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/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.