Any easy and repeatable ways to find lots of animals at layton lakes?

[Panzer]

Sick of just walking around aimlessly without anything nearby but animals that spot me from miles away when im in prone, and hear me from miles away when doing the same.

I wanna know if theres a place in layton lakes or maybe even Hirschfelden that has lots of animals regularly, that come back quicker.

Also, how am I meant to catch animals when they're travelling? They get scared if I try to catch up to them, otherwise if I try to stay quiet, they get away and I never get a shot at them.
And with resting animals, I find it really difficult to get a good shot of them, I try to get to their sides, getting a broadside shot so I can get the lungs, yet if I try to position myself well, they always find me and run away.

I'm just getting tired of the missions, they're ridiculously difficult for someone at this level, need a kill from 125m away, when I barely know the trajectories of bullets. This annoying "sick papa bear" mission which tells me to go to some spot to harvest a bear, even though there's literally no bear at all there.

[DeepFried]

It only gets worse. I finished the missions on that map and now its a ghost town hunting reserve.
I've got 1 mission left on Fernando to get 1 diamond of every species and that map won't spawn any diamonds for going on a year now. I have diamonds from all maps except Fernando.

[Vazc0]

start your hunt at the drinktime of your desired prey and walk/sprint around water where you can see further than animals can spot/hear/smell you (200m+). for example 0500-0900 AM for blacktail and elk.

you can do that with every species in the game. find out their drinktime, or look it up online and then hunt at water.

[ruichi]

Callers are your friends. At the beggining it is more difficult, because you don't have the skills that makes you more silent in the grass, bushes, etc... Or the ones that make your less visible in vegetation.
There is no "easy repeatable way", but if you go near the water, let's say Balmont, keep walking crouched, going prone after earing a call from an animal and then calling that animal to you, you can kill a lot of them relatively fast.
Then, as you get more XP you can get the good skills on the skill tree.
That's not an easy way, but for me and for others, it was how we get through the starting phase relatively well.

[Snail Rancher]

Originally posted by Vazc0:

start your hunt at the drinktime of your desired prey and walk/sprint around water where you can see further than animals can spot/hear/smell you (200m+). for example 0500-0900 AM for blacktail and elk.

you can do that with every species in the game. find out their drinktime, or look it up online and then hunt at water.

AKA, Hunting-By-Spreadsheet. I really wish need-zones were removed from the game, or at least hidden from the player or randomized. One thing that is nice about Classic is that there is a new animal population each and every time you play, so it is always a surprise.

[JJBandit]

Zeroing... Get the Zeroing Skill/Perk It makes taking long shots much easier..

[Vazc0]

Originally posted by Snail Rancher:

Originally posted by Vazc0:

start your hunt at the drinktime of your desired prey and walk/sprint around water where you can see further than animals can spot/hear/smell you (200m+). for example 0500-0900 AM for blacktail and elk.

you can do that with every species in the game. find out their drinktime, or look it up online and then hunt at water.

AKA, Hunting-By-Spreadsheet. I really wish need-zones were removed from the game, or at least hidden from the player or randomized. One thing that is nice about Classic is that there is a new animal population each and every time you play, so it is always a surprise.

true. i'd prefer random population too because competitions wouldnt make sense with cotw's current spawn-system. and i'd really like to see them in the future.

but OP asked for an easy and repeatable way to find lots of animals on layton. and this is by far the fastest and easiest method of getting a lot of kills in a short amount of time. just sprint around the right lake at the right time and you'll swim in animals

[Atech66]

Done 75 or so missions some are really difficult some are easy
You have to use zones.. wind direction.. callers.. scent spray all together.
later when you get better rifles and scopes can make 300 yard shots gets easier.. stands and blinds dlc and quads make it a lot easier as well.
There is no way animals are hearing you miles away prone lol you would have no idea they were even there. I sneak up right on top of them at times.. had a bear kill me and a moose stomp me for it. They are hearing and smelling you maybe but its a lot closer than you think.

[Panzer]

Originally posted by Vazc0:

start your hunt at the drinktime of your desired prey and walk/sprint around water where you can see further than animals can spot/hear/smell you (200m+). for example 0500-0900 AM for blacktail and elk.

you can do that with every species in the game. find out their drinktime, or look it up online and then hunt at water.

So sprinting in the water is good? I noticed the sound meter goes really low when sprinting in water, but thought it might be a glitch, but I'll use it more often if it actually works. The only problem is, if I go too far out into the water, my movement is waaay slower, but if I stick too close to the land, it sometimes counts as walking on land so it creates a louder sound. It's kinda hard to get it in the middle but I guess I can try.
Also, when you say to start my hunt, what do you mean by that? What's the best way to start the hunt? Should I run or crouch to the drinking zone? And I've heard that sometimes animals don't always come to the same need zones, so what do I do if that happens, and nothing comes up to me?

[Vazc0]

Originally posted by ThePanzerPleb:

Originally posted by Vazc0:

start your hunt at the drinktime of your desired prey and walk/sprint around water where you can see further than animals can spot/hear/smell you (200m+). for example 0500-0900 AM for blacktail and elk.

you can do that with every species in the game. find out their drinktime, or look it up online and then hunt at water.

So sprinting in the water is good? I noticed the sound meter goes really low when sprinting in water, but thought it might be a glitch, but I'll use it more often if it actually works. The only problem is, if I go too far out into the water, my movement is waaay slower, but if I stick too close to the land, it sometimes counts as walking on land so it creates a louder sound. It's kinda hard to get it in the middle but I guess I can try.
Also, when you say to start my hunt, what do you mean by that? What's the best way to start the hunt? Should I run or crouch to the drinking zone? And I've heard that sometimes animals don't always come to the same need zones, so what do I do if that happens, and nothing comes up to me?

i didnt mean that you should get your feet wet ^^ just run along the lakes where you can see further than 200m and animals wont hear or see you before you see them. ofcourse there'll be situations where you want to be slower and more quiet (for example if you want to get close).

there is no best way to start your hunt. it comes down to player preference. you'll find out what works for you. but you asked for a fast and easy way to find animals. and the fastest way for me is to start at their drinktime and visit their drinkzones.

[funewchie]

Originally posted by ruichi:

Callers are your friends. At the beggining it is more difficult, because you don't have the skills that makes you more silent in the grass, bushes, etc... Or the ones that make your less visible in vegetation.
There is no "easy repeatable way", but if you go near the water, let's say Balmont, keep walking crouched, going prone after earing a call from an animal and then calling that animal to you, you can kill a lot of them relatively fast.
Then, as you get more XP you can get the good skills on the skill tree.
That's not an easy way, but for me and for others, it was how we get through the starting phase relatively well.

Yeah, like he said, Callers are really handy to have.

One of the things to remember is the sound and smell.
On your compass, that yellow cone tells the wind direction.
If you're tracking prey, and they're in the direction of that cone... yeah, you're gonna have a hard time; they'll definitely smell you long before you see them.

The sound meter... okay, I haven't quite got it figured out, to be honest.
But I do know if it's about 2 white bars, you can get really, really close before they hear you.
If it's 3 orange bars... they'll hear you within, like, 250m.
------

What I usually do, is I run around until I find tracks, then slow to a normal walk speed (not crouched).
If I see droppings that are Fresh or better, I crouch (as Fresh means they were there just a couple minutes ago, meaning they're likely close enough to hear really loud noises).
Unless they're really close, running while crouching should be fine.

From there, it depends.
One option is to hit your caller for them. I then still follow the trail, but keep my ears open for them.
Most of the callers have a pretty decent range, so if they're close enough to risk hearing you, they should be in range of the caller.

At any time, if I hear them make a noise (mating call), it's time to crouch and walk quietly for cover, as that means they are pretty close.
A warning call... yeah, I think you might be toast.
But if you follow quietly, you may be able to salvage it. After a quick run, they'll slow down, and you're back in business. (The callers may also help a bit, if they're not seriously spooked)

Mind you, I'm no expert. I'm practically a rookie, too.

[RamMack]

Check your Codex, it will tell you how many animals you spooked and how. Sight, smell, or noise. Then you know what you need to get better at.

[StuTheMoose]

As an example of spooked animals.. I've spooked 104540. 99824 of which were noise, 4051 by sight and only 665 by smell. That tells you all you need to know!

The soft feet perks are essential. Scent remover is utterly pointless.

[Panzer]

Originally posted by JJBandit:

Zeroing... Get the Zeroing Skill/Perk It makes taking long shots much easier..

I did have that at some point, but I reset eventually because I found that it can be annoying to hit shots that aren't close to the ranges that you use the zeroing for. And you can't set the zeroing to 0 metres, so if I was like 10 metres from an animal, I'd have to aim BELOW where I want to hit, because the lowest zeroing distance is 75 metres (I think, its been a long time since I had the perk.) I just found that it threw my aim off a bit, and I came to the conclusion that I wasn't really keen on doing super long shots because of how difficult it can be even with the zeroing on

[Panzer]

Originally posted by stuthemoose:

As an example of spooked animals.. I've spooked 104540. 99824 of which were noise, 4051 by sight and only 665 by smell. That tells you all you need to know!

The soft feet perks are essential. Scent remover is utterly pointless.

Originally posted by RamMack:

Check your Codex, it will tell you how many animals you spooked and how. Sight, smell, or noise. Then you know what you need to get better at.

Oh lord. 9282 animals scared, 9165 from hearing me, 71 spotted me, 46 smelled me. This says a lot

[Vazc0]

Originally posted by ThePanzerPleb:

Originally posted by stuthemoose:

As an example of spooked animals.. I've spooked 104540. 99824 of which were noise, 4051 by sight and only 665 by smell. That tells you all you need to know!

The soft feet perks are essential. Scent remover is utterly pointless.

Originally posted by RamMack:

Check your Codex, it will tell you how many animals you spooked and how. Sight, smell, or noise. Then you know what you need to get better at.

Oh lord. 9282 animals scared, 9165 from hearing me, 71 spotted me, 46 smelled me. This says a lot

keep in mind that you'll scare everything around you as soon as you shoot. that statistic doenst only mean that animals mostly hear you walking. the atv also scares everything in a big radius and so does fast traveling to a tent that isnt out of render.