The trout action remain excellent at Santa Ana River Lakes with lots of limits reported over the past week on one to four-pound fish, and the catfish bite has also been surging as the shallows warm up for spring.

Santiago Palacios and Fernando Castellanos, both West Covina, were fishing the marshmallow-meal worm combo and chartreuse floating baits at the Bubble Hole and came up with a nice mixed bag stringer. Palacios landed the best fish, a 10 1/4-pound catfish, but the two anglers ended up with four cats, a trout, and one crappie and the six-fish stringer weighing 19 1/2-pound total. Palacios focused on catfish another day and took home a stringer of nine cats for 20 pounds, all on the M&M combo fishing at the road.

One of the best trout stringers of the week was posted by Anthony and Theresa Gomez of West Covina. The pair landed 17 rainbows for 30 pounds total fishing the M&M combo off the Sandy Beach. Robert Velazquez, Tujunga, landed five trout for a 13-pound total on chartreuse floating bait off La Palma Point, while Craig Joachim, Anaheim, landed five rainbows for 10 3/4 pounds on nightcrawlers at the Bubble Hole. His stringer was topped off with a 3 1/4-pounder. Quite a few Lightning Trout are still showing up on anglers' stringers even though it has been two weeks since they were planted in huge numbers for the big tournament celebrating the return of float tubes to SARL. SARL and its sister water Corona Lake will have special stocks in April of a some new, giant, full-finned trophy rainbows topping 12 pounds called Big Bad Reds.

Keep an eye on the SARL/Corona web site -- www.fishinglakes.comn -- for more information on when these plants begin. 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 passes is $22. Seniors pay only $20. All of these passes have a five-fish limit. For kids 4 to 13, a three-fish pass is just $9. There are 24-hour passes available the weekend nearest the full moon during trout season, with the next overnight fishing tentatively set for April 15-16. These 24-hour passes cost $60 and anglers can bring a spouse and up to three kids to help fill the 24-hour pass 15-fish limit. Camping at SARL is also free with a 24-hour pass. For Santa Ana River Lakes fishing information, call 714-632-7830 or log on at www.fishinglakes.com.