🦌 Hunting

What it is

Hunting is the land-based outdoor trade. Twenty three species live on 52 mapped grounds on the English server and 48 on the Balkan server, across Blaine County, the mountains, the farmland around Grapeseed and Cayo Perico. Deer, boar, mountain lions, coyotes, rabbits, pigeons and more move in herds and packs, follow a daily routine between water, feed and bedding spots, and react to you: they see you, hear you and smell you, keep watch while they graze, and run together when one of them takes fright. How animals sense you, what they do when wounded, and what to do if one turns on you are on Wildlife; this page is the licence, the shot and the trade.

Every kill is scored on the server from where you hit the animal, what you hit it with, how many shots you fired and how long it was wounded. A clean shot to the vitals from a legal weapon gives prime meat and a hide; a gut shot ruins part of the meat and sends a wounded animal running with a blood trail you have to follow. After the kill you shoulder the carcass, dress it in the field, load it into a vehicle and take it to a butcher, who cuts it into meat and primal cuts you sell at the counter, to restaurant kitchens, or turn into sausage. Hides go to a tanner, antlers and hides to a taxidermist.

Legal hunting needs a game licence, a species tag for deer, boar and mountain lion, an open season, a permitted weapon and room in the day's bag. Break those rules and the kill still happens, but it is stamped illegal, only the fence will buy the goods, and wardens can see it on your record.

How to start

Everything starts at a ranger office. There are four: Paleto (on the porch of Bayview Lodge, west of town), Grapeseed, Great Chaparral and Cayo Perico. Each is a marker on the ground with a map icon; press E on the marker or type /rangeroffice within a few metres.

Paleto ranger office-693.50, 5795.00

On the porch of Bayview Lodge, west of Paleto Bay. Licences, tags, reputation and the gear counter

Grapeseed ranger office2430.00, 4970.00

Ranger office and the game dealer, beside the farmland grounds

Great Chaparral ranger office-380.00, 3020.00

Beside the Great Chaparral grounds, with the Zancudo River bend to the west

Buy these before your first hunt:

Hunting Tag DeerItem

Skinning KnifeItem

Binoculars RangefinderItem

You can also hunt with a sniper rifle or marksman rifle (big game), a pump shotgun (birds, rabbits, boar), or a pistol on pests, pigs and rabbits. Assault rifles, SMGs and carbines are always illegal weapons for hunting.

Then drive into a ground. The moment you cross into one the HUD strip appears with the ground name, the wind and where your scent is drifting, a noise meter, your licence and tag chips, the day's bag and any live event. Paleto Forest south of the sawmill is a good first ground: does, bucks, boar and rabbits all live there.

Thirteen grounds are new: the Mount Chiliad upper west slopes and north face, Mount Josiah, the Zancudo River bend, the Grand Senora Desert north and south, the San Chianski foothills, the Alamo Sea north-east reeds, Galileo Park woods, Great Chaparral east and the Tataviam Mountains north ridge on both servers, and, on the English server only, the Paleto Bay forest edge south-west and the Paleto Bay fields east, where deer and rabbits come out at dawn and dusk. The English server also has two cordon grounds in the empty city while the Los Santos evacuation order is in force. See Wildlife for when to go.

Step by step

1. Buy a licence and a tag

   At the ranger office buy a game licence and a tag for the species you are after. Check the season: whitetail does are open October to January, bucks September to December, mule deer September to November, mountain lions October to December. Boar, pigs, coyotes, rabbits and crows are open all year. /tags lists the tags you hold.

2. Find the animals

   Drive to a ground, park well short of it and walk in. Use the binoculars to glass the treeline: the rangefinder reads the distance, the species, whether it carries antlers and whether it is in season. Dawn (04:00 to 09:00) and dusk (17:00 to 23:00) UK time are when deer are up; boar, coyotes and lions move at night; pigeons and crows are daytime birds. Press H to toggle tracking mode (on foot, outdoors and away from town only) and look for prints, droppings and beds; E on a sign inspects it.

3. Get downwind

   The HUD shows where the wind is coming from and where your scent is drifting, and a noise meter reads Silent, Quiet or Loud. Circle so your scent drifts away from the herd, crouch, move only while their heads are down and stop moving before you shoot. Scent cover spray, a blind or a tree stand all help. Wildlife has the full fieldcraft.

4. Take the shot

   Aim for the vitals (chest) or the head. A rifle or the hunting rifle on big game, a shotgun on birds and rabbits. One shot, humane kill, prime meat. Fire more shots or hit the gut and the score drops and the animal runs.

5. Recover a wounded animal

   If it runs after a gut or leg shot, you are told to wait before following: push it and it gets up and runs again. Then switch on tracking mode and follow the blood drops. When you find it bedded, a pistol or knife within 5 m is a humane dispatch and keeps the first shot's zone. A wounded animal stays where it lay even if you walk off to fetch the truck, but one you never recover rots at the end of the trail and costs you reputation.

6. Shoulder and field dress

   Press E at the carcass to shoulder it; everyone nearby sees you carry it and you cannot sprint at full speed. Use /fielddress within thirty minutes of the kill: four timed steps (open, gut, drain, cool) with Space on each. A dressed carcass weighs half as much and keeps two and a half times longer. Rabbits, pigeons and crows skip this: they drop as carcass items you butcher in your inventory with a knife.

7. Load and drive to the butcher

   Press E at a vehicle's boot or use /loadcarcass to load it: pickups, flatbeds and trucks take four carcasses, SUVs and vans two, cars one, bikes and boats none. Drive to the Paleto butcher or the Grapeseed game dealer, unload and press E at the counter with the carcass on your shoulder. A carcass keeps until it spoils, even across a restart.

8. Cut and sell

   Six timed cuts. Press on the beat and the score rises. A prime result gives extra primal cuts (loin, haunch and shoulder for deer; loin and belly for boar) and a hide. Sell from the panel line by line, keep trim for kitchens, take the hide to the tanner and antlers to the taxidermist.

Species and seasons

Always protected, never legal to shoot: mountain lion cubs, the Cayo Perico panther, red-tailed hawks, cormorants, seagulls, feral cats and rhesus monkeys. Farm hens and cows at Grapeseed are livestock and shooting one is an offence. Aim at a protected animal within 60 m and a red no-shoot outline appears; the outline also shows on animals that are out of season. Cayo Perico's three grounds also need a valid island visa; see Coral Island.

Attacks are rare and always come with a warning: a boar huffs, a coyote barks, a mountain lion growls. Killing an animal that is attacking you is recorded as self-defence, not poaching; see Poaching and wardens below. What sets animals off, and what makes them back off, is on Wildlife.

The shot, scored

Where you hit the animal matters more than anything else.

A humane kill is head, neck or vitals, down within ten seconds, two shots at most. Every extra shot lowers the score, and time spent wounded lowers it further. The result is one of prime, common, poor or failed, and it feeds straight into how much meat and whether a hide comes out at the butcher. Shots on birds are simpler: any shotgun hit is a clean kill, and a shotgun beyond 35 m peppers the bird and scores less.

The kill toast tells you what happened: "Clean kill on the whitetail doe. Vitals, 95 m. Tag used." or "Gut shot. Part of the meat is ruined. The boar is wounded and moving; follow the blood."

Gear and placeables

Placeables show a ghost preview you rotate and confirm. A hunting dog from the pet shop (retriever, bloodhound or shepherd) can point at the nearest animal, fetch a shot bird or rabbit back to you, and, for bloodhounds, follow the freshest blood trail. See Pets and K9 for dog commands.

Field to table

Freshness. An undressed carcass has a 90 minute half-life, two and a half times that once dressed and a little longer in a boot. Hot weather spoils it faster. Meat cuts have a three hour half-life at ambient and an iced cooler slows that down. Grade A meat sells for 120 percent, B 100, C 70, D 40, and spoiled meat is refused by every buyer.

The butcher and the game dealer. The Paleto butcher and the Grapeseed game dealer both cut carcasses and buy meat, hides and leather. The Paleto butcher is in a different place on each server:

Paleto butcher, English server-425.69, 6356.76

Nobody behind the counter: stand at the marker and press E

Paleto butcher, Balkan server-70.64, 6251.58

The butcher stands at the counter

Poached carcasses are cut but never bought. Your butcher score combines your cuts, the kill quality and your field dressing, minus contamination. Prime results give more meat and the primal cuts; a hide comes out more often from a clean kill. Three trim cuts and a $15 casing make two sausages.

Prices. Venison $38 a kilo base, loin $95, haunch $70, shoulder $52; wild pork $34, pork loin $80, belly $64; predator meat $28; rabbit $16; game bird $22; sausage $55 to $60. Raw deer hide $110, boar $95, coyote $85, mountain lion $480. Antlers $150 plus $4 per point of trophy score, tusks $90, claws $300, feathers $12. Prices move with what has been sold in the last day; the market board at the counter shows the current multiplier and a trend arrow.

Kitchens. /sellproduce at a restaurant takes primal cuts, predator meat and sausages. Four dishes use them: Venison Loin Steak, Crispy Pork Belly, Game Sausage Roll and Hunter's Stew. Illegal meat is refused.

Paleto tanner-139.99, 6301.42

A marker on the ground, next to the taxidermist

Paleto taxidermist-145.87, 6303.93

A marker on the ground, next to the tanner

Tanner. The Paleto tanner and taxidermist are markers on the ground, side by side in Paleto Bay, and a second tanner marker is beside the Grapeseed game dealer. A raw hide and a $25 tanning salt become leather in ten minutes. Leather sells to the pawn broker: deer $160, boar $130, coyote $110, lion $550.

Taxidermist. Antlers ($900, 24 hours), a head mount ($1,800), tusks ($700), a hide rug ($1,500) or ten feathers in a case ($250) become a trophy with a plaque of your choosing. Use the trophy inside a property you manage to place it as furniture.

Poaching and wardens

An illegal kill is any kill that fails one of the checks: a protected or livestock animal, a closed season, an illegal weapon, no licence, no tag, over the bag, or on Cayo Perico without a visa. The carcass and everything cut from it carry an illegal mark. The butcher, the dealer and the kitchens will not buy it; the pawn broker treats it as hot goods; only the fence at the Smuggler's Dock on the Alamo Sea takes it, at 60 percent of base minus a 20 percent cut. The panther hide only ever sells at the fence.

Some kills are never poaching. A kill made by a mountain lion or any other animal is not credited to you, and hitting an animal with your car is not a hunting offence, though roadkill cannot be sold. Tags are only used up on legal kills, and only legal kills count towards your daily bag. An animal killed while it was attacking you, or someone next to you, is recorded as self-defence: the carcass belongs to the state, so report it at a ranger office instead of selling it. See Wildlife.

Wardens are on duty park rangers and highway patrol officers. They can check you within a few metres and see your licences, tags, the last day of kills with their legality, and any flagged items in your bag. They issue fines through the MDC, confiscate flagged goods and can void a tag. Fines land on your record like any other; see Custody and the law.

Progression

Levels and skills. Twenty levels, one skill point per level, spent in /huntskills across four trees: Tracking (older and more detailed signs, a glowing blood trail, predicted bedding), Marksmanship (a drop hint on the rangefinder, higher kill quality, a forgiven extra shot), Fieldcraft (easier dressing, less scent, a lighter carry, better blinds, a longer dressing window) and Calls (longer range, more call types, more success). XP comes from kills (more for a prime or humane one and the first of a species), contracts, photos, sightings and event placings.

Reputation. Runs from -100 to 100 with the rangers. Clean kills, humane dispatches and contracts raise it; offences, protected kills and lost wounded animals lower it. It recovers a point a day while you stay clean. Reputation 20 and 50 unlock the better contract tiers, 40 lets you buy a guide licence, 60 gives ten percent off tags, and below -50 the office refuses to sell you tags at all.

Journal and records. /huntjournal tracks sightings, photos, kills, best weight and best trophy per species and pays rewards for firsts. /huntrecords keeps server records per species for weight, trophy score, distance and clean streak, plus monthly leaderboards.

Parties. /huntparty create starts a party of up to four. Members within 150 m share the journal entry and half the XP, and tags can be shared across the party.

Contracts. Four boards (Grapeseed co-op, Zancudo ranch, Paleto farms and Los Santos pest control) post pest control jobs: boar, coyotes, crows and rats in a named area, $300 to $1,800, 48 hours to finish, bonuses for all clean kills and for finishing inside twelve hours. /huntcontract at a board. Rats need no licence, which makes the pest control board the cheapest way in. Crows and rats now live in the wild, so those contracts can be finished.

On the English server, the hunting grounds inside Los Santos and the Los Santos pest control board are closed while the evacuation order is in force (until 2 October 2026 unless extended). See Los Santos evacuation.

Photography. /safari turns on photo mode. Frame an animal within 45 m and press Enter. Closer shots, night shots and protected species pay more, and the shot lands in your phone's "Wildlife" album. The first three paid photos per species per day pay cash; every photo counts for the journal.

Events. Rut Week from 1 November, the Bird Opener from 1 September, the Coyote Derby from 1 February, the Boar Bounty from 1 July and Photo Week from 1 May, each with standings and PP for the top three. /huntevents shows the calendar.

See also

• Wildlife for how animals sense you, herds, wounded animals, predators and attacks.

• Weapons for Ammu-Nation counters, the hunting rifle and the firearms licence.

• Fishing shares the wardens, the cooler and the kitchen route with hunting.

• Licences and flight school for the firearms licence you need before a counter will sell you the hunting rifle.

• Pets and K9 for hunting dogs.

• Coral Island for the visa the Cayo Perico grounds require.

• The phone for the Wildlife photo album and trail camera messages.

Tips

Related commands

Worked example