This is by no means a 'Complete' guide to hunting, let alone a good one. Given your location, some parts of this guide may not apply to you. Most of this guide is from personal experience hunting within the Kaumo region of the game, which should cover most of the hunting mechanics in-game, besides Seal hunting. Otherwise, I would advise taking everything you read here with a grain of salt... (Which you can afford if you know what you're doing).
So sit back, drink some Milkweed tea, and enjoy this guide.

There are two main types of hunting in The Unreal World: Passive Hunting and Active Hunting.

Passive Hunting is great for the early game when your primary focus is securing a source of food. It involves setting up traps in various locations, or spanning wide and creating a Trap Fence. You can learn more about Passive Hunting in the Passive Hunting section. Your Trapping and Tracking skills are important here. In the early game, it is advised that you create a few loop snares and place them in places that you find bird or small animal tracks, as they will often revisit or land within those areas. Birds are the obvious source of feathers, and are important for the next type of hunting.

Active Hunting is the more challenging form of hunting. The player will have to stalk their prey and ambush their prey effectively. This requires careful planning and a lot of skill to even hope to come across certain animals. Your Stealth, Combat, and sometimes even Physician skills will come into play here. Active Hunting is not advised until you have an established food source, or at least enough food to last a month or so.

Before you hunt anything, you need to know what exactly it is you're hunting, and how you are going to hunt it. You should have certain equipment with you when hunting, and preparations you should make beforehand.

In either scenario, I would advise bringing along a Broad Knife, as it is most effective in skinning animals, and a wooden Staff to finish off killing wounded prey. A club works as well, but in my experience has damaged the hide of smaller animals such as birds or hares. Think of it like cracking an egg with a spoon versus cracking it with a mallet. Always carry at least 10 bandages and a pound of healing herbs with you, in addition to a favoured weapon. Also carry enough food to last you for as long as you expect to be gone, and if the snow is at least calf-deep, skiing equipment.

My recommendation is to always carry at least 10 feet of tying equipment on you at all times. It is enough to make a new snare, make a fence, or even set up a deadfall trap. Carry a handaxe, or Woodsman's Axe of you have one, when you need to cut down trees to create various traps.


I carry 10 arrows and 5 broadhead arrows with me when using a bow and arrow to hunt animals like Elk and Forest Reindeer. I carry a spear and two Javellins if I expect to fight a bear or a boar. I would advise against using blunt arrows, as they are basically just rocks that can be shot from a bow, and would be a waste of feathers in the early game.

Passive Hunting is what keeps most players alive ingame, aside from fishing. The most efficient form of Passive Hunting is through the use of Trap Fences, which are fences designed to funnel travelling prey into set traps in holes of the fence. Besides Trap Fences, Passive Hunting is useful if you spot a certain animal you want to catch, but nary the skills to properly hunt it.

The in-game encyclopedia gives a general overview of what traps can and cannot capture, and if they require bait or not. But traps will hold animals that are able to be captured by said trap. Elk can be trapped by a Bear Deadfall Trap, for example. It depends if an animal walks over that trap or not, and if the trap is strong enough to hold or kill it.
Some traps require bait to work, such as Fox Boards and Big Deadfall traps, while others simply depend on if an animal walks over it, such as a Trap Pit.

Your Trap Fence will need a lot of slender trunks, to make Sharp Stakes and Trap Pits. Your Trap Pits can be Lethal (Trap Pit with Sharp Stakes) or Non-Lethal (Trap Pit). Depending on your Hideworking skill, and if you care about the quality of the skin, it is advised you hold off on creating Sharp Stake pits until much later, unless if you are expecting a Bear, as the stakes will damage the hide beyond your skill level.
A standard Trap Fence will span a certain distance between two points. Ideally, you want it to span between two cliffs or two bodies of water. Water is attractive to everything, because water is life, so building a fence by the river is a sure way to catch something. An area ripe with shrubs is also an ideal place to set up shop. The most common pattern of trap fences comes like so:
You don't have to follow the pattern exactly, but if you place a straight line of trap pits it will take up a lot more work and may spook away some animals. A Fence can be passed through by small animals (Hares, Pine-Martens, Snakes, etc.), and large predators (Wolves, Bears will break the fence). Your most common victims will often be Elk or Forest Reindeer. A Fence does not even have to be an actual fence, you can utilise the environment to your advantage. Trees and large rocks can act as a natural barrier that cannot be passed through by anything.
I would recommend setting up additional traps around the area for carnivores, in the event that they come across your prey or wander about the trap fence.
Once established, you simply have to wait for your dinner to arrive. It can take a few days, to a whole month for something to fall in. It depends on migratory patterns within the game, and even the favour of the spirits around you. If something falls in, be sure to thank them.

If you come across an area with Fox tracks, chances are the Fox will stick around for a while. You can create a temporary trap area and set up camp nearby to check your traps once in a while. Place them next to water, or between two trees, or in the path of a set of tracks you've seen, depending on how fresh they are. "Old" tracks have little chance of actually gaining anything, while "Day Old" is new enough to be fruitful.

Bait is useful to accelerate the capture rate of traps, but knowing what to use to catch what you want is more important.
Herbivores are attracted to berries and harvested plants. I've had a Reindeer munch on some wilted heathers I dropped outside my cabin before I lodged my arrow in its neck. As far as I know, they are not spooked by meat hanging around an area, so don't worry about mixing your herbivore and carnivore traps.
Carnivores are only attracted by carcasses and raw meat. Meat prepared in any way won't attract them, but spoiled meat works great. I have not seen any instance of cannibalism in-game, so don't expect to capture a fox with its meat as bait.

Warning: This strategy is liable to kill an unprepared character!
Ice Traps are an effective albeit difficult method of trapping prey. In early winter, it is common for animals to fall under the ice and drown, killing quicker than starving to death in a trap pit. Therefore, it is the quickest and most effective way of killing an animal without damaging the skin in any way. Some animals will climb back up only to fall in again and die on top of the ice, while some may float in the water. I haven't tested if certain animals can sink.
You will want to make sure you have a fire prepared or lit at a shore, and keep a knife or spear equipped in the event you become the victim. If your swimming skill is low (Sub 50), try again next year after you train during the summer months.)
First, crawl to an area with weaker ice, mostly in the middle of a lake, and create a hole in the ice. Then place a bait where the hole is (Meat, berries, etc.). The ice will then start to reform again, but will be weaker than the other ice around it. It will stay that way until you are away for some time. Check back on it now and then, and you may find that a poor innocent animal died of hypothermia. Take great care with transporting it back to shore, as your added weight will make you heavy enough to even break shore ice.

If you plan on Actively Hunting, there are a few things you need to know.
First and foremost, I only recommended to actively hunt if you have the means of processing the corpse of whatever you kill, and if you really need what you get from the animal. Do you have a pack animal capable of carrying all the meat? Do you have the means of cooking or preserving the meat at base? Do you have the skills and equipment necessary to hunt the animal? If so, and you're content with the chance of not bringing anything back, or not returning, then you're prepared to hunt.

If you don't know what you're hunting yet, and don't know where anything is, you will simply waste time bumbling around in the woods. You need to figure out where your target is.
First, find a hill or mountain on the zoomed out map and climb it. Look over an area, preferably an open area like a Mire, and skip a few turns (Or just wait with [-]). If you're lucky, you may find something walking around where you're looking. Travel to that location, and hope it is still there. If not, you may have to use your Tracking skill and figure out where the beast went.

Knowing what you are hunting is the difference between leaving empty handed, getting a kill, or getting killed. Different equipment is more effective at killing different things, but sometimes so is simply outrunning it.
Deer, like Elk and Reindeer, are extremely fast, but fledgling hunters may be able to catch up to their fawns by running (Shift+R). Otherwise, a well placed Broadhead arrow will cause a bleeding wound, which creates a visible track and slows them down considerably.
Smaller animals like Fox and Weasels are faster, but tossing rocks at them will stun them long enough for you to stomp down on their neck. Otherwise, I would instead opt for trapping them instead, because taking the time to actively hunt such a small yield would be a waste of time.
Carnivores, like Bears and Wolves, are extremely dangerous. They often flee if you put up a big enough fight, but female bears with their cubs are extremely vicious and will kill you quickly if you don't have strong enough armour or defence skills. Your best bet in this situation is to avoid areas where you have seen these creatures until you are confident enough with a Spear to dispatch them. Bigger animals means less damage will affect the fur, so don't be afraid to stab them in the legs first.

Simply shooting at whatever is closest won't do in most cases. Instead, I usually wait for an opportune moment to strike at the most isolated prey in view. Aiming for the leg with a bleeding weapon is the best way to launch a first strike, as it will slow them down and eventually cripple your prey. It is important to remember to keep your missile weapons equipped, as it will instantly shoot the projectile instead of taking a turn to equip it.
A herd of Reindeer will excite most new hunters, but that excitement is short lived when they all run out of the player's view. If any is available, I usually carry bait with me and lay it within an acceptable range of my bow and arrow. Berries do, as well as wilted herbs that were harvested. Wild plants available to harvest are also a great place to wait for something to come within range. Once something does, aim for their leg and pray to the spirits of the forest that it lands. Another strategy is to toss a rock opposite your direction at a tree, which will spook the herd your direction. If your stealth skill is good enough, they may not see you hiding in the bushes.
A bear will sometimes flee when it sees you, but sometimes it will charge at you. You need to be prepared for both situations. I keep a spear in my primary, and a javelin in my secondary. Keeping your javelin in your secondary will save you precious seconds that will be lost if you keep it in your inventory. A Javelin to the face is enough to scare it, or enrage it further. Otherwise, keep your spear at the ready and aim for the legs. If you aim at its legs, fleeing becomes a bad option for the bear as it slows to a crawl.

Once you kill an animal, you ideally want to skin the animal (SHS) with a Broad Knife, before Butchering it. After that, it is entirely up to you as to what to do with your reward. Ideally, I would dry the meat if you have the cord for it, and tan the skin as soon as possible before it rots. During the winter, meat is essentially frozen (Therefore won't spoil) and hides are given the 'Winter' quality, so the best time to hunt is usually the Winter. Bones are used to feed Dogs with, but some mods give you the ability to make weapons with them.
Do not become disheartened if your kill has the 'Harmed' or 'Torn' quality flag on them, depending on your Hidework skill you can still get a Decent or even Fine skin from them.
Tanning your skins and drying your meat does not have to be done inside a cabin. Meat can be hung from a Trap Fence, while a Tree Trunk can be used to beat the skin during the final stage of tanning.
AND ALWAYS HANG YOUR BEAR SKULLS IN PINE TREES! You can do this by Pushing the bear skull on the ground onto the tree.

Fur is valuable, but worth a fortune to the right people. Foreign Traders only trade in furs. Quality only dictates trading value, and not crafting value, so you can keep your rough Elk fur to make into a pair of pants. The most valuable fur is Fox Fur, I've traded a masterwork handaxe for around two-three fine fox furs a while ago. Villagers trading with a player do not value Fox fur as highly, so your best bet with them is to trade as much as they are willing to accept, and not a skin more.
The best skin for crafting with is Bear fur, as it is the warmest and toughest in the game, wheras Fox, Lynx, and Badger furs to Foreign traders are more valuable to them than Bear Fur, while Villagers see them almost the same.
But while you're waiting for a potential buyer, keep your furs on your sleeping bunk, as they will offer you a better rest and warmth while you're asleep.

Hunting is the most rewarding and most challenging mechanic in-game. Certain rituals and spells make it more effective, but I rarely ever touch those. At the beginning, you may only be catching a few birds or hares that only feed you for a day or so, but once you learn the patterns of nature and what works, your cellar will be chock-full of dried bear meat and your will be the Bill Gates of Iron Age Finland after accumulating several furs. Good luck in your hunting, you will need it.