Stalking technique for ibex

[CajunRon]

I need some help stalking animals, in particular ibex. If I walk to follow their trail I make too much noise and continuously scare them further away. If I crouch or even do a fast crouch, I get further and further behind their trail. Their poop go from just now, to very fresh, to fresh, to old, to very old. And of course a prone crawl is out of the question.

Can anyone give me some pointers?

[BONITE]

Originally posted by CajunRon:

I need some help stalking animals, in particular ibex. If I walk to follow their trail I make too much noise and continuously scare them further away. If I crouch or even do a fast crouch, I get further and further behind their trail. Their poop go from just now, to very fresh, to fresh, to old, to very old. And of course a prone crawl is out of the question.

Can anyone give me some pointers?

You have to find a place where they drink or eat, look at the time they come, put a tripod, put an anti-smell spray on you, get on your tripod and wait patiently and quietly for them to come, so you can kill some nice ones.
I use this way or I shoot them from a distance.

[Mr. Ed]

All animals in this game are in motion unless they are eating, drinking or resting. Most can walk faster than you can and all of them (except ducks, geese and rabbits) tend to travel in a downwind direction. These factors make it hard for us to "catch up" to them anytime soon. You can literally spend hours of your life trying to be successful at it so be sure what you're after is worth the effort. What you'll need to do is look ahead and see where you can swing out and head them off rather than continue to simply follow the tracks. The wind will be carrying your scent right towards them otherwise and they'll lead you a merry chase.

Everything with fur in this game needs to drink at least once a day. It's much easier to locate the nearest water source to the tracks you find or the nearest source in the direction the tracks were headed towards or coming from. Odds are that's where you'll find their need zone(s). Once you find those it's game over.

[McSqurl Nugget]

not to mention you can't count on the poop anymore to tell you how close they are, the timers were changed a few patches back. used to be poop wouldn't get very old until 10 minutes or so real time (not sure the exact time but something like that) now it's very old in in less than 3 minutes.

[Kraxin-Kari]

I find Ibex easy to locate. If you look at your map, you'll notice the 4 huge mounds. The top left is Beceite, top right is Ronda, bottom left is Gredos, bottom right is South Eastern Spanish Ibex.

The lakes around the mounds are where they drink from 8am-11am. The mounds are where they rest from 11am-1730pm. Here's an example of how my S.E. Spanish Ibex area looks:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2131532963

Collect a need zone, and just keep walking the lakes and mounds daily stacking as many need zones as you can and pick off two males from them. Alternate the mounds so ya removing any hunting pressure. Be careful with hunting pressure when the need zones are close to each other.

Need zones take a lot of work to establish, but it will pay off big time.

[CajunRon]

Thanks for the tips. I found a rest zone and drink zone, determined the approximate time they would be moving between the two and set up a tripod. Like you said, the wind always seems to be against you but I was able to bag two of them. Finally, something that works. Thanks again.