The Grand Opening of Anaheim Lake was everything it was billed to be with excellent action from the opening of the lake last Friday right through the weekend thanks to five huge loads of channel and blue catfish that were planted before the opener.

Because the lake has just been filled with water over the past month, there wasn't a lot of natural forage in the lake yet, and the catfish were feeding on just about anything anglers were tossing. Mackerel, shrimp, the marshmallow-meal worm (M&M) combination, the marshmallow-nightcrawler combo, or just plain nightcrawlers were all producing fish, and adding scents like Love Sauce or Eagle Claw Gravy seemed to increase the frequency of strikes. The catfish were also caught all around the lake.

Most of the cats were around two pounds, but many stringers had kicker fish up to four pounds. Joe Marshall, Chino, landed five cats that weighed 12 pounds total, and his best was a four-pounder, with all of them caught on mackerel off the Miller Street shoreline. Dale Thompson, Anaheim, landed five catfish for a 13.5-pound total on the nightcrawler-marshmallow combo and his best fish was a four-pounder. Sonya and William Rodriquez, Anaheim, landed 10 catfish for a 23-pound stringer fishing mackerel.

Many families took advantage of the 24-hour passes with a 15-fish limit opening weekend and weighed in some hefty stringers. Mark and Nash Helm and Patrick Franco, all La Mirada, had two 24-hour passes and landed a full limit of 30 fish that weighed 64 pounds. Their big fish was a four-pounder, and all were caught at the pumphouse on mackerel doused with Love Sauce. Mike Matteson, Brad Burkholder, Salvador, Salvador III, and Margarita Lopez, all Pomona, teamed up to landed 18 catfish that weighed 47 pounds on the M&M combo off Pallet Point.

Anaheim Lake will continue to receive twice-weekly plants of catfish on Tuesday and Thursday through the rest of the summer fishing season, and perhaps even into trout season.