are these groups of animals? I can take down five deer with my bolt or my bow, all with one shot each (using the auto aim and making slight adjustments). And it's rare to see a group of animals that big or bigger (besides buffalo). Most of the time it's two or three animals and so they can be taken down with ease. And buffalo are slow so I can take down half the herd (probably more if I wanted).
In your scenario there are only two animals. How far out are you are spotting animals? It isn't like you will run into dozens of animals between your position and where you spotted the deer.
How many animals are you guys downing in an hour?
I'm not trying to knock your style. I appreciate your alternative take on hunting. I'm just fairly confident that a solo hunter is going to take in more resources because the animals spawns can't support that many hunters. You guys might down a few more animals, but not the three times as many animals as you'd need to make it worth being in a group. Hunting solo I just don't see that many animals escaping me. Which is your main benefit as you say, that you can get all of animals you see. Some animals escape me, but not three times as many animals as I put down.
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u/jiujitsy Jul 10 '19
there is always going to be a person that doubts your ideas with out trying it, i know youre fairly certain of most things in your life, but i have tested this with a bunch of people. i know my way gets me more pelts than if i do it solo. youre more than welcome to try it, otherwise, im pretty confident in my method.
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u/Traveler_1898 Jul 10 '19
I don't need to try it. You have three hunters, thus you need three times the animals that I need just to break even. While hunting, yes, some animals escape. But not three times as many animals as I kill. In a group of four or five deer, I'll get three of them no problem. Your group is only going to pick up one to two deer more than me, when you'd need to collect six more. Herds that big are not very common.
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u/jiujitsy Jul 11 '19
me and the homies are coming out really happy , all 3 of us, i'd tell you the secrets to it, but something tells me you prefer to be miserable. have fun when you try it out, hit me up if you need any pointers.
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u/Traveler_1898 Jul 11 '19
Haha, that's funny. I prefer to be miserable? What have you that impression? You guys can be happy with your system all you want. But there is no way it's the efficient way of getting resources hunting. Why won't you say how big these herds you're hunting are? Because your know they aren't as large as 9 animals.
I was being polite with you. The fact is, animal spawns aren't large enough on average to support group hunting in a way where you will do better than a solo hunter.
I want to make this distinction again, because I think you are missing it. Your three person group may kill more animals than me, but you need to kill three times as many animals just to match my efficiency solo. That's 9 deer for every 3 of mine. 9 rabbits for every 3 of mine. And since I rarely observe a situation 6 animals escape after I kill three, I can confidently say adding three people to my hunting group will diminish my individual gains.
Group hunting may be fun, but solo hunting is more efficient. If you find group hunting for, that's great. Keep doing it. But competent solo hunters will always out earn you.
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u/SmurfinGTA Jul 19 '19
Hunting can be done at any time! But it is less chaotic, and profitable, to hunt alone. It may not be as fun!
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Jul 09 '19
Cheers for compiling, this something I’ve been wondering for the past few days, as I always wonder which carcus’ I should be transporting back.
Just a couple of bits I found. If you get a perfect (or good) alligator, you’ll get 5x BGM
And cougar will give you 2x fangs. Also a perfect rabbit gives 2x game meat.
I look for some others later! Have dailies to complete then work!
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u/Mohr_Khowbell Jul 11 '19
Is it just me? When I click on the chart now so I can see it all, a bunch is still cut off at the bottom.
I was actually coming to this thread a lot for this specific chart, but now I can’t really use it.
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u/SmurfinGTA Jul 19 '19
Try reloading? The bottom-most animal for me is Woodpecker. What about you?
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u/Mohr_Khowbell Jul 19 '19 edited Jul 19 '19
No, it’s still at the Wolf heart at the bottom for me...
Ahhh, wait. I think I see it. Before, I used to be able to pick the actual pic at the top on the thread on my iPad and see everything immediately, pinching and zooming in without hassle. Now I finally discovered the link to the google doc imbedded in the word "Here." It honestly seems small and buried in all the text, so it was harder to find for me. And now when I load the google doc there’s always lag when I’m trying to search through or find any specific animal, so it’s not as intuitive for me and harder to justify the time searching when I’m hoping for a quick answer.
It’s still an amazing resource though and I’m grateful for the time you took to make it. If there was a way we could put the whole thing in pic form, no matter how small, and then be able to quickly zoom in and find what we want, that would work so much better for me. I don’t know if that’s possible here though.
Thank you again. It’s helped me greatly up to this point.
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u/GhostDeRazgriz Nov 22 '19 edited Dec 01 '19
Do missions halt the progression of goods? Like in session missions like bounty hunts or stranger missions? What actions halt progression? (obviously excluding lack of supply or material)
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u/SmurfinGTA Dec 01 '19
If you're in a free roam session and you're not in someone else's Posse, then your Camp produces. Even if it's not on the map and even if you're in a mission. I'm not sure about Showdowns, Legendary Bounties, or Story Missions.
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u/Cowboy247 Nov 26 '19
Curious if anyone knows the price fish sell for at the butcher?
Im wanting to know what’s the most expensive fish I can hold in my satchel?
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u/damian001 Dec 18 '19 edited Dec 18 '19
Northern Pike sells for $8 each. When I’m not actively hunting for Cripps, I go fish some Northern Pike up in Cattail Pond. I always see a lot spawn over there. I put 5 in my wagon and one on my horse for an easy $48 earned in 5-10 minutes doing some relaxing fishing.
It may not pay as much as the 3 other roles, but at least I don’t have to go chase & shoot people, scavenge around the map looking for collectibles, or endlessly look for 3-star animal spawns. It’s a nice way to make side-money that doesn’t require much movement.
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u/DankFetuses Trader Jul 09 '19
I have some grips with that animal chart. The first one is skinned carcasses don't sell for the same price as non skinned carcasses. The second grip is that these meat numbers for the animals are also all over the place, all large game that can't have there carcasses picked up have 5 meat, no matter if it's a bison, an elk, or a grizzly. Thirdly, all medium sized animals like deer and boars drop 4 meat. That chart really messes up with the number values and isn't accurate.