Anglers fishing hitting Irvine Lake for the past week have been experiencing the perfect urban trout combination; wide-open trout fishing, along with Chamber of Commerce weather conditions. After one of the best opening weekends in many years, the trout fishing kept right on going, with limit-style action still happening on Wednesday afternoon. Another plant consisting of thousands of pounds of trout is due late Thursday of this week.

"They are getting lots of limits out there today", observed Hubert "Kewly" Zimara at the Pro Shop on Wednesday. "Both trolling and baitfishing is really good."

Most of the fish caught have been quality rainbows in the 2 to 3-pound range, with a mixture of bigger 'bows to 7 pounds, and exotic brook trout and brown trout keeping things interesting. Good catches are being made along the west shore, mid-lake, the Red Clay Cliffs, and Santiago Flats.

Legendary angler and Irvine Lake Pro Team leader Marlon Meade instructed, "The next few weeks are going to be excellent. Bait fishing will be best in the mornings, and trolling action will be good all day." The best locations should be mid-lake and along the Red Clay Cliffs.

Regarding this year's stocking plans for Irvine Lake, Tim Goodman, owner of Calaveras Trout Farms advised, "This year we have lots of carryover 3 to 6-pound rainbows, lots of 7 and 8-pound steelhead, and lots of brooks and browns. We also have a good number of trophy fish from 14 to 20 pounds, but won't begin to stock those until the water temperature is lower; probably sometime in early December."

Nice stringers of trout were caught on numerous different presentations, but a few consistent techniques included flatline trolling with size 4 Berkley Flicker Shads in red/chartreuse or Rapala Countdown CD3's and Rapala Ultralight Shad ULS04's in firetiger or brown trout colors. Bait dunkers mostly stuck with 2-pound test leaders in the 12 to 18-inch range, and chartreuse, rainbow, and garlic PowerBait in combination with Bite-On scents. Most of the lake's other species were pretty much ignored as far as targeted effort, but a decent number of channel catfish, largemouth bass, sunfish, and even hybrid striped bass were caught incidentally in the pursuit of trout. No trout will be stocked in the Kids Lagoon until water temperatures in the shallow pond decrease.

Irvine Lake is wasting no time in getting its trout tournament schedule underway. Nov. 10 and 11 will see the Veterans Day Trout Tournament take place [first Master's qualifier], and Nov. 24 will be the big Thanksgiving Turkey Shoot.

Outstanding catches of the week at Irvine Lake included:

Favio Saikares of Los Angles, 7-2 rainbow trout on a Rapala at mid-lake
Dan Myer of Long Beach, 6-10 rainbow trout on a Bomber at the west shore
David Rochin of Corona, 6-10 rainbow trout on Power Bait at the west shore
Angelina Montoya of Silverado, 6-2 rainbow trout on a Rapala at the west shore
Steve Cristoff of Pomona, 6-2 rainbow trout on a Flicker Shad at mid-lake
Jack Gazbich of Agoura, 6-2 rainbow trout on a Rapala at mid-lake
Saleh Kikalaye of Santa Ana, 6-8 brown trout on nightcrawler/Power Egg at the west shore
Bryce Edlund of Trabuco, 2-8 brook trout on PowerBait at the west shore
Travis Hernandez of La Puente, 2-8 brook trout on a Trout King jig at the west shore
Jeff Ingrahm of Oceanside, 6-2 largemouth bass [released] on a Flicker Shad at the west shore
Brian Ray of Silverado, 3-1 wiper [released] on a Flicker Shad at the Red Clay Cliffs
John Moreno of Orange, 1-4 redear sunfish on nightcrawlers at the west shore
6- year old Seamus O'Sullivan of Tustin, 5-trout limit totaling 18-12, topped by a 5-12 rainbow, on nightcrawler/PowerBait at the west shore