Cabela's Big Game Hunter: Pro Hunts is a thoroughly enjoyable and well designed game. Unfortunately, the tutorials are somewhat lacking and there is little community support. In the interest of helping beginners adjust to the game more quickly, I'll be going over the gameplay basics, specifically targeting the areas I believe the game documented less well.

EDIT: I added a new section ("Equipment") and edited the "Shooting Tips" section. Please be sure to rate the guide, and comment if you have questions or corrections. Happy hunting!

One of the most confusing aspects of the game for me was the interface; the tutorial avoided some important aspects that can only be found through trial and error.



The interface in this view is quite minimal. In the bottom right, your chosen ammo and quantity remaining are shown with the wind direction. The bullets in the gray box show the remaining shots loaded, and the number (2 in this case) shows the total number of magazines you are carrying. This is important: if you carry only one magazine, the bullets shown are all you have.



In this view I have an animal centered in my view, so stats about it are shown. The animal type, its gender, and its score are all listed. Animals have unique scoring criteria: deer, caribou, moose, and elks are all scored by points on the antlers, with the total score taken from the sum. Boars and bears are scored by weight. Pronghorns are scored by antler length. No female of any species is scored.

The second box to the right gives overall information about the view. The top left shows the yardage from me to the animal, while the top right shows magnification. The meter below is a windage measurement; red bars on one side mean the wind will push bullets in that direction. While less relevant for the Southeast and Northeast because of the distances at which you take down animals, the windage is vital for windy Southwest and long-range Northwest hunts.



The most important part of this image is the red circle. This red circle appears whenever you hold your breath by pressing and holding left shift while using the scope. It specifies where the bullet is likely to land. Holding your breath is vital. Along with body position and firearm, holding your breath makes the difference between a perfect shot and a shaky miss. The more inaccurate the firearm, whether because of body position or the nature of the gun, the larger the circle. The only place where the circle becomes slightly misleading is in very windy, long distance hunts, where the wind must be adjusted for manually, except for later scopes with windage measurements. As a proof, I landed a double lung shot on the deer shown, despite the relative distance for a 2x scope.



This view appears whenever you're standing near or on animal tracks or blood. The rectangle to the left shows type of animal, gender, time since the track was made, and direction, regardless of the species. When standing still, tracks glow brightly and for some distance, even through a hill. When crawling, crouching, or walking, tracks glow more faintly and the trail is obscured ahead. While running, tracks do not glow at all.


Animals making noise show up as circles radiating outwards, as shown in the photo just above and in the Normal View section. Animals that are calm or slightly annoyed will show white circles. Suspicious, scared, or angry animals show red circles, as above.


This is a zoomed-in photo of the scope view. I have "tagged" this animal, meaning that for a fair distance, as long as I continue tracking the animal, I have a general direction and mood. Rather than go from white to red, the tag indicator goes from green to yellow to red, giving much more detailed information on the animal's mood.



The game does a rather good job of explaining the map view, so I won't go into detail. I will point out how important the clock is: in missions with short time limits, it can keep you up to date on your remaining time. It can also be useful in figuring out peak animal times. If you notice lots of animals you have trouble finding (such as caribou), note the time and place for future reference. You can change the start time of any hunt if you believe it would be more successful at another time.

Below I'll list each piece of equipment and an overview of its important features. This should help fill in some of the gaps in the in-game descriptions, allowing you to spend your hard-earned gear credits on worthwhile equipment.

• .223 Bolt Action and Semi-Auto: This gun's sole purpose is to hunt small game. The default ammo is soft-point, while the secondary is a high-velocity variant. The higher velocity keeps you from having to lead animals quite as much if they're moving. The semi-auto variant allows for faster follow-up shots, which is important for hunting small, fast animals.
  
• .270 Bolt Action: The .270 excels at close ranges (<100 yards) hunting deer. It has good accuracy and fair penetration with a good shot, but that doesn't leave much room for variance; if the animal is 175 yards away and pointed at you instead of to the side, you won't have much luck. It also struggles to penetrate even boar and moose hide, though the partitioned ammo variant helps. The optimal situation for this is hunting deer with the soft-point ammo at sub-100 ranges with a 4x scope.
  
• 7mm Mag Bolt Action: This gun is like the .270 v2: it has great accuracy and penetration up to 150-200 yards, allowing good shots at boars, moose, and bears. The polymer tip helps immensely in flattening the trajectory and improving penetration, while the soft-point drops medium game in no time. This gun excels at 100-200 yards with a 4x-6x scope, hunting deer and caribou, boars, and small bears and moose.
  
• .30-06 Semi-Auto: The .30-06 is designed for big game. The accuracy is about on-par with the 7mm, and the penetration is greatly increased. The soft-point drops deer, caribou, and the like almost instantly, and the partitioned ammo has almost no trouble with thick-skinned animals like moose and bears. Not only that, the semi-auto firing allows follow-up shots on fleeing game, preventing animals with minor wounds from getting away. Unfortunately, since the accuracy doesn't improve much on the 7mm, it is still limited to about 200 yards. The optimal situation for this gun is a 2-6x scope, hunting pretty much anything except elk and grizzlies.
  
• .338 Magnum Bolt-Action: The .338 is the gun in this game. The penetration and trajectory are wonderful, and the accuracy is unmatched, allowing shots past 400 yards. Though it handles moose and black bears quite well, it struggles cut through grizzly skin and bone. Fortunately, the polymer tip ammo helps with that. The optimal situation for this gun is anywhere from 50-400 yards, with any scope, huntin nearly anything. However, the 300+ yard 12x shots are where this gun shines. If you're willing to grind the gear credits, I recommend this as an early purchase; it makes the whole game a relative breeze.
  
• 12 Gauge Pump Action: I'll admit I hate this gun. It's accuracy is abominable, with anywhere above 50 yards being risky. You can't steady youself by holding your breath, so your best hope is to go prone and wait for the animal to get close. Worst of all, the slug - the only legal ammo for medium and big game - is horrifyingly unaerodynamic, and has little to no penetration. The only redeeming quality is the size of the slug; it is harder to get the frustrating near-misses that occur with rifles sometimes.
  
• Recurve Bow: The bow is more of a style weapon than anything. The scope is about 1.5x (it isn't actually a scope) and the arrows have no velocity and little penetration. Even the 600-grain arrows barely handle caribou. The arrows also drop quickly. Combine this with the lack of a scope and anything above 30 yards is challenging.
  
• Compound Bow: If you must use a bow, use this. The extra draw power makes the compound competitive with the .270 rifle, though it is limited like the recurve to 1.5x. The 600-grain arrows make it possible to take down big game like bears and moose.

There is little to write about on the scopes; they are pretty much exactly what the descriptions say. The illuminated scopes are useful when hunting in early morning or late afternon, and the variable scopes allow you to change your strategy mid-hunt. This makes the 3-12x illuminated scope a tempting buy, though it won't make the game much easier without a gun to match it like the .338.

• Binoculars: The 10x and 15x binoculars only become useful in the West for long-range hunts with hard-to-spot animals. You should probably save these for that part of the game, as they're expensive to buy earlier.
  
• Calls: The calls are a vital part of hunts with yard limits and a high number of animals. Calls allow you to easily bring an animal to sub-40 yards without abandoning a good position. They also allow you to take the tedium out of hunting three animals at once, as they can attract animals from a large area around you.
  
• Scent Mask: This is a must for any hunt. The scent mask, as I will cover later, almost eliminates the need to worry about smell in one purchase.

Here are a couple of important lessons I learned while progressing.


The heart, brain, and spine are tempting prospects, as they all instantly kill an animal and always provide points. However, they are quite hard to hit early on. You need a good scope, a steady hand, a powerful bullet to get through skin and muscle, and an understanding of the animal to successfully get these shots. Taking a risky shot can be expensive; no vitals means -75 gear credits, a stomach shot means -100 credits, and an unclaimed animal is -500 gear credits. Practice going for the lungs, and when you feel comfortable, expand to the other organs.


The spine shot is a relatively easy one once you're comfortable. It doesn't move a lot as the animal grazes, the reference point is consistent among animals, it offers +300 gear credits (only to be beaten by a double lung shot or heart shot), and it instantly kills an animal. A spine shot is good if you're short on time, as it will remove the need to track a downed animal.


Soft point and hollow point ammo has good expansion, which means it downs game faster. This prevents spending a long time tracking down animals that die slowly. However, these bullets drop faster than others and have less penetration. If you find your bullet is not making it to vitals and is instead getting caught in skin, muscle, and bone, try the secondary, non-soft point ammo.


Bears, moose, and boars all have the possibility of charging you if they sense your presence. Luckily, handling a charge is relatively easy. Face the animal, scope in, and hold your breath. This slows time and allows you to line up your shot. Go for the brain (right between the eyes), and try to make it so if you miss you hit the spine. Even if you don't get the kill, you'll likely scare the animal away, saving you from injury and a failed hunt.

Just as important as getting a good shot is finding the animal and setting up the kill.


The scent mask nearly eliminates the need to worry about changing winds. While animals downwind of you get nervous, they won't split immediately, possibly offering you an extra shot. The scent mask also applies to all hunts and all animals, making it a no-brainer.


Calls are easy to learn to use, and they allow you to easily beat hunts with lots of animals or little yardage to work with, especially when the shot must be taken from a stand or blind. Important aside: all shots count for eiligibility for hunt challenges, meaning shooting a moose once from 35 yards and once from 70 will not complete a sub-50 yard challenge.


Sometimes the best way of finding a prize animal is following its tracks. Unfortunately, lighting, location, and speed of the animal can all make losing a trail easy. If you've lost a trail, step back to the last track and stand still, looking for the next track glowing ahead. Also remember that animals can corner quickly, so a quick search of the immediate area might be helpful.


If you take a bad shot, sometimes the best thing to do is quit, as exiting before the animal dies negates the -500 for unclaimed trophies. You may also wish to restart a hunt if you have bad luck tracking, or scared off the perfect herd right at the start. Keep in mind, though, that past hunts affect the animals in the present; areas where you scared off animals will have more hunting pressure.


Blinds and stands are most useful if you set up before the animal comes. If you look at the times where animals frequent areas and set up a shot, you might be able to avoid any movement getting into position, allowing you much better shots and less chance of scaring animals. If you have a call for the animal, stands allow you to get your quarry as close as you wish, eliminating bad shots through leaves or over long distances.

I've tried to include all of the information I found most important while enjoying the game. However, I know I may have left out some questions, so please leave a comment if you notice anything missing. Happy hunting!

P.S. For more information on vitals location and scoring, see Ashric's guide on shot placement for this game. I found it very useful for setting up shots and budgeting gear credits.