If Mother Nature has not forced you to move your ice shanties, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources will also give you an end date. Permanent ice shanties must be removed from state waters by specific dates beginning February 20th along the Wisconsin-Iowa border. You have a little more time locally with shanties having to be removed from inland water south of Highway 64 (Marinette to the St. Croix Crossing bridge on the Wisconsin-Minnesota border) by March 3rd. Anglers fishing along the Wisconsin-Michigan boundary have to remove their ice shanties by March 15th and those located on Lake Michigan and Green Bay and inland waters north of Highway 64 by March 17th. The removal deadlines are to ensure shanties are removed and to avoid the additional costs and hazards of shanties breaking through the ice. Those deadlines are assuming you were able to put your shanty on the ice at all. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported last week that the average ice cover on the Great Lakes was at 2.7 percent, which is the lowest level since they started keeping track in 1973.