Chompy Bird - Access and Combat Recommendations

Access Directions

In order to hunt chompies you must complete the Big Chompy Bird Hunting quest. During the quest you'll learn the basics of how to kill them.

You need to hunt the chompies in the swamp areas where swamp toads are found, since these are used as bait. The Feldip Hills area is the one you use during the quest, but the area south of Castle Wars is more convenient to access.

Equipment

Wear your best ranging gear, though if you have a decently high level it doesn't really matter too much. I sometimes like to wear my chompy hat even though it has no bonuses -- seems appropriate. :)

These monsters can only be ranged using an ogre bow or composite ogre bow; the latter can be used only after finishing Zogre Flesh Eaters. The composite bow is generally considered better, because it is faster to shoot and you can use a range of brutal arrow types. I suggest using rune brutals as they provide a higher percentage of one-hit kills; while making these from rune bars would be a horrible waste, you can buy the brutal arrows on the Grand Exchange very cheaply.

You will need a bellows for inflating the swamp toads; some people use more than one but I don't see much benefit to this. You should wear a ring of duelling to quickly get back to Castle Wars to bank your raw chompies.

Supplies

These monsters don't fight back, so the only supplies you need are ogre arrows or brutal arrows, as mentioned above.

Familiar

Assuming you are keeping the raw chompies -- which you should, see the Drop Notes below -- you will want to use a spirit terrorbird or pack yak to carry more of them. The chompy meat is very heavy, but you shouldn't have run energy issues, thanks to Jagex revising run energy in mid-2009.

Combat Notes

Chompy hunting is really an art; it's somewhat of a cross between regular ranged combat and the Hunter skill that came after it.

Fill your bellows from the swamp bubbles; this is easier to do if you left click the bellows, then try to right-click the bubbles so you don't have to start over if you miss. Then click the bellows and a swamp toad to inflate it and add it to your inventory. You can do this three times before you must refill the bellows, and you cannot have more than three swamp toads in your inventory at once. I recommend placing the bloated toads as soon as possible; some people like to accumulate three of them and then place all at once, but there's no real advantage to this, and the toads do you no good in your inventory.

You don't want to stand on top of the placed toads as this reduces the chances of a chompy bird coming; therefore, move around to different spots, continuing to inflate and drop toads as you go.

Whether and when and where a chompy comes in response to the bait is basically random. When one appears you usually see a flashing arrow over its head and also an indicator on your minimap, but if you are too far away you might not see it. Also, more than one bird can swoop down at a time, but the game will only put the arrow over the head of the most recent arrival, so you need to scan around periodically for chompies you might not have noticed. The chompies will only hang around for a few minutes before taking off again if you don't kill them. The bloated toads explode after a few minutes, doing 1-2 points of damage if you are nearby, but it's nothing to worry about.

You cannot attack a chompy as it is eating its bait; annoying, but that's the way it is.

After you kill a chompy, pluck it; feathers go into your inventory, while the raw meat and bones stay on the ground.. If you are keeping the raw chompies, put them in your beast of burden first, then collect them until your inventory is full. Use your ring of duelling to go back to Castle Wars, bank the chompies and repeat. There's even a convenient Summoning obelisk right nearby!

Drop Notes

Raw chompies are the primary ingredient in wild pies, which makes them valuable. I strongly recommend saving the raw chompies and banking them periodically. You can also get a decent number of feathers per hour hunting these birds.