Bear hunting

[theHellraiser]

I found myself in the spot where I am well geared, plenty of ammo,arrows and a flare gun.archery lvl5 rifle lvl4

I've being trying to hunt some bears but they confuse me so very much on how to handle them and how each and every hunt is so very different from the previous one.

so far I managed to kill 3 bears

1.rifle headshot from afar,starting charging me, pulled out flaregun,flare stuck to face ,bled like a horse

2.rifle headshot, wait for bleed, second rifle head shot, bled to death

now this is where I got insanely confused

3.on this hunt I managed,1 headshot and wait for the bleed to end,2nd shot was either a neck or chest shot,wait for it bleed, another either neck or chest shot(waiting to bleed) and after all that the damn thing was still standing and roaming so I took a risky route and bait arrowed him in the eye

Is there an easier way to hunt bears or am I loosing an important information regarding its health since the last hunt felt very very long and took me well over half a day to achieve including 3 bullets and some arrow damage and a very very risky approach at the end due to impatience.

any and all input is appreciated, thank you

[Doc Feral]

You should try to use the environment more efficiently. If you have a shelter you can easy reach, the best idea is to hit the bear and take cover before it gets you. Cars are wonderful, fishing huts with a door and hunter's blinds are good, big fallen trees are ok too but you need to practice climbing immediately without messing up.

If you strike the bear it will probably charge at you. You take refuge. The bear gets near, grunts and snarls, walks away. You exit the shelter, and may want to throw rocks at the bear, or even use another arrow if you notice it doesn't bleed. The bear turns to you and remembers you deserve a good thrashing, so it will charge again, and you can use your shelter once more. Repeat the process - which now that I think about it it's like bullfighting, but shaking your own butt instead of a red cape - so the bear will not go far away. Teasing a big angry bear is far from boring, and it will keep you entertained until it dies. I'm not sure if you can use this strategy everywhere, but it's a safe one when available.

[U47]

New Player myself and only have two bears under my belt but both were a single rifle shot to the head and then passed an hour waiting for both to die.

So they take a long time to bleed out. 

[atomic]

By chance I've found out that a wounded bear goes back to his cave at some point and dies there. At least that is what I have experienced by shooting a bear in Coastal Highway (not far away from Quonset). I shot him, retreated to a trailer and waited one hour. I was not able to trace him. So I went back to that container, did some repairs, harvested some reclaimed wood and as it was getting dark I decided to go to sleep in one of the beds. In the morning I wanted to head back for Quonset, but something made me decide to check the nearby bear cave. Guess what, the bear was inside, dead and just a bit frozen.

Since then I was able to repeat this a couple of times with the bear near Trapper's cabin in Mystery Lake. Once I see he is there, I'm waiting for him while standing on the fallen tree next to the transition cave to Mountan Town. After the shot I just go back to the cabin, take a nap, do some cooking or what ever and after a few hours I check the bear's cave and he is alrerady waiting for me to harvest him.

[Doc Feral]

This sounds exploitish. It could be a collateral effect of having fixed the infamous "wounded bear disappearing and respawning as good as new when you go indoors" bug.

[atomic]

1 hour ago, Doc Feral said:

This sounds exploitish.

To me it makes perfect sense. The bear didn't see me shoot him. He runs away and after he doesn't see any further danger he calms down and decides to go home to his cave where he falls asleep and fades into the long dark...

Maybe the wounds he suffers from my gunshot are not that severe and he is losing blood slowly? Does an animal calm down after being shot in the game or does it run wild until it dies?

 

[theHellraiser]

I havent managed to "one shot" a bear so far,I dont know if I am aiming at the wrong side of the bear or something,I rarely shot them from the front,usually I try approaching from the side for a good wide view and aim for the cheeck or a bit lower than the eye to make sure I dont miss.On my third attempt I mentioned it was done in the misanthropes bears, was hiding in the fishing hut with the door and worked alright but sure took a while to take down

[codfish107]

I found the wiki page very helpful on hunting bears. https://thelongdark.fandom.com/wiki/Bear I'd like to point out some things from the wiki and on top of @Doc Feral's comments.

1) If you are going for a bleed out, arrows do more bleed out than bullets. Bleed out does not stack, if you get a head and a chest hit the bear will bleed out based off of the head shot only.

2) "One shots" are based on the crit chance of your skill level with your weapon and what area of the bear you hit. I have killed bears with one bullet into the side before but have also had bears take several frontal hits before collapsing.

3) When wounded, bears will flee towards their cave. I believe that they will flee in the area of their cave but won't actually flee into it, they will only go into it after they have calmed down. I don't know how accurate the second part is since it's only based off of two observances.

4) If you are unsure if a spot is safe from bears you can test it two ways. You can test it with wolves as i have noticed a bear can't get where a wolf can't. You can also have a bear follow you to the spot and then you can go into the spot, it won't work if the bear continues towards you, but it works if the bear decides to change directions as it has "lost you" with you being in a spot it can't path to.

All the spots @Doc Feralsaid are good with the addition that i have noticed door-less fishing huts work as well, it is possible for bears to get you in a fishing hut if you are to close to the door way, the porch of the PV farmhouse works, and in between the Quonset Garage's front door and the pumps with the pallets on either side intact also works.

Hiding under docks might work though i'm not %100 on it. I accidentally stumbled upon a bear and played tag with it around CH's fishing camp before hiding under the docks. It started to follow but got stuck until i scared it with a flare gun, so beware if you try this.

Hope this helps.

[theHellraiser]

plenty of info and things to try, tyvm for your input m8 @codfish107

[Jolan]

 Different critters bleed differently, and some wounding actions cause different effects - like smacking a wolf with a pry bar will just drive it off, but repeatedly stabbing it with a knife will cause it to bled out fairly quickly.  And striking the animal in different locations can affect bledout time. Most of the animals seem to start up their path again after they are no longer afraid.  So if I can't find the bear, I head back to its den and work my way out.  I find the most efficient way to hunt bears is shoot them (from the locations mentioned about) once and go and do something else for the 1-8 hours (rifle) or 45 min - 4 hours (bow).  Just don't switch regions.  Every once in a while you'll crit.  My favorite bear hunting spot is the porch of one of the waterfront cottages in CH.  The bear just walks right by it.  Really, really close.  

[Strategizer]

On ‎12‎/‎7‎/‎2018 at 3:38 PM, Jolan said:

My favorite bear hunting spot is the porch of one of the waterfront cottages in CH.  The bear just walks right by it.  Really, really close.  

 Yep that's a nice one.  The Bear at Broken RR will mosey along the side of the Hunters Blind, perfect setup for an easy safe bleed out too.

[Guest jeffpeng]

Bears will not necessarily flee towards their cave - they will just flee, possibly even into the polar opposite direction. Once they calm down they will try to reach their cave - that's correct - but might die en route. Depending on where you hit the bear it takes up to eight hours for it to bleed out from a rifle shot, while it takes a maximum of 4 hours with a bow. Hitting the head will not only have the biggest chance of a one-shot (i.e. critical hit) but also make the bear bleed out the fastest.

I also think there is some sort of hitpoint based damage involved in this. I've had occasions where I put five arrows into the same bear, but never more than three bullets. This might be due to higher accuracy of the rifle - but I actually suspect that bullets do more upfront damage.