THEY’RE BITING: More than 20,000 pounds of...

THEY’RE BITING: More than 20,000 pounds of rainbow trout--about 50,000 fish--have been plopped into Lake Casitas in the past few months. And with cooler weather, they’re moving toward shallows where anglers can hook them. . . . “They’re all catchable size,” Ranger Brent Doan said. “Some are real nice fish.” . . . Casitas lacks fast-moving tributaries where trout spawn, so they have to be stocked. . . . The lake’s big bass--a 21-pounder was once landed there--are biting too, but next month will be better, said Randy King at Casitas Boat Rentals. “They’ll start feeding like mad. They just go crazy.”

Fishing Season

Trout plantings in Lake Casitas, in pounds: September: 4,800 October: 1,800 November: 1,800 December: 2,800 January*: 2,500 * Through Thursday

Source: Casitas Mucipal Water District

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FOREVER ELVIS: The King lives in Ventura County--on Elvis Presley plates, coins, music boxes, watches and dolls. At Ventura’s All-Star Celebrity Collectibles, owner Mike Thomas even has liquor bottles shaped like Elvis--the svelte, late-’50s Elvis, not the portlier ‘70s version. . . . “He’s the biggest, no question,” he said--especially now, with Elvis’ 59th birthday on Saturday. . . . Raymond Michael Hebel of Moorpark, an Elvis impersonator since 1972, is booked 200 nights a year. “I never thought it would last this long.”

PUNISHING CRIME: Gov. Pete Wilson’s proposal to make crooks spend more time in prison is being challenged (A3). . . . In Ventura County, Presiding Superior Court Judge Melinda A. Johnson said more mandatory sentences would have one certain consequence: more trials. “People have nothing to lose by going to trial rather than pleading,” she said. “So you’d need more judges, more deputy D. A.s. It’s very expensive.”

SCHOOL NAMES: Controversy is raging in Oxnard over whose name--if anyone’s--should adorn school buildings (B1). . . . Schools in west Ventura County are named after such notables as Christa McAuliffe, Will Rogers and Junipero Serra. But not one east county school is named for a person. Conejo Unified favors tree names--Aspen, Banyan, Cypress, Maple, Walnut--while Simi Unified likes the view, as in Park View, Mountain View and Valley View. . . . The Somis district has just one school: Somis School.