Over $9,000 was for Project Healing Waters during this past Saturday's "Healing and Reeling Big Trout Tournament" at Santa Ana River Lakes. "This special event was designed to give back and honor the gallant men and women in the nation's armed forces who have given so much to protect our country and our freedoms," said Craig Elliott at SARL.

Project Healing Waters is dedicated to the physical and emotional rehabilitation of disabled military service personnel through fishing, education and outings.

"The Project focuses on rehabilitation of veterans by offering them the opportunity to hang out on the water with friends, have some great fun, and some fantastic fishing," said Elliott "And this event was lots of fun and there were lots of fish caught. The veterans and our anglers can't wait for next year's event."

The winner of the big-fish event was Tobias Wildman or Carson, pictured above with a 15-pound, 10-ounce rainbow he caught on a nightcrawler. Jim Anderson, La Puente, was second with a 14-pound, 15-ounce trout caught on corn dough bait, while the third place price went to Jay Lamori, West Covina, with a 13-pound, 12-ounce trout, also caught on corn-flavored dough bait.

The event has over 50 major sponsors who donated prizes to the post event raffle, including including Shimano, Western Outdoor News, Davey's Locker, Turners, Eagle Claw, John Deere, Panther Martin and many, many more. "The raffle took two hours to complete, there were so many prizes," said Elliott.

The huge trout plant for the tournament also made the trout action excellent both before and after the tournament fishing day. The biggest trout of the week was a 16 1/2-pound rainbow caught by Alex Castro, East Los Angeles, on Sunday while fishing with green PowerBait at the pump house. David Rochin, Fullerton, landed a 14 3/4-pound trout on a TK Worm near the boat dock, and Mathew Estrada, Norwalk, landed a 14-pound, two-ounce rainbows on a garlic-flavored dough bait off the east shoreline of the big lake. Andy Rivera, Covina, had a 14-pound, one-ounce rainbow on chartreuse PowerBait, also near the dock, and Scott Nakata, Garden Grove, landed an 11 1/2-pound trout on a green jig off Levitz' Corner.

The trout have been averaging from one to three pounds and many stringers have had kicker fish from four to 10 pounds or better. The trophy rainbows have been major parts of every plant put into The Lakes this season. A typical stringer of trout was a 15-fish catch reported by Mark Mitchell and Jose Tirado, both Los Angeles, that weighed in at 22-pounds, six-ounces. Their big fish was a 4 1/4-pound rainbow.

The top bait continues to be the new Hatchery Dust rolled onto the outside of just about any floating dough bait, but the Power Mice Tails, small trout plastics, and trout jigs are all producing lots of fish.

There are hefty plants of rainbows each week, and those plants always include a large component of trophy trout topping 10 pounds. Next week (April 18), anglers will also see the largest plant of Lightning Trout of the season in preparation for a weekend trout tournament held in conjunction with Phil Friedman Outdoors radio.

The warmer weather is also turning on the catfish bite in SARL's Catfish Lake, but few anglers are targeting the cats right now. One pair of anglers had 11 catfish to 4 1/2-pounds.

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 for $75. 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.