While many early season bowhunters are starting to think about picking up their bow for the first time since last season, June is also a great time to pick up some herbicide and hit the woods. I’m not talking about super complex formulations for your food plots either. Rather a simple solution of broad spectrum herbicide like glyphosate, most commonly referred to as Roundup.
In most of the US, by June, whatever pesky weeds that exist on your hunting land have fully emerged, leafed out and are rapidly growing. This is also when I’m starting to take trailcam inventory of bucks,  move stands,  look for that perfect tree for a ladder or lockon and decide where the perfect spot for a ground blind attack is.  In the south we have a handful of venomous snakes that could be under foot, ticks suck, poison ivy reigns supreme and dozens of annual weeds fill the fields.
Solution? Mix up a 2-3% solution of glyphosate in a backpack, hand sprayer or even a squirt bottle and get after those unwanted weeds. Spray edges of trails, spray camera sites, spray the area you’re going to place that groundblind. Doing so will allow you to see underfoot and reduce ticks catching a ride during summer scouting trips. Spraying ground blind locations will make setup much easier when the time comes. Don’t forget to cut those poison ivy vines climbing that perfect tree stand tree, and spray around the bottom of your ladders and box blinds.
In a week you’ll start to see things changing. In about two weeks all those weeds will be well on their way to being a non-factor on opening day. This little step will pay big dividends throughout the rest of the year. Maybe it will be that edge you need to put a WEDGEHEAD broadhead through that big buck you’ve already got your mind on.