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| Species | Today | Tomorrow | Thursday | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Night14° | Dawn13° | Mid18° | Eve16° | Night15° | Dawn14° | Mid15° | Eve14° | Night13° | |
| ★Perch | 77 | 88 | 88 | 85 | 80 | 88 | 84 | 87 | 80 |
| ★Pike | 78 | 90 | 90 | 86 | 81 | 90 | 85 | 88 | 81 |
| ★Crappie | 68 | 77 | 75 | 72 | 72 | 78 | 65 | 75 | 72 |
| ★Largemouth | 14 | 35 | 38 | 29 | 17 | 33 | 20 | 28 | 14 |
Northeast shoreline is your first stop. Strong wind fetch is stacking perch against that shore right now, don't fight the wind, fish where it's pushing. Target 13–23ft along any hard bottom, gravel, or weed edge transition. Overcast sky kills the light penetration, which keeps perch active longer through the day. Stable pressure at 1016 hPa means they're not lock-jawed, expect active, moving schools.
Lead with a small jigging spoon or blade bait, 1/4oz, gold or chartreuse. Drop to bottom, rip it 12–18 inches to call the school in, then dead-drop it back. That fall triggers the bite. Once you mark fish or get a tap, switch to a 2–3" paddle tail on a 1/8oz round ball jig head in white or perch pattern. Work it with 6-inch hops and a 2-second pause. The spoon finds the school; the jig closes the deal.
Go deeper as the day progresses. Morning light, stay at 13–16ft near the weed edges. By afternoon, slide to 20–23ft as schools condense tighter to bottom structure. Perch this time of year are schooling in numbers before freeze-up and feeding hard, if you find one, you've found 40. Work the school methodically; don't burn through it with big casts and fast retrieves. Slow, deliberate hops. Pause length matters more than hop height.
Keep one rod rigged light. A 1/16oz tube head with a 2" tube bait in natural olive or pumpkin is your finesse closer when the school goes quiet after pressure. Drop it straight down, barely twitch it, 1 inch of movement, 3-second pause. Perch season is open, check your licence class for your daily limit. Watch your hookset on light jigs, a sharp snap tears the lip. Steady lift instead.
Northeast shoreline is your first stop. Strong wind fetch is stacking baitfish against that shore right now, pike follow the food. Work the dying weed edges in 4–8ft first, then step out to 8–12ft where the weed-to-hard-bottom transition holds the biggest fish. Overcast sky keeps pike shallow and active all day, not just at dawn and dusk.
Lead with a large spinnerbait or magnum inline spinner in a chartreuse-or-white blade, 3/4–1oz, burned just above the weed tops at roughly 4–5ft. Stable pressure at 1016 hPa with an overcast lid means pike are on the chase, fast retrieves trigger reaction strikes today. No need to slow down. Count it down 3–4 seconds, rip it back at a pace that keeps the blade thumping hard.
Secondary play: a large swimbait (6–8 inch) or oversized paddle tail on a 3/8–1/2oz swimbait head, white or perch pattern, worked along the outer weed edge at 10–12ft on a steady medium retrieve. These fish are fat from an exceptional forage base, match that size or go bigger to pull the trophy-class pike off the bottom transition. A big jigging spoon in silver or gold, worked with sharp rips and 2-second pauses over hard-bottom pockets, will produce when you find fish holding tight to the bottom.
Late fall pike season is open with no size restrictions noted, but Cook's Bay pike going into winter are worth releasing healthy. Handle quickly, keep them in the water, and get them back. Cold water fish recover slower than you think.
Northeast shoreline is your first stop. Wind push is stacking crappie tight against that bank right now. Work 7–15ft of water along docks, any remaining weededge, or woody structure near marina infrastructure. These fish are school-oriented, mark them on sonar before you commit, then stay on them.
Overcast sky is a green light for crappie all day. These are light-sensitive fish and flat grey skies push feeding windows well beyond dawn and dusk. Stable pressure at 1016 hPa means fish are holding predictably at mid-column, not suspended high, not pinned to bottom. Expect them 2–4ft off bottom in 10–15ft zones.
Lead with a 1/16oz round ball jighead tipped with a 2–3" tube or paddle tail. White, light pink, or pearl in stained-to-moderate clarity are highest-percentage colours today. Drop to bottom, lift 6 inches, dead-stop 3–4 seconds, repeat. That pause is the trigger, crappie in cool water commit on the fall, not the lift. If the bite goes quiet, downsize to a 1–1.5" tube on a 1/32oz head and slow the cadence further. Set the hook with a smooth lift, no snap, soft mouths tear.
Cool water means slow everything down. Late fall crappie are metabolically cautious. Retrieve speed should feel almost too slow. If you've worked a school for 10 minutes without a bite, they've moved, recheck with sonar and slide 20ft parallel to shore before giving up the spot.
Northeast shoreline is your first stop. Strong wind fetch has been pushing baitfish and warmth into that bank all day, largemouth will be stacked tight to any remaining weedy structure, dock pilings, or laydowns in 2–8ft. Don't waste time searching. Get to that wind-pushed shore and work parallel to the bank, not perpendicular.
Lead with a lipless crankbait in a shad or chartreuse-gold pattern, overcast skies and stained fall water both favor reaction bites. Cover water fast at a medium-aggressive retrieve (roughly 2–3 cranks per second) in 3–8ft, burning it just above any remaining weed tops. If you trigger follows but no commits, slow down immediately and switch to a 3–4" paddle tail on a 1/8–1/4oz round ball jig head in white or natural shad. Work it on a slow drag-and-hop retrieve, 2-second pause after each hop. These fish aren't chasing hard in November; make them commit without burning energy.
Water is cooling toward that 10°C threshold where largemouth go lockjaw. At stable 1016 hPa pressure, fish won't move far for a meal, keep presentations tight to structure. If the lipless and paddle tail aren't producing by mid-morning, downsize to a finesse approach: a 3" ned-style bait on a 1/16–1/8oz finesse head in green pumpkin or natural brown. Dead-slow drag, 3–5 second pauses on bottom. Fish every piece of hard bottom transition you can find in that 4–8ft zone.
Season is open, check your FMZ-specific slot size and daily limit before you keep anything. Largemouth are stressed in cold water and recover slowly; handle them quickly and release deep fish with care.
| Species | Today | Tomorrow | Thursday | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Night14° | Dawn14° | Mid19° | Eve16° | Night16° | Dawn14° | Mid15° | Eve14° | Night13° | |
| Smallmouth | 47 | 63 | 63 | 55 | 49 | 63 | 57 | 63 | 49 |
| Perch | 74 | 85 | 85 | 82 | 77 | 85 | 84 | 85 | 77 |
| Pike | 69 | 79 | 79 | 76 | 71 | 79 | 77 | 79 | 71 |
| Species | Today | Tomorrow | Thursday | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Night14° | Dawn13° | Mid18° | Eve16° | Night15° | Dawn14° | Mid15° | Eve14° | Night13° | |
| ★Smallmouth | 50 | 67 | 67 | 60 | 52 | 67 | 54 | 67 | 52 |
| ★Perch | 77 | 88 | 88 | 85 | 80 | 88 | 84 | 88 | 80 |
| Pike | 69 | 79 | 79 | 76 | 71 | 79 | 75 | 79 | 71 |
| Largemouth | 11 | 29 | 31 | 24 | 14 | 27 | 16 | 28 | 11 |
WHERE: Northeast shoreline is your first stop, wind push is stacking fish there right now. Work the rocky points and main-basin humps in 15–20ft. Stable pressure and 14°C air means fish are holding tight to bottom, not chasing. Overcast sky keeps them slightly more active than bright sun would.
WHAT: Football-head jig, 1/4oz, tipped with a 3–4" craw-style soft plastic in natural brown, green pumpkin, or goby pattern. Clear-water Lake Simcoe demands natural colours. Second option: a deep-diving crankbait that runs 12–18ft, in a crawfish or perch pattern, most of your bites will come on the bottom-third of the retrieve.
HOW: With the football jig, drag it dead-slow through rock rubble, lift 6 inches, drop, 3-second pause, repeat. These fish are cold, metabolically slow, and won't chase. Keep contact with the bottom 100% of the time. On the crankbait, crank it down hard until it's grinding rock, then slow to a 1-turn-per-2-seconds retrieve. Bottom contact triggers the bite. Night depth zone tonight is shallower, 8–12ft, so size down to a 1/8oz if you're working less than 10ft.
WARNING: November smallmouth are at peak body weight and fight like animals, but handle them quickly, cold water fish stress fast. Revive every fish at the surface until it kicks hard before release. Bass season is open but these fish are pre-spawn critical stock, keep what regulations allow, release the rest with intention.
Northeast shoreline is your first stop. Wind push is stacking perch there right now. Target 20–28ft where the bottom transitions, look for sand-to-mud edges or any hard bottom break. Stable pressure at 1016 hPa means fish are holding tight to the bottom, not suspended. Mark the school on your sonar before you drop.
Lead with a small jigging spoon, 1/4oz, gold or perch pattern. Rip it hard 2–3ft off bottom to pull fish in, then kill it and let it flutter down. Perch will hit on the fall. Once you mark them responding, switch to a 2–3" paddle tail on a 1/8oz round ball jig head in white or chartreuse, slow 2-inch lifts with 2-second pauses. November perch want the bait at their nose. If they're active, a 1–2 second pause closes; if sluggish, stretch it to 4–5 seconds.
Overcast sky with light wind is a green light for a sustained bite. No glare, stable baro, fish are feeding, not scattered. Keep your bait in the bottom 3ft of the water column at all times. These are schooling fish, so if you catch one, you're in them, stay put and work the school rather than moving. Fall perch here are aggressive and stacking for pre-ice feeding, so don't be afraid to cover depth quickly until you dial in the exact zone.
Watch for a mid-afternoon lull between 1–3pm. Perch on Simcoe often go quiet in flat midday light before firing again at dusk. If the bite dies, drop to a 1/16oz finesse jig with a 1–2" grub in glow or UV white and dead-stick it just off bottom. That subtle presentation in the evening window can be the difference between a fish fry and an empty bucket.