The trout bite has been excellent at Santa Ana River Lakes with limits of rainbows from 1 1/2 to three pounds pretty common for anglers fishing one of the floating dough baits or a wide variety of small lures, with trout jigs, small plastics, spinners, and spoons all getting fish.

The top rainbow reported this week was an 8-pound, 14-ouncer landed by Roland Hoshisaki, West Covina, fishing a green dough bait at Three Pipes. Tom Taylor, Cisco Sandoval, and Josh Griswold, of Woodland Hills and Chatsworth, topped off their eight-fish, 23 1/2-pound stringer with Cisco's 7 1/4-pound rainbow while fishing the Bubble Hole with nightcrawlers. Eric and Emily Tan, Irvine, landed seven trout for 24 pounds and their big fish was a six-pounder fishing Power Mice at the Pump House.

A typical single-pass limit of five-trout was reported by Craig Joaquim, Anaheim, with a stringer that weighed 19 pounds and included a five-pound kicker fish. He was fishing chartreuse floating bait off the sandy beach. Richard Paddison, Anaheim, landed five rainbows for 13 pounds on pink trout worms, also off the sandy beach.

Santa Ana River Lakes will be celebrating the holidays by stocking the lakes with big tanker trucks-full of rainbow trout each week. There will also be trophy rainbows in the mix, including huge fish that might be big enough to break the current state record for rainbow trout.