The full moon this past week made the evening and night action much better than the morning and mid-day action for catfish at Santa Ana River Lakes, which meant that anglers fishing on the 24-hour passes this past Friday and Saturday had good stringers of Silver King cats.

The big catfish reported this past week was an eight-pounder landed by Nathan Pinkerton, Buena Park, fishing the marshmallow-meal worm combo at the pump house. Brian Banko, Highland, landed 10 catfish for a 16 1/2-pound stringer on the same bait off the sandy beach. Karina, Andrea, and Jose Guerrero, Los Angeles, landed 11 cats and one sturgeon fishing mackerel at the bubble hole, and the sturgeon weighed in at nine pounds.

The fish are showing all around The Lakes' complex on a wide variety of baits -- shrimp, mackerel, meal worms, or nightcrawlers - and pairing them a marshmallow and one of the liquid or paste scents seems to improve the bite ratios. The catfish plants are each week on Tuesday and Friday, with trophy cats added each week, also on Fridays.

The tilapia are also being stocked each week and some are real quality fish to 2 1/2 pounds and most are one to 1 1/2 pounds. Anglers fishing dough baits or nightcrawlers are also getting a few nice carp.