For many years the place to be for perch fishing in the winter has been Winchester Wasteway, near Quincy. Starting as early as December and often running into March the Wasteway produced thousands of perch for hundreds of anglers. I have been getting a lot of e-mail lately on how the fishing was going on the Wasteway this year, so I made a trip down there to see for myself. I took Road 5 to bridge, and rather than seeing a bunch of trucks and cars parked along the Wasteway shores, I found one solitary angler. He hadn’t even got a bite when I spoke with him. He said he traveled past the Wasteway regularly when he was working, and used to seeing the area near the bridge packed with anglers. Now that he is retired and has time to fish, the perch just aren’t there. This has been the case at the Wasteway for the past three years. Maybe the perch population is just going through a cycle. Often when perch become overabundant there is a crash. I hope that this is the case and we’ll see good fishing again down here. For now I am keeping my fingers crossed for a good perch fishery on Moses Lake in February and March.