This month the game fish in our area lakes and rivers will enter into yet another transition period.

In October the surface water began to cool off, bait fish moved shallow and the game fish became more active. In November the fish activity will improve even more.

Currently surface water temperatures range from the mid to upper 60s. The cooler water makes shallow-water fishing easier, but it certainly spreads the fish out. For bass we have to cover a lot of water to catch a limit.

Lipless crank baits like the Bill Lewis Rat-L-Trap and shallow diving crank baits as well as Old River Lure Companies’ Mr. Hooty spinnerbaits will pick off the active bass holding in thin water.

If the bite is tough, we scale our lure and line size down and go with something like a small jig head and straight tail plastic worm called a shaky head.

This little lure will put fish in the boat when the bite is off. The size may not be there but you’ll catch something. Those are the lure types we use to catch numbers of fish in November but not big fish.

You may catch an occasional bass over 4 pounds but for the most part when you’re burning the banks with those lures the average size bass will be around 2 pounds.

In October I don’t know of a single bass weighed in that pushed the scales past 6 pounds. The big bass in our area lakes have become very rare over the past few years. Our chances for catching a trophy bass, a bass over 10 pounds, are really slim but the size of our catch will increase as the water temperature continues to decrease.

Hopefully by late November we’ll see surface-water temperatures in the upper 50s to lower 60s.

If so, the big fish will start holding on off-shore structures like man-made brush piles and the deeper piers. When this happens it’s time to start bottom bouncing with heavy jigs, spoons and soft plastics fished behind a heavy slip sinker.

Reports from the sac-a-lait fishermen and ladies continue to be hard to come by. The perch fishing is at its best on our area landlocked lakes when surface temperatures dip below 60 degrees.

That’s when the perch group up and suspend over deep water.

By late November and on into December, places like the Saline/Larto Complex will be packed with anglers catching limits of big slab perch. Right now the perch are doing about the same thing the largemouth bass are doing. They are scattered in shallow water holding near what little cover we have left, since our lakes are at a near record-low level.

The live oxbow lakes, like Deer Park and the Old River at Vidalia, offer the best perch fishing this month.

Just keep an eye on the Mississippi River stage. In late October the river level dropped to a very low 16 feet at Natchez. That left most of the good cover on dry ground.

A recent rise brought the water level back up to Friday’s stage of 19 feet at Natchez. Monday we’ll see a level of 19.6. It looks like a crest will hit us on Wednesday at 19.9 feet. That will put some water back on the cover. It may be shallow but that’s where you’ll find the perch and bass on the Old Rivers for the next few weeks.