SEWE’s Cast Net Demo at Brittlebank Park on Friday will be lead by Kelsey Dick and Tia Clark. Both women turned their sportsmanship into entrepreneurial interest in 2018.
Tia Clark calls herself The Casual Crabber. She came to notoriety in 2018 when her Airbnb Experience “Casual Crabbing With Tia” became a 5-star activity for Charleston tourists. Kelsey Dick calls herself The Beardless Fisher, and started giving cast net lessons after friends kept asking her to teach their children. Both women bring expertise to Friday’s Cast Net Demo, and though both their stories and angling goals are dissimilar, an appreciation of their natural surroundings connects them.
Clark began crabbing as self-therapy two years ago when she quit smoking tobacco and drinking alcohol. A cousin offered to take her, and she was hooked after just one trip. Clark says, “Being near the water, discovering crabbing and just playing in the saltwater became everything to me.” A friend started a Facebook page for her, and people began to come along with her. “I said no for a bit, and then gave in,” she says.
A native of Charleston, Clark worked in the city’s food and beverage industry for 19 years. One of her customers sent her a link to Airbnb experiences, and she joined. “Folks started coming to meet me on the docks. I took my first guest out crabbing the first week of July. In November I made one of the top 4 exceptional hosts in Airbnb’s market. My life hasn’t been the same since,” says Clark.
While Clark welcomes her clients to catch and release, she says her family has been crabbing for food for generations, and prefers to eat her catch. “Casual Crabbing with Tia” is just that, but she’s aware it is her day-to-day setting, which clients find both breathtaking and therapeutic, that is unique to their experience.
The Cast Net Demo is at 11:30 a.m. on Friday morning. When you see Clark, be sure to ask her to show the tattoo on her leg, which she uses as a guide to know whether the crabs she catches are big enough to keep.
Tia Clark with a freshly caught blue crab.
Like Clark, Kelsey Dick advocates sustainable eating through sportsmanship. “It’s been 4 years since I have bought meat from the store. All the meat I eat these days I harvest myself or trade friends for the meat they have harvested. These days that means lots of shrimp, fish, and oysters in these cooler months,” says Dick.
A native of Ohio, Dick works in recreational fisheries management for the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council. She studied biology before earning a master’s degree in marine and fisheries science. Growing up, her family would spend 2-3 weeks each summer on the surf and sound side of North Carolina in an RV.
“We always had multiple fishing rods cast, and threw cast nets, crabbed, and clammed. At night my little brother and I would go shark fishing with whatever we caught during the day,” says Dick. Her passion is fishing in the Lowcountry on her skiff. In January, Dick celebrated catching a redfish on a fly she tied, on her own boat.
On the one hand she is not interested in making all angling narratives about gender, but she’s equally conscious about recognizing tired and ingrained stereotypes. “On one trip, I had two friends on the boat, a man and a woman, and I heard myself directing a question about the motor only to the male.” She later apologized to her female friend for presuming to ask only the man when Dick had no basis for knowing his level of expertise, if any.
Kelsey Dick shows how to properly toss a cast net.
In 2018, Dick began hosting women’s fly tying nights in the Charleston area. December’s event sponsored by Haddrell’s Point Tackle drew the greatest participation to date. Together with Caroline Smith Irwin, Dick will be hosting the next Ladies Fly Fishing Night at Flood Tide Co. the week after her SEWE Cast Net Demo, on Fed 20, 2018 at 5:30 p.m. They will have stations set up to learn more about casting techniques, fly tying, knot tying, flats fishing and more. Flood Tide Co. is providing free drinks.
At Friday’s Cast Net Demo, Dick will also be giving tips on fall shrimping and deep holing in the Lowcountry.
Lots of smiles at ladies fly tying night.