While most anglers are looking for places to launch their boats and fish from shore, there are still others out there drilling holes through the ice. On my way back from fishing at the net pens on Rufus Woods, I pulled into the marina at Coulee City. I noticed some fishing shacks out on the ice at Banks Lake on my way to meet my friend at Big Wally’s and I wanted to check on the ice conditions. When I pulled up on the dike there were two anglers loading up their sled to head out. I learned that there was about six inches of ice, and they were looking forward to fishing through the night for whitefish. I thought that the people I saw out there were fishing for perch, but no, whitefish are the target. I know that ice anglers make excellent catches of whitefish through the ice at the very top end of Banks Lake but didn’t know they were available in such great numbers at the bottom end. Whitefish make up about 50 percent of biomass on Banks, so I guess it makes sense. Still, I think the ice is too thin to temp me out there.