How To Hunt Panthers in Red Dead Redemption 2 (Updated 2024)

Red Dead Redemption 2 (RDR2) is an open-world game that revolves around the Wild West theme. And like any other open-world games produced by Rockstar, there’s a ton of room for upgrades. In RDR2, upgrades mostly require different animal parts but primarily, perfect pelts of different animals. In this guide, we’ll show you how to hunt a panther, the most dangerous animal in RDR2 second only to the grizzly bear.

What makes panthers the hardest animal to take down is its elusive nature and its ability to get the jump on you. This makes it harder to survive the encouter and harvest perfect panther pelt. You’ll probably end up putting in too many rounds in the panther, ruining the pelt’s quality in the process. This guide aims to provide you with all the information about the panther, and strategies to get that perfect panther pelt and complete your upgrades.

With that, let’s the panther hunting season begin!

Panther Spawn Location in RDR2

Panthers in RDR2 are primarily located in the Lemoyne area. There are two main areas that you could find panthers in. The first is in the southeast area from Braithwaite Manor. The other is to the East of Lagras, around the wooded wetlands.

Panthers spawn at different times in these two spots. The first one in Braithwaite spawns only in the day. The panther in Lagras spawns only at night.

The legendary panther is also nearby, but you shouldn’t worry about that just that. It will only appear once you’ve completed at least 9 legendary animal hunts successfully. But for now, let’s focus on getting perfect panther pelts for your upgrades.

What Can You Upgrade With Panther Pelt?

Kit Satchel Upgrade

Upgraded Kit Satchel lets you hold more items in the game. Check out the guide to upgrading your Kit Satchel here.

Panther Trail Saddle

The Panther Trail saddle can be acquired by visiting the Trapper to help you craft it. It is perhaps one of the best saddles that you can use in the game. Some of the bonuses that come with the saddle are as below:

• -20% HP core drain
• -26% Stamina core drain
• -50% Stamina drain
• +24% stamina regeneration rate
• +2 to both top speed and acceleration

How to Hunt Panther 

Hunting panthers in RDR2 is risky business. The reason why hunting panthers can be a tedious work is that you’re unable to determine the quality of the panther’s pelt once it gets aggressive. And once you’ve killed a panther with low quality pelt, it will take some time for a panther to respawn in its habitat. Add all this up and this can be tedious work.

Now, there are many guides out there to hunt panthers with varying degrees of success. We’ve tried them all and narrowed it down to 2 hunting tactics that yielded success. With any further patches throughout the game’s lifespan, there’s a small chance that some tactics to hunt panthers do not work anymore. So we’ve tried them all, and came up with a Frankenstein version of our guide to ensure maximum probability of success. There are steps you need to take in both tactics to make sure it works.

What Do You Need?

Weapon: Carbine Repeater (High Velocity ammo), Rolling Block Rifle, Improved Arrow

Items: Deer carcass, predator bait, potent predator bait

Preparations

You’re going to need to create save point. Pause the game and go to the Story tab. You can choose to save the game, load your previous save, start a new game and to exit. Red Dead Redemption 2 allows you to make up to 15 manual saves, so use the slots wisely.

Capture a deer to be used as bait for the panther to venture out of its hiding. You’ll be needing Predator Bait or Potent Predator Bait to sprinkle around the deer carcass to increase chances of success.

Once you get a deer, go to this location and set up camp. Make sure it’s morning time, so you can have 2 more chances to check on the bait for the day before it turns nighttime. Make a save point.

Hunting Tactic 1: Bait and Wait

* Green – set up camp, Red – viewing point, Yellow – panther roaming area

1. Move towards the panther location. Bring the deer carcass and drop it at a place where you can still view it from your binoculars later on. Drop some predator bait/ potent predator bait around the carcass.
2. Move to the viewing area (marked red on the map) to start surveilling whether the panther has spawned. Equip your binoculars and keep an eye out for any activities. The yellow highlight shows the panther’s usual prowling area.
3. If you notice animals running out of the forest, there’s a high possibility that a panther is prowling around in the area.
4. Once you spotted the panther, use your binoculars to identify the panther’s pelt quality.
5. If it’s not a perfect pelt, open up your Items tab and select the Camp icon. You’ll automatically be transported to the camp location since it’s nearby. Sleep till morning/afternoon of the next day and repeat till you’ve found the panther with a perfect pelt.
6. You can also quickly reload your game to increase your chances of spawning a panther.
7. Remember to cycle quickly from your binoculars to your gun and get in your kill since panthers are known to be very quick animals.

Hunting Tactic 2: Up Close and Personal

1. Set up a camp near the panther location.
2. Move into the panther’s spawning area. Remember to be on your horse. There will be an animation of the panther knocking you off your horse, which gives you precious seconds to get in your shots. Without a horse, you might just bump into the panther and become its immediate afternoon snack.
3. Move around with your horse and pay attention to the map for any red dots that’ll appear, signifying a predator/dangerous animal nearby. Sometimes snakes will trigger the false alarm.
4. Remember to equip your Carbine Repeater at all times.
5. There’s no way for you to know the quality of the panther’s pelt, so when you’ve taken down a panther with a lower grade of pelt, you can either:
   1. Reload the game to an earlier save point.
   2. Sleep for 1.5 days to respawn the panther.
6. This method is a bit sloppy, but you don’t need to wait and watch for hours (in-game time) for a panther to come out.

And that’s it. The 2 tactics we think would get you a perfect panther pelt and carcass. And if you feel you do not want to waste too much effort and time into one single animal in the game, then perhaps you can consider using a Mod to help you out. We’ll cover that in a later article!

Hunting Panther in East Lagras

Remember, panthers in this region only appear at night. It does make hunting the panther a tad more difficult not to mention dangerous. And keep an eye out for alligators that might be in your way as you’re hunting. You can use either hunting tactics mentioned above.

Weird Game Scenario

There is a small chance that a group of Lemoyne Raiders with a Gatling Wagon will try to jump on you after you’ve bagged your kill. Create a save point once you’ve harvested the perfect panther pelt to avoid losing it, and your horse.

Recap

1. Always be on your horse to reset and get your shot cleanly.
2. If you’ve killed a low quality panther, it takes 1.5 days to get a panther to respawn.
3. Create a save point before hunting a panther. Turn off autosave, which will be prompted once you’ve loaded through your save point.
4. Use carbine repeater to take out the panther as it moves very fast, and you might have trouble aiming with a scoped weapon.
5. If the panther jumps on you, remember to press “F” to get it off you to not immediately die.
6. There’s no way you can outrun a panther. Make your last stand and try to get your clean shot in immediately.
7. A panther will not stop attacking even though you’ve shot at it once.

And there you have it! There is a small element of luck in play to bag a perfect panther pelt, so be patient and make sure you’ve done everything in the guide to maximize your success. Good luck!