Santa Ana River Lake to be planted with huge rainbows over 20 pounds
Santa Ana River Lakes will be planted with huge Mt. Lassen Trout Farms rainbows in excess of 20 pounds this week, and the plant will include fish up to and bigger than the state record of 28-pounds, five-ounces caught from a private lake in Butte County in 2006.

Before that state record was caught, Santa Ana River Lakes was the home to that state record, a 28.1-pound rainbow caught in 2005 by Mike Lopez of Paramount. Lopez' fish was just the latest in a long string of progressively bigger trout toppling the record that came from Santa Ana River Lakes as Mt. Lassen Trout Farms kept growing bigger and bigger trout.

The problem became not if Mt. Lassen could grow bigger fish, but simply if anglers could land 30-pound class trout on the light two-pound test equipment almost required to hook them.

So anglers will get to test their mettle against these huge rainbows again starting Thursday this week, and again when the bruisers are planted the evening of April 1 for a second big trout weekend.

"The goal is to have the state record broken here. Again," said Craig Elliott with The Lakes. "We haven't had the record for two years, and we're hoping to bring it back home."

The trout action has been very good over the past week with a lot of five to seven pounds rainbows on stringers. The top fish was an 8 1/2-pound rainbow that topped off an incredible 27 1/2-pound, five-fish limit landed by Casey Hernandez fishing chartreuse Nitro Bait in Chris' Pond.

An eight-pound rainbow was caught by Daniel Fernandez, Carson, fishing a LipRipperZ plastic at Levitz' Corner, while seven-pounders were landed by Edgar Badyan, Montebello, and Cody Jones, Stanton.

The big catfish plant this past week brought out some die-hard catfish anglers. Sharon Green, Yorba Linda, caught a 6 1/2-pound catfish on shrimp from the Catfish Lake, while Beroj Emurian, Manhattan Beach, had a limit of five cats topped by a 4 3/4-pounder fishing nightcrawlers at La Palma Point.

Coming after the two trout trophy trout weekends is another special event -- Angler Appreciation Day. This is a special two-for-one event sponsored by Eagle Claw on Saturday, April 18. With each purchase of a full-price lake admission, your wife or fishing buddy gets in free and the first 200 anglers in the gate will get a free Nitro Bait belt holder.

Santa Ana River Lakes is normally 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 passes is $22. Seniors only pay $20, with a special $17 pass sold on Wednesdays. All of these passes have a five-fish limit. For kids 4 to 13, a three-fish pass is just $9. The once-monthly 24-hour passes remain just $60. These passes have a 15-fish limit. For Santa Ana River Lakes fishing information, call 714-632-7830 or log on at www.fishinglakes.com