Santa Ana River Lake produced nice stringers of catfish throughout the past week for anglers fishing mackerel, shrimp, or the marshmallow-meal worm (M&M) combo out of all three lakes. The heavy, twice-weekly plants of both blue catfish and Silver King channel catfish have also included a lot of quality fish and six to 10-pound cats are being caught daily.

The top catfish reported this past week was a 10 3/4-pounder that was part of a four-fish, 18 3/4-pound stringer landed by Jesus Flores, Baldwin Park, fishing mackerel at the road. Gabriel Goytia, Chino Hills, landed a 9 1/4-pounder on shrimp with shrimp-flavored Gravy, while an 8 1/2-pound cat was caught by Andy Kim, Lakewood, while fishing mackerel at the pump house.

A couple of the better stringers reported included a 44 1/4-pound, 21-fish catch made by Mark and Nash Helm, La Mirada, fishing mackerel with Love Sauce in the Catfish Lake. Lizandro, Gustavo, Evelyn and Christopher Diaz and Junior Gonzales, all Placentia and Anaheim, had 15 catfish for 38-pounds, 10-ounces fishing shrimp in the Bubble Hole. Craig Joachim and Frank Fabiani, both Anaheim, had 10 catfish for 23 1/2 pounds on shrimp, also at the Bubble Hole. Pedro Villa, Anaheim, had the best five-fish stringer of the week at 18-pounds, 10-ounces, including a 6 1/2 pounder, all on the M&M combo at the road.

SARL is NOW also hosting five Biggest Catfish Derbies every weekend. Entry fee is $5 for any of the five permit time frames - from 5 to 11 p.m. Friday, from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, from 5 to 11 p.m. Saturday evening, 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, and from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. Sunday evening. (There will be no derbies for the mid-day special at noon or the 24-hour fishing pass holders. All of the derbies feature a 100 percent payout of the whole pot to the angler catching the biggest catfish. If 20 anglers enter at $5 each, the biggest catfish caught among those 20 anglers wins that angler the whole $100 pot.

Anglers are reminded that 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. Tilapia are also being planted each week.