If you just want meat, then get a karve more desirably or long boat, find a serpent, and then set the boat to slowly turn on a sail and shoot the serpent. If you're pure melee or need scales, then bait them nearish land just before they lose aggro, harpoon them with lot a large stam bar (good stam food) and then start whacking away. If it's slipping back then you could build a workbench and some walls to block it off.

Biggest boat while going at the speed with no sails is enough to drag a sea serpent safely to a shore with a Harpoon and you should go hunting while it's raining and night time. Also Ice arrows tend to one shot them with most bows almost.

My best arrows are iron, it took way too long to be practical, partially because I missed >50% of the time. I am going to need to get better. But I do appreciate the strategies, which I'll try once I get over that embarrassment,

Originally posted by Fluffy Bucketless Pocket Dragon:

My best arrows are iron, it took way too long to be practical, partially because I missed >50% of the time. I am going to need to get better. But I do appreciate the strategies, which I'll try once I get over that embarrassment,

Don't bother making iron arrows like ever, iron is too important of a ressource to produce them, using the ones you find in a chest is ok, i'd recommend you get to the mountains before farming sea serpents, just to mine obsidian to make obsidian arrows or better freeze arrows but you need to farm drakes flying around there and get their freeze glands. Though if you do manage to drag the serpents with a harpoon on land you just need to beat them up with any weapon at hand really.

do they respawn at same place?

Originally posted by rubinho:

do they respawn at same place?

From my experience they might, they do have specific spawn point like essentially all enemies in the game.

Originally posted by Dracoco OwO:

Don't bother making iron arrows like ever, iron is too important of a ressource to produce them, using the ones you find in a chest is ok, i'd recommend you get to the mountains before farming sea serpents, just to mine obsidian to make obsidian arrows or better freeze arrows but you need to farm drakes flying around there and get their freeze glands. Though if you do manage to drag the serpents with a harpoon on land you just need to beat them up with any weapon at hand really.

Had a full stack of them from the chests in the swamp spots. Aware they're not worth crafting. Would iron kit be alright for going into the mountains for that stuff? Got armour and main weapons to the furthest it allows. If you reckon it's safe enough I'll go organise that.

Originally posted by Fluffy Bucketless Pocket Dragon:

Originally posted by Dracoco OwO:

Don't bother making iron arrows like ever, iron is too important of a ressource to produce them, using the ones you find in a chest is ok, i'd recommend you get to the mountains before farming sea serpents, just to mine obsidian to make obsidian arrows or better freeze arrows but you need to farm drakes flying around there and get their freeze glands. Though if you do manage to drag the serpents with a harpoon on land you just need to beat them up with any weapon at hand really.

Had a full stack of them from the chests in the swamp spots. Aware they're not worth crafting. Would iron kit be alright for going into the mountains for that stuff? Got armour and main weapons to the furthest it allows. If you reckon it's safe enough I'll go organise that.

I never make iron armor as well but it's probably because i usually rush the swamp part, i don't like using heavy armor in the swamp as well because you actually move slower, when i go in mountains to get silver i usually still have troll hide armor set and a fine wood bow with fire arrows and i kill drakes in 2 hits. But do what you think is best for you. Also don't forget Eikthyr power.

lazy route: huntsman bow and frost arrows

real man: harpoon and knife

make them follow you, harpoon them, like said above bring tasty and stamina meads, knife the meat :)

Arrows, then jump in the water and punch it in the face. I'm far too impatient for harpoon.

Go at night, ideally during rain/storm.

Travel at half-mast or rudder in a straight line.

Look for disturbances on the surface of the water, not jumping fish, but it will look like a consistent water spout on the horizon (If the Sea Serpent is out of render range)

Once you have the Serpent's attention, you need to make for land. Stay half mast, let the sea serpent stay close, even stop and let it attack the boat (They quit chasing you and leave if they fail to attack every 60 seconds)

Bring it to shallows or a shoal, run aground in your boat somewhere safe, but leave enough of it in the water to get the serpent's attention.

Use some kind of Frost damage (Frost Arrows, Frostner, Staff of Ice)

You can always harpoon it and drag it to the surface, but you won't ahve the stamina to kill it. Let the locals have at it in this case.

I've recently gotten some scales and a trophy by delivering finishing blow to the worm by jumping on its back for the attack while still on open seas. What the optimal weapons for that are, I'm not so sure, but Frostner or Mistwalker deals the most damage thanks to the serpent's frost weakness. Jumping at its face to deliver a killing blow should ensure all or at least majority of the sinking loot dropping in your inventory instead of seabed.

This all obviously requires pretty good awareness and understanding so you won't let the serpent destroy your ship while whittling down its health and waiting for it to get close, forgetting to bring the sail up and becoming stranded in the sea (at the mercy of the serpent or otherwise), running out of stamina and drowning, and other factors.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2937610470

The shallows method described above by Hobo M. is probably the most reliable method overall. If you try dragging the serpent to shore and you happen to run out of stamina at just the wrong moment, you may never catch the bugger again. But in shallows a healthy serpent may yet try to fight back and not escape.

If you use Moder's power, you may be able to make a sharp turn at a beachhead so you can pull the serpent far enough to shore so it won't have even hope of escaping. So once again, it boils down to terrain... or absence of it, in this case.

Frost damage also has the advantage of not harming the ship to such extent as some other damage types, as well as slowing the snake down. Longship is also resistant to piercing weapons, so you could use a spear or atgeir as well if boat damage is your concern (they are not resistant to lightning though).

I have absolutely none of the kit you're recommending, but I'll follow the process and then note how utterly terribly it goes \o/

Depends. If you just want the meat for cooking use frost arrows, the meat will float on the surface so don´t worry. If you need their scales drag them to the shore and kill them there because the scales do not float.

Harpoon them. sit at rutter. pull them to shore. bring stamina meads. drag them far onto shore, attack them, harpoon them before they get back to sea, rinse repeat