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| Species | Today | Tomorrow | Tuesday | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Night10° | Dawn11° | Mid15° | Eve14° | Night13° | Dawn12° | Mid16° | Eve16° | Night14° | |
| ★Perch | 65 | 80 | 87 | 85 | 72 | 83 | 85 | 85 | 65 |
| ★Pike | 75 | 88 | 88 | 90 | 78 | 88 | 86 | 86 | 72 |
| ★Crappie | 34 | 48 | 71 | 59 | 43 | 52 | 69 | 71 | 36 |
| ★Largemouth | – | 21 | 28 | 30 | 5 | 22 | 25 | 23 | – |
Cook's Bay Yellow Perch, November 1 Briefing
Northeast shoreline is your first stop. Wind has been pushing bait into that corner all day and perch are stacking behind it. Start in 15–20ft and work out to 23ft, late fall perch pack tight to bottom in that zone before ice-up. Find a hard bottom transition, a weedline edge, or any subtle depth change and you've found the school.
Drop a small jigging spoon, 1/4oz, gold or chartreuse in this stained water, right to bottom. Rip it 18 inches, let it flutter back down on a 2-second drop. That action calls the school in. Once you mark fish on the sonar or start getting follows, dial it back: switch to a 1/8oz round ball jig head tipped with a 2–3" paddle tail in white or chartreuse and work it with slow 6-inch lifts and 3-second pauses at 15–20ft. Perch in cool water need that extra second to commit. Rising baro at 1026 hPa and stable trend means fish are active, don't overthink it, cover depth until you find the concentration.
Season is open, perch are in pre-freeze feeding mode, and this is exactly the window locals hit hard for table fish. Keep the spreads tight, jig, stop, jig, stop. If you're not on bottom within 6 inches, you're fishing over their heads. Reposition every 10 minutes if you're not marking fish, perch schools in November move as a unit and can slide 50 yards with the bait.
Northeast shoreline is your first stop. Wind push is stacking baitfish, and pike follow bait. Work 4–12ft along dying weed edges and weed-to-hard-bottom transitions. Points jutting into the northeast shore concentrate fish even tighter. Rising barometer on cool water means pike are actively feeding, not suspended and sulking.
Lead with a large spoon, 1–1.5oz, white or silver in this partly cloudy light, burned fast through the top 6ft first, then slowed if no takers. Reaction strikes are the play right now. Aggressive fall feeders hit before they think. If you want to mix in a softbait setup, run a 5–6" paddle tail on a 3/8oz swimbait head in natural shad or perch colour, steady retrieve at 4–5 cranks per second just above the weed tops. A 9–10" glide bait worked with a slow sweep-and-pause (3-second hang) is worth a shot along the deepest weed edge, November is when Cook's Bay throws up its biggest pike of the year.
If the fast retrieve dies, slow down on the outside weed edge at 10–12ft. A large spinnerbait with a big Colorado blade in gold or chartreuse, slow-rolled at 2–3 cranks per second just off bottom, covers that zone efficiently. Pike stacked on weed edges this time of year often need the bait in their face longer to commit. Don't burn past fish that are holding tight to structure.
Watch your pike handling. These are big, powerful fish, use a long-nose plier for hook removal and keep them in the water as much as possible. Season is open, and Simcoe pike heading into winter are worth releasing to fight another day.
WHERE: Northeast shoreline is your primary target, wind push is stacking crappie tight. Work 8–14ft over submerged vegetation edges, dock pilings, and any laydown structure. Crappie school vertically, so once you mark fish at 10ft, stay on that exact depth contour and move laterally along structure.
WHAT: Small tube bait or 2" paddle tail on a 1/16oz round ball jig head, hook size #2–#1. Go white, light chartreuse, or pink in the 10–14ft zone where light penetration drops. Partly cloudy sky today helps, crappie push slightly shallower under reduced light. Rising stable pressure means the school is holding, not scattering.
HOW: Deadstick presentation wins in cool water. Drop to depth, let it sit 3–5 seconds, lift 6 inches, pause 3 seconds, repeat. Crappie are cold and lethargic at this temperature, they won't chase. Most strikes come on the pause. Keep your rod tip steady and watch your line for subtle ticks. Set with a smooth lift, not a hard snap, soft mouths tear easily under aggressive hooksets. Dawn and dusk windows are highest-percentage given the species' light sensitivity, but the overcast window mid-day is worth fishing too.
CAUTION: Late fall crappie schools compress into tight pods. Mark them on electronics before anchoring. Missing depth by 3ft means missing the school entirely. If you don't get bites in 10 minutes, move 20 yards and repeat, crappie suspended away from structure are common this time of year and easy to miss if you're locked onto one spot.
Largemouth Bass, Cook's Bay, November 1
Air temp at 10.8°C puts water right at the edge of the largemouth shutdown threshold. These fish are feeding, but barely, every movement is energy budgeted carefully. Northeast shoreline is your primary zone tonight: wind-pushed baitfish stack here and bass follow. Work 2–8ft of water over weededges, dock pilings, and any remaining green cabbage. Shallow dark-bottom pockets hold warmth and fish through this transition.
Slow down hard. A lipless crankbait was the right call three weeks ago, not tonight. Lead with a finesse jig, 3/16oz, natural green-pumpkin or brown, paired with a compact 3" beaver-style craw trailer. Crawl it painfully slow along the bottom: one foot per 4–5 seconds, dead pause 3–5 seconds after every hop. Sub-10°C bass won't chase. They'll eat what sits in front of their face.
Rising baro trending stable is a mild positive, fish aren't buried. Partly cloudy sky with 12km/h wind means enough chop to give you stealth on the approach. Work the windward northeast bank first, parallel casting along the weed edge at 5–7ft. If you draw a blank, push slightly deeper to 8–10ft and target hard transition points where dying weeds meet clean bottom.
Slot regulations apply, check your licence type. Sports licence: confirm your daily limit before you keep anything. This late in the season these fish are slow and stressed; if you're not keeping, land and release quickly. Cold water holds more oxygen but a lethargic bass fights poorly and burns reserves it needs for winter. Keep the fight short.
| Species | Today | Tomorrow | Tuesday | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Night9° | Dawn10° | Mid15° | Eve14° | Night12° | Dawn12° | Mid18° | Eve16° | Night14° | |
| Smallmouth | 9 | 24 | 63 | 63 | 19 | 38 | 63 | 56 | 22 |
| Perch | 62 | 73 | 85 | 85 | 69 | 82 | 85 | 82 | 69 |
| Pike | 66 | 74 | 79 | 79 | 69 | 79 | 79 | 76 | 69 |
| Species | Today | Tomorrow | Tuesday | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Night10° | Dawn11° | Mid15° | Eve14° | Night13° | Dawn12° | Mid16° | Eve16° | Night14° | |
| ★Smallmouth | 12 | 35 | 64 | 45 | 19 | 37 | 59 | 60 | 12 |
| ★Perch | 65 | 80 | 87 | 85 | 72 | 83 | 85 | 85 | 65 |
| Pike | 66 | 77 | 77 | 79 | 69 | 77 | 77 | 76 | 63 |
| Largemouth | – | 17 | 23 | 25 | 4 | 18 | 21 | 18 | – |
Northeast shoreline is your starting point. Wind push is stacking smallmouth on that bank right now. Work the rocky points and any submerged structure in 15–20ft, that's where fall fish are holding tight to bottom. The 10.7°C air temp and cooling water have these bass in a pre-winter feed mode, heaviest and hardest-fighting of the year.
Football-head jig, 1/4oz, with a 3–4" craw-style plastic trailer in natural brown/green pumpkin. Drag it slow along rock rubble, 6 inches of movement, 3-second pause, repeat. The rising stable baro at 1026 hPa favours active feeding; don't rush the retrieve. Target 15–20ft on the outside edge of structure where rock meets softer bottom. That transition is where the biggest fish station in November.
Secondary play: deep-diving crankbait through 12–20ft of rock. A wide-body, deep-diving crankbait in a goby or crawfish pattern cranked parallel to the rocky shoreline is a proven fall tactic. Bounce it off bottom, contact triggers reaction strikes from cold, lethargic fish. Keep retrieve speed moderate, roughly 2 cranks per second, and pause on any tick or bump. Night session means slower and deeper; lean toward the 19ft end of your target zone after dark.
Watch the northeast wind, if it picks up past 20 km/h, wave action on exposed structure will move fish slightly deeper or into wind-shadow pockets. Keep one eye on the barometer; stable-to-rising is your friend today, but any sharp drop kills the bite fast. Cold water smallmouth hit soft but run hard, don't set on the first tap, wait for load-up.
Northeast shoreline is your first stop. Wind push from today's 12.2 km/h is stacking perch against that shore, fish are concentrated there right now. Target 18–23ft where the bottom transitions from hard to soft. That depth range puts you in the core aggregation zone as Simcoe perch pack up for winter.
Small jigging spoon or a 2–3" paddle tail on a 1/8oz round ball head is your highest-percentage setup. Go white, perch belly yellow, or natural goby in clear Simcoe water. Drop to bottom, jig hard 3–4 times to call the school in, then dead-stop for 2–3 seconds. Perch hit on the pause. If they're finicky, downsize to a 1.5–2" grub on a 1/16oz head and slow the cadence to one lift per 4 seconds.
Rising barometer sitting stable at 1026 hPa is a green light. Post-front clearing with partly cloudy skies means perch will feed actively through the afternoon. November 1 perch on Simcoe are pre-aggregation feeders, they're eating hard before ice-up. Don't leave a productive hole too fast; once you find the school, they'll reload under the boat. Use a spreader rig with two small jigs if regulations allow, to double your odds and locate the active depth faster.
Watch your limit, Yellow Perch season is open, check your licence class for daily retention. These northeast shoreline schools draw pressure fast when word gets out. Move methodically along the 18–23ft contour if the first drop goes quiet, perch schools shift laterally with current and baitfish.