The Littlest First Mate : She’s Just 7, but Cora Webber Can Catch Shrimp With the Best of Them . . . Just Ask Dad

The deckhand aboard the 22-foot skiff Cora Lin may be the only commercial fisherman in San Pedro who wears size 4 fishing boots. And even those are on the big side.

Actually, the deckhand isn’t a fisherman at all, or even a “fisherperson.” She’s a “fishergirl,” because that’s exactly what she is--a 7-year-old, 4 1/2-foot tall, 45-pound girl named Cora Webber, who spends five afternoons a week helping her commercial

fisherman father haul in the day’s catch.

A lot of other girls her age might spend their time playing with Barbie dolls. But Cora thinks that spending an afternoon elbow-deep in fish is about as much fun as a girl can have.

“It’s exciting,” she said. “All the girls in my class say, ‘Ooooh, you touch fish guts! Yuck!’ But it doesn’t bother me. It’s fun.”

Cora came to fishing and boats naturally. Her father, John Webber, 37, has been a fisherman since he was 18; her mother, Gina, also loves to fish. And according to Webber, one of Cora’s distant ancestors was Richard Henry Dana, the namesake of Dana Point and author of the classic 19th-Century sea tale “Two Years Before the Mast.” She has never been seasick in her life.

“She was 2 weeks old when she first got on a boat,” John Webber says of Cora. “By the time she was 2 she was fishing out in Santa Monica Bay. She’s been coming out with me almost every day since she was 4. She’s always been a part of the fishing.”

Cora spends her weekday mornings and early afternoons at Point Fermin Elementary School in San Pedro, where she’s a second-grader. Her father, who in addition to fishing works as a fish cutter at Standard Sea Foods, picks her up after school and takes her to the Holiday Harbor Marina on Miner Street in San Pedro, where the Cora Lin is berthed.

The kinds of fish they catch vary, but recently John and Cora have been running a dozen shrimp traps in Los Angeles Harbor. The shrimp, of the red rock variety, are sold as bait.

Cora’s duties aboard the Cora Lin, a 1970-vintage skiff that she helped her father restore, include swabbing decks, handling boat hooks, re-baiting the traps with fish heads, sorting the catch and sometimes steering the boat. She likes steering the boat best, even though she has to stand on an upturned bucket to see over the bow.

Cora, who has two sisters, 12-year-old Lindsay and 18-month-old Aleene, is convinced that she can do the job as well as any boy her age--or better.

“None of the boys in my class know how to fish,” she said. “They don’t know how to handle crabs, either. I took a crab to school and handed it to this boy and he said, ‘Ugh, that’s sickening.’ But it wasn’t.”

Her father agrees that boys her age would have a hard time keeping up with Cora.

“She can run the pants off any kid in her class,” Webber said proudly.

Webber said he never forces Cora to go fishing with him; it’s just something she wants to do. But he’s convinced that it’s a good way for any girl, or boy, to spend the afternoon.

“So many kids her age spend their afternoons watching cartoons,” Webber said. “But she loves to be outdoors, she loves exploration, always has. There’s just so much to offer in the ocean. I’m really happy that she gets to participate in something like this. It’s one of the few gifts you can give a kid in the city.”

Cora doesn’t get paid for her deckhand work, at least not directly. Dad usually sets a little money from the catch aside to save for Cora’s education. Not that there’s all that much money in the first place; on a recent afternoon, Webber and Cora spent an hour and a half hauling in a catch of red rock shrimp that they would sell for less than $50.

“There’s not much money in it,” Webber admitted. “But it beats working at McDonald’s.”

Cora knows that fishing is a hard way to make a living. But she’s looking forward to doing exactly that.

“When I get older I’m going to take over the boat and work it just like my father does,” she said.

By the time that happens, Cora Webber may well prefer the term fisherwoman over fishergirl. And she’ll probably be wearing some bigger boots.

“All the girls in my class say, “Ooooh, you touch fish guts! Yuck!” But it doesn’t bother me. It’s fun.’

Cora Webber