The catfish bite has remained good to excellent at Santa Ana River Lakes with the 24-hour fishing on Friday and Saturday nights a top bet for a family to get a 15-fish stringer of Silver King catfish averaging two to 2 1/2 pounds each.

Joyce and Josh Woodall, of Norwalk and Long Beach, landed 15 catfish to four pounds fishing mackerel at the road, and the total stringer weighed 33 pounds. Rolando, Fernando, and Delya Castro, all Lynwood, landed 13 cats to 4 1/2 pounds with a total stringer weighed of 28 pounds. They were fishing the marshmallow-meal worm combo in Chris' Pond.

The early morning and late evening action on day or evening passes has been just as good. Andy Garcia, La Habra, had a five-fish stringer that weighed 10 3/4 pounds on shrimp at Three Pipes, while Art and Sheila Harvey, both Orange, landed five cats for 8 1/2 pounds on Nitro worms with Nitro dough. Luis and Luis Navarro Jr., both Anaheim, landed nine cats for 16 1/4 pounds on mackerel at the road.

The catfish are showing all around The Lakes' complex on shrimp, mackerel, and either the marshmallow-meal worm or marshmallow-nightcrawler combos the best bet. Adding one of the prepared scents or paste baits has also improved the action on all four of these baits. The catfish plants are each week on Tuesday and Friday, with trophy cats added each week now.