Jesse Olivare of Riverside, pictured above landed and released a 26 1/4-pound catfish at Corona Lake this past week fishing J.D.'s Bait.

The catfish was the best catfish of the week in a catfish season that is shaping up as one of the best in some time at this popular western Riverside County water.

Overall, the bite has been good to excellent with a lot of nice stringers of fish up to four pounds, and many of those stringer have had at least one bigger fish.

Besides Olivare's trophy fish, Dennis Marquez, Huntington Beach, and Ernie Vargas, Corona, each had catfish at eight pounds. Rick Kizzee, Los Angeles, landed 10 cats for a total weight of 15 pounds, including a five pounder, while Cesar and Carlos Rollen, both Fontana, landed seven catfish for 17 pounds.

The best action has been on mackerel, shrimp, nightcrawlers, and the marshmallow-meal worm combo, and dousing any of the baits with a scent or paste bait helps the action. There are twice-weekly plants of blue catfish and Silver King channel catfish, and tilapia are now included each week, too.

There has also been a good bite on crappie this past week, mostly in the stick-ups at mid-lake. Dwayne and Cyndy Ward, both Compton, had 10 crappie for a total of 20 1/2 pounds with the big fish at slab at 2 3/4-pounder. They were fishing yellow and white jigs tipped with nightcrawler pieces. Darren Stillwell and Bridget Adams, Compton and Corona respectively, landed a nine-pound stringer of crappie that was topped off with a 1 1/4-pounder. They were fishing at night with yellow and white jigs.

Corona Lake is 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.