Yesterday we had a front come through with intense wind. All day long the avg. was over 20 mph with gusts up to 40 mph. It settled down a little overnight but today still is high wind conditions.

When I started this morning I wasn't expecting much. I was pleasantly surprised with the coon, rats, and mink. However, I had nothing in the canine sets.

The question that I am throwing out to you is how does the wind affect canine movement? I know it affects deer movement, but how about the fox and coyotes?

No one has thoughts on this???

I would say that its not just the wind, but moon phases, barametric pressure and availability of food.

OK. Will a strong wind stop movement all by itself? Or could it push them to sheltered areas?

I'm not sure wind will have any effect on like coons and others. Animals like deer and coyote it might effect some due to smells being messed up which they rely on so much.

Not sure about there, but we had a front move through here and temps didn't go anywhere and low last night was like 28 degrees. What was your temp like? Could it have been a change in temp that caused the animals to move?

Our temps stayed about where they have been. Tonight should be "very cold" relatively speaking. It should be our first hard frost of the year. mid 20's. But the wind is supposed to calm down as well.

Wind might also have an affect of a yotes hearing, which may make them stay in a more isolated spot. Just a guess

Was wondering the same thing. Put out a few sets on Sunday for coyote & fox. Yesterday had three dig ups (my fault) but then last night a cold front moved in with strong winds. Today's check had nothing mess with any of the sets at all and nothing in the traps.

In the winter we have winds in excess of 50 mph here, with some days up to and over 90 mph, if it would hole them up until the wind quit we wouldn't see them until spring, I feel they will run even in the heaviest winds, they have to eat some time. I do think it does help when the winds blowing cause they have to hunt harder cause the prey is harder to find, but I think they hold more to the deep draws and out of the wind areas more then too. just my 2 cents

Deer will hole up in the thickets to break the wind, if it gets worse than that, they'll sit tight and feed like crazy when it lays down.
New to trapping so I can't speak for the furry ones.

Cattrax, I've been thinking about this all day and I think that the animals moving to a sheltered location makes sense. If they normally are out hunting the edges of fields the wind is going to demand extra energy on there part. It seems reasonable to me that they would switch to hunting the wooded areas, or at least the low, more wind protected areas. With that being said, all my sets are in the wrong place when the wind blows.

You know, I always tried to believe the many experts in the many deer hunting articles in all magazines I use to read. Then I saw something that amazed me during Hurricane Erin a few years ago. I remember the wind gusts started around day break. Then around noon, sustained winds were 55-60 mph and three houses away were three deer standing in the wide open yard eating fallen pears. They stood there for a good while while the driving rain was horizontal in the air. I still have video of it. I don't believe the weather was bad during the night so I'll rule out they were hold up and hunkering down and they just got hungry. After watching the deer that day I lost faith in those old stories. Watching that told me if a deer is hungry, he or she's going to eat.

That was with deer and don't really know how furbearers would react.

In Kentucky we are not used to real hard winds that stay up for long periods of time. But I have noticed on windy nights that sometimes catches of certain critters seem to pick up. This may be my imagination but I dont think so.
I have caught cats with fierce winds. Same with mink, my best mink trapping has been during storms (snow storms, but also rain and wind storms)However my muskrat and beaver catches dont seem to do as well here. I think that beaver may like to listen to their surroundings and if they cant hear well they dont move as much. This is strictly a theory, but it seems like that is often the way it goes.

I have always thought that when it is really windy catches have gone down.Last night it was very windy here (30-40mph)and I did not expect much this morning.I was very suprised this morning, we had a great catch day.