You can also bait them to attract carnivores. A pit trap with meat might get you a wolf, lynx, bear, etc. In one of the older versions I had pit traps in a spot that was apparently some kind of bear hunting ground. All through the spring and summer I was getting bears in the pits, one every few weeks. I had loads of bear fur and more meat than I knew what to do with. In the winter those traps never caught a thing though, I guess bears were the only thing local attracted to the meat in them and they were hibernating.
I'm fond of setting loop snares. They never get you large animals, but you'll get a variety of small - foxes, hares, grouse, the occasional squirrel. Enough fresh meat to make soups and such without getting a big excess that you have to preserve or trade away.
A bit of an AAR of my recent game (the deaf super character):
I started out near the Reemi villages, since I figured starting near the home culture would make sense. Just the basic Unreal World scenario, and it gave me very basic equipment - a knife, a piece of rye bread and a smoked cut of elk meat, and pretty much bare minimum clothes (linen shirt, linen trousers, leather shoes). I headed toward where I thought a village might be, and the first few steps I ran into a badger.
I didn't have anything but the knife, so I grabbed a rock that was laying there and threw it at the badger's head. As luck would have it, I scored a good hit - and apparently knocked the thing unconscious. A few quick strikes with the knife finished it off, and I found myself with a badger skin and 7 pounds of meat. I grab a dozen rocks to use as missiles just in case I find something else.
I continue looking for the village, climbing trees to see if I can spot it. Along the way I spot several squirrels, and knock each of them off their trees with a hail of rocks. By the time I make it to the Reemi village I have four squirrels and the badger. The first thing I spot in the village is a small archery store, and I gleefully run inside - only to be disappointed to find that this archery store has nothing but arrows, nary a bow in sight. It's the only store in this small village, so I head back out and find a water source on the edge of town. I spend the rest of the day tanning the hides I collected and roasting the meat.
The next morning I make a club and finish tanning the hides by beating them soft on one of the village's tables. I then make myself a primitive bow, using the badger fur for cord, and trade the remaining bits and the squirrel furs for a dozen arrows - and off I go toward the Driik lands to find some more shops.
It's a long way across, and I eat up all my food travelling. I manage to get a few small animals - hares, squirrels, etc - as I go to keep myself fed, and it was otherwise an uneventful trip. I climb a tree and finally come in sight of a Driik village, and I also see reindeer in the distance! I quickly ready my bow and head off after the reindeer.
Approaching the reindeer, I see three of them: a large one, an average one, and a small one. The average one is the closest to me, so I sneak a bit closer to it and start rapidly firing my little bow at it. The first shot gets it in the head, three more in the legs to keep it from running, and two in the body to finish it off. Four shots missed. I collect my arrows and prepare to skin the kill when I notice the tracks of the other reindeer. Should I be greedy? A village nearby full of traders, I might as well make the most of my luck. I note the location of my first kill and head off after the other animals, following their tracks a good ways through the forest. I finally come upon them, both the small and the large one walking through the trees. I take aim at the large one, firing off 11 of my arrows. The first hits it in the head, followed by four to the legs and one to the body and five misses. It escapes, grievously wounded. I collect the five arrows on the ground and sprint after it. This time it keeps going for a long ways, and I nearly lost it once when it doubled back and went off the side - but carefully examining the tracks got me back on the trail. It wound up heading back to near where I got the first kill, and it was just north of there that I finally caught up with it - standing near a tree. I hid for a moment and caught my breath, then snuck a bit closer and fired again. It took another two arrows to finish it off, but it finally went down.
I collected my arrows again, two of which apparently broke or fell somewhere, and cleaned the animal. I managed to find my first kill easily enough - I just crossed the original tracks and followed them backwards. Together the two reindeer netted me just over 300 pounds of meat and 17 pounds of fur. I head into the village, and find a rather large walled off town with half a dozen shops - a granary, weapon shop, two good stores, a fishing store, and a tool store.
I trade half of the fresh reindeer meat away for a variety of supplies, then I spend the rest of that day and half the next tanning my various hides and trade the smaller ones away too, keeping the reindeer. All in all I manage to get a pot, woodsman's axe, shovel, punt, paddle, fishing rod, net, a bag of rye grain, a bag of barley grain, and a few loaves of rye bread. I use the reindeer fur to make myself a suit of fur - shoes, pants, shirt, hood, mittens. I cut up the rest of the reindeer fur and my old linen clothes for cord and hang the rest of the meat up to dry for later, planning to come back to collect it next month. I spend the rest of the day making extra arrows using the remaining cord.
A decent start, I think. I'm already set up with a good set of reindeer fur, have a variety of basic tools, and a hundred and fifty meat drying which I intend to collect next month and use for food when I build my house. Until then I'm eyeing a few things in the Driik shops - a battleaxe and a long mail hauberk. They are expensive - the hauberk especially - so I'll need to scrape together quite a bit to purchase them, but they sure would come in handy if I need to fight off Njerpez raiders. That'll be my next goal, collect enough to trade my way up to the hauberk. I sleep until morning, hang the equipment I bought up on a rock, and head out with my bow for more hunting - I have furs to collect.