Well, at least it gets you out into the woods.  Also good to look for the deer yarding up, if they do that in your area, and maybe find some sheds.

As for trimming trees, I like to hold off till after the leaves come out, that way, I get a better idea of what is going to be in my way come shooting time.

It's also agreat time to do some predator hunting.

When the weather turns colder and food gets more scarce, predators respond more readily to a call.

Go out in the morning with your rifle, set up in a likely location - maybe overlooking a creek bottom or other thickly vegetated area.

Give your best calls a tryout and look sharp for anything coming in.

After you have hunted a few hours - maybe moving to a couple of different spots, do your scouting as you described before.

If you are in an area where there are rabbits, you might even try sneaking along looking for a cottontail or two to take home for dinner - after taking a clean head shot, of course!

Good way to mix it up and have a great day in the great outdoors.

Good Luck!

The most satisfying thing I do is mount the antlers on the wall.  That's what i was working on last evening.  I like to write down the story of the hunts and share them by email with my hunting friends.  Like those here!  If I get too far into hunting withdrawal I start reading hunting stories, and cleaning gear.  Maybe start a new reloading project or two or three....  It seems like there is always something keeping me busy and since hunting and out of doors related stuff is what I enjoy, I usually have some form of it going on.    Right now I'm working my way up to researching out of state moose hunts for next eyar's applications.

If I get the time away from work during daylight hours (and THAt is the hard part)  I take a shotgun out for a walk and do a little small game hunting, but what I am really doing out there is looking at tracks and scouting for next seasons deer hunts! 

I like to combine after season scouting with rabbit and squirrel hunting since we get to hunt them until 28 Feb. I get to go into the thickets to see rub lines, deer beds and travel routes I couldn't check out during the season for fear of spooking the deer. Then I'll spend time looking for sheds during March. April rings in turkey season.
Now that we have hogs calling our thickets home, we're going to be hunting them more during other times of the year. Since we can hunt them year-round, we'll hunt them in all but the hottest months of the year. I'll probably work up some different loads to use on the hogs to see how different bullets perform.
This Jan and Feb, I'm going to squirrel hunt/scout for deer on some different state gamelands to get a better idea which ones I'll put in for a draw hunt for deer next season. There are several new lands to check out so I'll be able to keep myself busy until the end of Feb.