Huge plants for the holiday weekend led to very good catfish action at Santa Ana River Lake with many anglers posting nice stringer of mixed channel and blue catfish averaging two to four pounds.

The top blue cat reported over the weekend was a seven pound fish that anchored a three-fish stringer that weighed 18 pounds caught by Pedro Villa, Anaheim, fishing the marshmallow-mackerel combination. Kim Dix, Charles Jr. and Charles Abrisz Sr., and Garbriel Abrisz, all Moreno Valley, landed 11 catfish that weighed 20 1/2-pounds fishing mackerel at Casa Corner.

Rainbow trout continue to show in the deep, cooler parts of the lake complex or early in the morning in moving water. Top trout this past week was an 8-pounds, 10-ounce rainbow caught by Ray Holguin, Torrance, fishing a trout worm in Chris' Pond.

SARL and its sister water Corona Lake are the only waters in Southern California being planted with blue cats this season, and fish to 20 pounds will be stocked. Anglers can expect to see blue catfish to 40 pounds or more as these fish age -- both in SARL and at the hatchery. SARL has exclusive rights to over 300,000 of these blues and that number will just increase in the next few years.