After keeping an eye on the weather over the past 2 weeks, I spent an hour driving up to a tiny lake at higher altitude, where I've been able to find safe ice mid November over the past couple years. This was after contacting my neighbor for permission to access his land, which is the only launch on the lake, and also contacting the local police dept to advise them that if I get spotted on the lake, to know the the ice is safe, and that I'm wearing a survival suit.
Got up there, a bit too much snow to my liking, and sure enough, it seems to have insulated it enough to keep it too sketchy for my liking. Varying thickness of 2-3 inches, I turned around and drove home.
Lake closes to fishing for winter on Dec 1st, hopefully next week, as temps up there will remain below freezing, and no more snow in forecast...