Irvine Lake sees good action on trout to 12-0 for President's Holiday
The President's Day holiday weekend crowd found generally good action on quality-grade trout at Irvine Lake, reported Jimmy Getty at the Pro Shop. "It really depended on your location", observed Getty. "If you were in an area that was holding fish, the bite was extremely good."

Getty added, "Last Friday we stocked 5,000 pounds of very large steelhead, mostly running from 4 to 15 pounds. Our standing lake record for steelhead is 10.1 pounds, and we are hoping that will be broken any day now. There were also a few true whoppers mixed in, that looked to be in the 18 to 20 pound category. The anglers who saw them being stocked actually started cheering!"

Good catches of trout were reported from the west shore, Boat Dock Cove, Woody's Cove, Trout Island and Santiago Flats. Power Bait, Gulp! and nightcrawlers have all scored their share or fish.

Trollers have done best with the Rapala CD03 and CD05 sizes, in firetiger, gold, and brook trout colors. Most trout on the stringers are ranging from 1 to 5-pounds, but an impressive mixture of trophy-class rainbows from 6 to 12 pounds were also checked in.

Bass anglers found mostly slow action, although a few large pre-spawn females are starting to show up. Only a handful of the 4,000-plus pounds of hybrid striped bass stocked in the last few weeks have been caught, but it is expected that rising water temperatures will spur them into more activity. During rainy periods, some good stringers of 2 to 10-pound channel catfish are being caught near the mouths of creeks on chicken livers.

Water clarity in the Kids Lagoon began improving on Saturday, with better catches noted almost immediately for families with children age 12 and under who were soaking Power Bait or the marshmallow/mealworm combo. In an "Animal Planet Moment" on Friday afternoon, a bald eagle swooped down and caught a fish in the Lagoon, right in front of dozens of startled onlookers.

Outstanding catches of the week at Irvine Lake included:
Scott Noseworthy of Orange, 12-0 rainbow trout on a nightcrawler at Boat Dock Cove
Stanley Santos of Corona, 11-12 rainbow trout on a Rapala at the mid-lake
Noe Lizarraga of Inglewood, 11-8 rainbow trout on Gulp! at Woody's Cove
Daniel LeBouf of Orange, 11-6 rainbow trout on Power Bait at Woody's Cove
Brad Withey of Tustin, 10-8 rainbow trout on a Power Egg at Woody's Cove
Ricardo Zepeda of Huntington Beach, 10-6 rainbow trout on a Rapala at mid-lake
Scott Jackson of Buena Park, 7-10 rainbow trout on a Rapala at Boat Dock Cove
Adam Malicki of Trabuco Canyon, 7-2 rainbow trout on a Rapala at Trout Island
Phil Hildenbrandt of Anaheim, 9-10 channel catfish on chicken liver at the flats
Brad Samson of Lakewood, 7-2 channel catfish on chicken liver at the flats
Jack Sepulveda of Orange, 7-1 largemouth bass [released] on plastics at the west shore