There continues to be a steady procession of giant rainbow trout being caught at Santa Ana River Lakes, and the overall trout bite is simply wide open with lots of limits of one to two-pound class trout being caught every day. The big rainbow this past week was a 19 1/2-pounder caught by Bill Kamio, pictured above of Westminster, fishing an orange Power Mouse in the dock area of the big lake. Kory Allen, Garden Grove, landed an 18.4-pound rainbow drop-shoting a plastic trout worm, while Trac Nguyen, Roland Heights, caught a 17-pounder on a Power Worm. Frank Guzman, Downey, topped of his four-fish catch with a 16-pound rainbow fishing a green jig on one day and landed a 15-pounder another day on a Sierra Slammer jig another day. Augie Smith, Irvine, landed a 15 1/2-pounder on yellow jig.

The best action continues to be on floating baits rolled in the new Hatchery Dust additive or Power Mice Tails, trout plastics, and small trout jigs. Bright colors have been the best in the floating baits or lures this past week, with chartreuse and orange the hot colors.

Santa Ana continues to be get a huge plant of trout each Thursday that features tons of pan-sized rainbows along with a large component of bigger trout from five to 15-plus pounds -- and there will be more trophy fish planted this week for the weekend tournament.

That tournament is the Lip RipperZ Hatchery Dust Challenge set for Saturday. This is another big fish/blind bogey 50-50 tournament with added money in the big fish category when the winning fish are caught with Hatchery Dust. These tournaments have become very popular at SARL because everyone has a shot at a share of the prize money with 10 different blind bogey cash awards totaling half of the entry fee pool, and then the biggest four trout divide up the other half of the entry fee pool. This means 100 percent of the entry fees are paid back to anglers in an every split between the big fish and blind bogey portions of the event. There is also added money if you catch one of the four biggest fish using Hatchery Dust. The entry fee is $20, in addition to the regular lake fishing fee, and more information and complete tournament rules are available at The Lakes website, www.fishinglakes.com.

Anglers should also mark off the following weekend on their calendars, too. That week, SARL will get a huge plant of Lightning Trout, one of the most popular trout planted at The Lakes each year. The plant will coincide with this month's two 24-hour fishing days on Friday, Feb. 22 and Saturday, Feb. 23. Anglers can purchase 24-hour passes those two nights for $75. With the family special, an angler can bring his or her spouse and three kids 17 years or younger on that $75 permit, and all can help catch the 15-fish limit. Camping at SARL is thrown in for free. Santa Ana River Lakes is open seven-days-a-week. Fishing is allowed from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. on day passes or from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. on an evening pass. Each of these passes is $25. Seniors pay only $23 with a $20 special on Wednesdays. All of these passes have a five-fish limit. For kids 4 to 13, a three-fish pass is just $12. There are 24-hour passes offered on Friday and Saturday night on weekends nearest the full moon each month.