Tips for moose hunting

[DirtyMadcap]

Is it the norm these days to get a one-shot moose kill on day 2 in Voyager, or did I just get super lucky?

[CathyElksun]

You are super-lucky! I am doing Voyager in Mystery Lake about day 30, there is moose-sign of rubbed tree trunks here and there, and there is a moose around the Trapper's Cabin... but I only have two bullets and I am scared to waste them. 

I really want that Moose-hide satchel. With that and being well-fed from eating piles of moose I could carry 40kg of stuff. I just wish we had third-person view so we could see ourselves looking stylish in deerskin pants. 

[CathyElksun]

In this article, "I love animals but I kill them too", said a woman hunter. 

“The hunting literature has portrayed a largely ‘male hero’ story. But based on my experience, I think the narrative should become more focused on ‘individual responsibility’.”

After taking the wrong door in Carter Dam and freezing to death in "Pleasant" Valley, I started again. This time I was at the Trapper's Homestead and... starving. There was a rifle and a six-round box of ammunition, and along the way from where I landed I had seen a bear, but I didn't feel brave enough to take him on. I also only had four matches (I landed in the dark), so I thought: at least I can get firewood, maybe while I'm out I'll see some rabbits? After cutting up some wood and catching two rabbits and making my way slowly back to the homestead, tired and cold and hungry, I saw him: the moose! I raised my rifle, and... remembered that mooses do not bleed out, so unless I could make my shot, I might end up trampled to death. 

I lowered my rifle and started turning away, and heard a snort. Was the bear there too, for good measure? I turned around, and the moose had his head lowered at me. I backed off, but only slowly because I was so tired, cold and hungry. Not fast enough for Bullwinkle! He charged. As he came in I raised my rifle and shot, he staggered back but kept coming. I was stomped nearly unconscious by him, and when I staggered up with blurry vision he was walking away from me without a care in the world. It was smarter to let him go, but I was angry! I raised my rifle and fired a second shot, missing him. Back he came, as angry as me, and I fired again - and he went down. 

I am sorry, Bullwinkle, but I was hungry. Also you did charge me when I was just staggering into my home to sleep. 

That is three rounds out of my six gone, and I am staggering around with broken ribs for a week, but I got him! It took me five hours to quarter him and haul the bags (I didn't know I had hessian sacks on me?), his hide and guts into the cabin. Now of course I had a lot of moose to cook, and only four matches, but at least I have a magnifying glass... It's now been almost four days of chopping firewood, cooking and eating moose, I also made a rabbit skin hat while I was waiting. I am still just wearing jeans, a sweater and some cargo pants and work boots I found in the logger's trailer park.

So I think that is a tip for moose-hunting, too: if you win, you will probably be busy for a week just finding firewood, cooking and maybe healing. Voyager doesn't have cabin fever, right? 

How do you chop wood with broken ribs? All I have to eat is moose steak and herbal tea. Now I know why there are no toilets in TLD.

In gratitude I cleaned my rifle to 100% and named him Rocky. Honk honk. 

[Ben Holbrook]

Thanks for sharing these tips for moose hunting. These tips will be helpful to make the first moose trip a success when you head out on the hunt. 

[peteloud]

I have not done the calculations, but I suspect that quartering and bagging a big animal is very inefficient.  If you simply cut all the meat off the carcass and drop what you can not, or don't want to carry at that moment, beside the carcass it will remain in good condition for ages and you can collect it when it suits you.  Carrying very heavy bagged meat is very inefficient.

[Doc Feral]

1 hour ago, peteloud said:

quartering and bagging a big animal is very inefficient.  If you simply cut all the meat...

I disagree. Quartering a carcass takes less time than just skinning and gutting it, and this fact alone should be enough. Even if it's only meat you're after, and unless your moose died against a wall or you got lucky with a bear in its cave, you may want to move the chunks to an at least partially windproof location, and maybe light a fire to fend off cold and wolves.

[peteloud]

As I said, I've not done the calculations, so I might be wrong.  But when I quartered a bear it took ages.  Then it seemed that transporting the bagged meat took twice as long.  Then converting the bagged meat into meat to cook took ages.  If I remember correctly bagged meat deteriorates much more quickly than plain meat.

If I shot a moose or a bear it is probable that I was primarily after the hide and just some of the meat.   I  wouldn't be so bothered about all of the gut and could happily leave most of the meat.  If I cut the meat and dropped it by the carcass it would remain there until it was convenient for me to collect.

" . . . light a fire to fend off cold and wolves . . . "

In over 2,000 game days, mostly at Voyager, Stalker or between, I can't remember having to light a fire to fend off cold and wolves when harvesting  meat.

The next time I shoot a moose or bear I'll try and remember to do some comparative timings.

[Doc Feral]

Quarters rot as fast as the whole carcass, so faster than steaks but nothing crazy. If you plan to do several hours of butchering in a row, cold may become an issue. Wolves are less troublesome if you avoid picking up smelly stuff and then go back to work, but caution isn't bad.

Honestly, I light the fire to keep wolves away mostly because it feels right from a roleplaying point of view.

Now that I think about it, cold does more than simply killing you, it freezes meat. You may hypothetically tear apart a whole freshly killed moose with no tools at level 1 harvesting if you'd never stop. You'd surely freeze to death before finishing, but the point is that harvesting time is calculated at the beginning. If you start harvesting a still warm carcass and you work for, say, three hours, you'll be able to work three hours like it's 0% frozen. If you resume working you'll find the carcass is heavily frozen. Fire de-freezes meat and prevents freezing. Roleplaying apart, having a fire nearby may be important.

[Ahatch]

I never done this in Voyageur but now that I am playing Interloper I usually always build a fire by a kill when it's not too windy. I will harvest early on 0.5 kg at a time and stick a piece on each cooking slot. With the fire blazing I usually will remove 1 kg at a time from the carcass dropping it right away before removing the next piece. I will swap out the meat from the fire once it's cooked and put the next piece on and continue harvesting. I never quarter anything because the risk of weather changing and getting too cold. By removing the smaller chunks I think it helps your cooking skill as well.  

[LkP]

even dead they try to stomp on your ribs...

That's from the lake part of Mountain Town map. This one was easy. First shot made him charge. Second shot was a failed during the charge, I think. He couldn't reach me on the trunk but kept running below my feet. Third one between the eyes.
 I don't shoot moose if not from a safe spot anymore. They are really really fast. I failed an hit and run so badly in HRV (went back at 5% to a cave without food nor fire fuel, barely survived the next days)  that I fear them way more than bears.

[UpUpAway95]

On 12/23/2018 at 6:38 PM, DirtyMadcap said:

Is it the norm these days to get a one-shot moose kill on day 2 in Voyager, or did I just get super lucky?

I did that exact same thing in ML at the start of my second run ever.  A moose spawned near the Trapper's Homestead and there was a 26% rifle and 3 rounds in the Trapper's Homestead... no cleaning kit.  I decided to take a big chance and turned around right after I warmed up at bit... and dropped the moose like a rock right in the middle of the clearing below the cabin.   For a second or two, I just stayed crouched there in shock that the gun even fired. and then that I still had 2 bullets left... and then it sunk in as to how lucky I was that I didn't die.    I then spent the next while taking the hide, a few guts, and hunks of meat off the moose.  I didn't manage to get the whole thing carved up though before it despawned.

A little while later in that same playthrough... another moose spawned right near the Quonset Garage in CH.  I also dropped him in a single shot.  I don't think he could see me amid all the debris around the garage since he never even went into a threatening animation.

[Doc Feral]

Just a comparison, with a deer. The knife is the fastest tool for cuttin meat, quartering time is an hour with the hatchet as well. Now that I think about it, I should have taken a screenshot of the selective cutting with the hatchet too, but it was almost two hours.

[peteloud]

It's good to see some actual comparative figures.  I almost always use a knife for butchering a carcass, although in a recent game I have needed to use a hacksaw to save my knife losing condition.  I don't think I ever use the axe, although there might be conditions when I need to.

So, it is 1 hour to quarter a deer and 1 hour 7 minutes to butcher all meat, hide and gut.    To me that is pretty much the same.  Although with a bear or moose, which has lots of gut it might take longer to cut meat, hide & guts.

If quartering what is the weight of the bags?   I guess that for plain butchering a deer the total weight would be about 9kg.  If I remember correctly  the bagged animal is much heavier than just meat, hide & guts.

. . . I have just gone out and killed a deer, (Voyager), It had 8.5kg of meat.   When it was quartered I had 4 bags each 4.27kg, a total of over 17kg.   (That excludes hide and guts).    That is a heluva load of extra stuff to carry back to a base.

 

However, when you get your bagged carcass back to a base you still have to spend quite a bit of time cutting it up.  If you don't cut it up it deteriorates quickly, and I suspect, that is disappears just as a carcass would disappear.

. . . .  I have just harvested one of the bags of meat.  It took 9 minutes and I got 2.1 kg meat.

 

If my hypothesis and strategy are correct then the big advantages come when killing a moose or bear.  In those cases I usually take the hide, cut off the meat and drop most of it.  Sometimes I might take some gut.  Then I can return to a base and continue as normal.  If need be, I could return and collect the butchered meat any time I want.

 

I must do more checking  of times weights.  I have only ever quartered a bear, and it was much more hassle than my usual technique. . . . Having just quartered that deer I am now more convinced that quartering is an extremely inefficient technique.

 

 

 

[Doc Feral]

Butcheriing time depends on the amount of meat and other stuff. A gut takes as much time as the skin, which is more than the time for 1kg of meat. With a hunting knife butchering is fast. Speed goes rapidly downhill if you have other tools, with the hacksaw and improvised blades being quite disappointing. The deer in my screenshots is perfect because it shows the size beyond which quartering starts being faster, of course not counting the time spent working on quarters, but we're discussing time spent in danger zone, and that part of the process can be done in the safety of a shelter. Since the topic is about moose, it goes without saying that thoroughly shredding an animal with 12 guts and 40kgs of meat takes much more, while if I remember correctly quartering always takes an hour, wolf, deer, bear, moose or wooly rhinoceros. Maybe I should go on a hunting and butchering rampage and do some scientific observation with different animals and tools.

 

About the weight of bags: bags collectively weigh TWICE the total meat. Big animals mean many big bags. A wolf or deer will give you 4-5 bags weighing no more than 5kgs, a bear or moose will flood you with 7 or more massive bags, each weighing nearly 10 kgs. Working an hour and running back and forth several times with 10 kgs is still better than working 4 hours in the open.

Another thing we should check is the amount of stinkpuffs you gain for, say, a 8kgs quarter and for 4kgs of steaks.

[Ben Holbrook]

Great tips!!! I'll definitely use these tips for next moose hunt. Thanks!!