Thousands of pounds of Lightning Trout were caught by anglers this past week at Santa Ana River Lakes, and plants of these colorful fish from Mt. Lassen Trout Farms will continue for the next two weeks. This will be the only time this season the beautiful, great-tasting, and popular Lightning Trout will be planted at SARL.

In addition to the Lightnings, there continue to be plants of the trophy rainbows, and there were at least six big 'bows over the 10-pound mark reported. The biggest were a pair of 14 1/2-pounder, one caught by Vladimir Kaye, Costa Mesa, and the other landed by Morgan Gordon, Santa Ana. Robert Vandevelde, Modjesica, caught trout at 12 and 11 pounds fishing Lip Ripperz plastics in the Bubble Hole. Kalem Rokosz, Anaheim, landed a 12 1/2-pound rainbow. Kevin Slape, Upland, fished the lake a three times over the past week, and his biggest fish per trip weighed in at 11 3/4 pounds, 7 1/2 and 6 pounds trolling or casting Mira Shads.

The Lightning Trout seem to prefer the orange to red-colored Nitro Bait, while the rainbows prefer the yellow to green spectrum of colors in the floating baits. Adding Nitro Grease helps the action along. Top spots have been the Bubble Hole, the road, along the sandy beach, and off La Palma Point. Trolling is working the middle part of the lake with gold or silver Kastmasters are also posting very good scores on the trout.

The warm weather last week also seemed to wake up that catfish and the few anglers focusing their efforts on the cats have done very well. David, Pancho, and Chinto Garcia, all Santa Ana, caught a nice stringer of 13 trout that weighed 15 1/4 pounds on La Palma Point, and then used the trout guts to catch five catfish to 5 pounds with the total stringer weighing 18 1/2 pounds. Kevin Jamison, Long Beach, fished the Catfish lake and caught a pair of cats, including on that weighed 7 1/2 pounds.??

Lightning Trout will be planted the following Wednesday nights this week and next week. So there are two more weekend for Lightning Trout action -- Feb. 22-25, and March 1-4.

Santa Ana River Lakes is open seven days a week with fishing allowed from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. on day passes or from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. on an evening pass. Each of these $20 passes has a five-fish limit. The lake's 24-hour passes will be available one weekend a month, usually on the Friday and Saturday night nearest the full moon. These passes have a 15-fish limit and cost $45.

For Santa Ana River Lakes fishing information, call (714) 632-7830 or log on at http://www.fishinglakes.com/bignews.htm.

Corona Recreation, Inc.
4060 E. LaPalma Ave
Anaheim, CA 92807