VENTURA : Students Get Feel of Fishing in Harbor Tour

The first thing 10-year-old Michael Kozak wanted to know before he would touch the barnacle-encrusted spider crab--with claws as big as his hands--was whether the crustacean was trained.

Assured that if he kept clear of the claws he’d be OK, Michael, and eventually a parade of 125 other students from Will Rogers Elementary School, reached out and touched the beast.

“That was bad!” Michael said with satisfaction as he tried to see if he could grab one of the sand sharks swimming in the water tank.

Touching the crabs, fish, starfish and small sharks in the little aquatic petting zoo seemed to grab the interest of students studying the commercial fishing industry Thursday at Ventura Harbor.

The tour for the school’s fourth- and fifth-graders included everything from the live creatures in two “touch tanks” to tours of fishing boats and a look at how fish are fileted.

The children also got a chance to hop aboard The Yellowtail, a Department of Fish and Game boat; to scramble into the cockpit of the Harbor Patrol speedboat and get a ride across the harbor courtesy of Bay Queen Harbor cruises.

“This is a neat community down here at the harbor,” said field trip organizer Michael Wagner, who owns Andria’s restaurant at the harbor. “We all work together.”

Wandering by large crates filled with ice and albacore tuna, mahi-mahi and a giant orange-speckled opah at Pierpont Seafood, the students and teachers seemed duly impressed.

“Look at their faces, they’re loving this,” said Sherry Everett, who teaches fourth and fifth grade at the school. “This is the ultimate in hands-on learning. They can touch the fish and ask questions.”

The hands-on part of the tour seemed to be the most popular, at least according to Miguel Yanez and Azsa West, both 10. Azsa said she wasn’t at all scared of the sharks, and Miguel was announcing to anyone who would listen that he’d been able to pick up everything in the two tanks except the crab, which was too heavy.

He seemed to have quickly absorbed the names of the six or seven varieties of sharks in the tank and already had his favorite.

“I like the puffer shark, because it looked cute,” Miguel said.