This is my first year hunting this particular property. I've posted about it before, but to recap it has 4 bean fields, CRP field, and a heavily woodedarea with a creek. Last winter I had the opportunity to scout it a couple times. Well this summer I encountered something a little discouraging...... weeds..... and LOTS of them. All of the wooded area was overgrown with eye-high weeds. Every trail that I found in the winter wasn't visible. The whole place looked completely different. So I'm thinking I need to create a path that is easy to follow to my stand. Have any of you done this? What do you do to maintain the path so that it doesn't get overgrown with weeds? I live an hour away from this property, so weekly maintenance is not an option, besides I don't want to be in there that often making a bunch of racket...

Old carpet.

Cutting trails two or three times a year is plenty to maintain a trail. We have done it often. In really thick stuff where much of the terrain is thick a trail is a better option than stomping through the thickets. Cut once during summer and then again about a month before the season. I've even found that deer will feed on the succulent new growth in the paths and maybe even use the paths themselves.

like talondale said, go in with a weed wacker sometime over the summer and then once a month before the season or so. once the first frost hits you wont have a problem anyways...

i feel your pain. i walk down a gasline to some of my spots. its on state game lands...usually the gaslines and game commision trails are cut before the season. went in last week and got on the gasline and was upto my head in golden rod and choking and sneezing like mad.

the game commission trails were cut though guess the game commission dont cut the pipelines...

then i was leaving and seen a dude on a tractor and a truck beside him. went to check it out...looked like they were brushhawgin my pipeline hopefully its done...i will be there monday


and generally deer wont be alarmed by your trails. youd be surprised but they will most likely end up USING your trails. id even cut a couple extras if i had time in the summer just for the deer. dont go over board...but opening things up wont hurt none...weeds grow like mad anyway...i got pretty mad the other day to find out the deer i seen didnt follow the DEER trail to feed on acorns but fed on a semi new logging road feeing on nuts and growth along the logging trail....

good luck