Once you have you bow tuned up and sighted in your work is far from done. Besides the constant shooting to stay in tune with your bow you must make sure your land is ready to hunt. Now is a good time to get out and prep your land for the upcoming season.

Your food plots should have been in the spring but what about shooting lanes and trails. With the cooler summer and sporadic rain the weeds have taken off. Now is a good time to get out and prep your land.

If you have a brush cutter cut trails through your woods if permissible. Deer will funnel right to the cut out trails immediately. Does especially will use these cut trails because of their easy passage and close proximity to thicker cover. Cut your trails with a purpose. Get an airel photograph of your land or a topographical map. Draw out using the landscape where you would like to put trails. Think of the possible stand sites for each wind direction. If possible clear out some small openings which will be useful for decoying and potential food plots for next year.

Once you have the area mapped out start cutting your trails. My general rule of thumb is to make the trails just wide enough to fit a four-wheeler down. This will give you enough room to get down without rubbing your scent on all the brush as well as easier access for dragging your deer out. You do not want to over cut an area though. Only cut trails that the deer will use from feeding and bedding areas as well as water sources. Do Not cut trails directly to their bedding areas because they will leave them. Try to leave a sanctuary for them so they have a place that isn’t hunting and they always feel safe. This will insure that they stay in the area longer.

Once you are finished cutting you trail you will need to pick out your tree stand or blind locations. Once you have located these areas and the specific trees that you will place stand or locations for ground blinds you can start cutting shooting lanes. You only need to cut one shooting lane in each direction. I prefer to have less shooting lanes and have more cover. I primarily use climbing tree stand but I do have some standard portable stands. One of my favorites is Lone Wolf tree stands.

Check all of your tree stands at home before you take them to the woods. Hang them on a tree at home or nearby to test for any squeaks or malfunctioning parts. Replace any worn or squeaky parts with new ones. If you have a squeak on your stands you may need to put Teflon washers on all the bolts and pins where friction can occur. This will substantially quiet your stand down.

If you use standard tree stand you can put up your portable tree steps now. For climbing stands take a stand out with you and trim all the branches up to your desired location on the tree. For any tree stand location be sure to have ample cover surrounding you to break up your silhouette. Recheck your shooting lanes from there as well. Standard tree stand should be hung to see if any adjustments need to be made for comfort in the stand. I would take the stands down after testing to make sure that no squeaks come from the next months rain or and rust develops.

Once your stand placements and shooting lanes are complete relocate your Deer Cam on some of your trails that you cut to see the usage of the trails. This will tell what is using you trails and when. Scouting never stops but after you are finished cutting your trails and setting up your stand sites try to stay out of the woods until the season starts to limit the human scent in the area. If you do go into the area make sure you are scent free.

Try some of these things to increase your odds for success this coming bow season and good luck.