Actually right now hunting part is not so bad. The bloodtrail mod is enough to make it less random, as you can track fleeing animal, and i would love for base game to have similar mechanic. My main problem with hunting is ridiculous amount of sinkholes and caves in the ground. I wouldn't mind if it was simply one biome, but almost all biomes are riddled with them, and running animals love to go in them. So deer hunting become cave diving.
And that's unfun part for me. I need to run around area, plug all the holes, and then i can actually hunt.
As for spears I switched to arrows when i got to iron as I can 4 hit deer. You use only 2 slots and you get 9 arrows from one ingot. I just carry single spear as i find it more comfortable against bears.