Bonus plants of trout, including some massive trophy fish over 10 pounds, made for excellent fishing at the official opening of Corona Lake's trout season. While the bite has been good since the first trout plants six weeks ago, the bite simply was off the hook this past week.

Plants for the "official" opening event included giant Mt. Lassen Trout Farms Super Trout and the long-awaited Big Bad Reds, along with heavy stocks of the popular Nebraska Tailwalkers, Sierra Bows, and Ruby Reds. In all, five strains of rainbow trout went into Corona Lake.

The biggest rainbow was a 17-pound rainbow landed by Mark Thompson, Riverside, fishing a rainbow-colored floating dough bait doused with Nitro Grease scent at the dam point. Top stringers were a 15-fish catch made by Pedro and Gerardo Galvan and Jose Soto, all Pomona, that weighed in at 38 1/2 pounds fishing from a boat with rainbow-colored floating baits. Adam Smith and Matt Jackson, both Temecula, landed 10 rainbows for 33 1/2 pounds on inflated nightcrawlers, also from a boat. Chris Mukai, Diamond Bar, landed five rainbows that weighed 16 1/2 pounds with his best a five pounder, all on Nitro Worms.

The best action continues to be on bright-colored floating baits in lighter colors, especially chartreuse, spring green, yellow, peach, and white. Anglers fishing small jigs in the same colors are also scoring on the trout, and adding garlic scent to the floating baits or the jigs is a good idea. Other than the trout a few crappie have been showing and the cool water is starting to make the sturgeon more active. Robert Acosta, El Monte, landed a 14 1/2-pound sturgeon from a float tube fishing floating bait at the dam, while Dustin Cassady, Corona, landed a 2 1/2-pound crappie. For Thanksgiving week, Corona Lake will receive another series of huge trout plants for the holiday.