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Being crabby is just fine with Charleston’s Tia Clark
By Tom Adkinson
April 12, 2024
Tia Clark teaches clients of all ages the thrill of catching crabs and the skill of handling them correctly. Image courtesy of Casual Crabbing with Tia
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CHARLESTON, S.C. – One of the coolest aspects of a crabbing trip with Tia Clark is blithely ignoring the “No Crabbing, No Fishing” signs on the riverfront dock in downtown Charleston that is her domain.
That alone makes you feel special, but it only sets the stage for Clark to instruct you, boost your ego, affirm your skills and probably send you home with a bag of succulent crabmeat.
Clark, once the reluctant originator of her now-popular business called Casual Crabbing with Tia, has become a star in tourism-centric Charleston. Even international visitors have found their way to Clark’s dock, all in search of an authentic Charleston experience and some quality time with nature.
The bonus is meeting Clark herself and learning just a bit about her Gullah Geechee heritage and her unlikely journey to working in the outdoors.
(Gullah Geechee people are descendants of Africans enslaved on the rice, indigo and Sea Island cotton plantations of the lower Atlantic coast. Their isolation in parts of what now are South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia and Florida led to distinct language, foodways and folkways. Source: Gullah Geechee Heritage Corridor Commission.)
Tia Clark gives a wide berth as a youngster flings a crab basket over the railing of the dock Clark uses in downtown Charleston. Image courtesy of Casual Crabbing with Tia
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When you arrive, Clark already has pitched crab baskets baited with chicken parts over the dock. They entice crabs to snack a bit while Clark lays out the plan for the next 2.5 hours.
Your preparation is to buy a South Carolina saltwater fishing license ($10 for one day for a non-resident). That’s it. Everything else is Clark’s responsibility.
You are in a small group (six people maximum), which means Clark learns everyone’s name, offers individual instruction and cheers your successes.
Learning exactly how and where to grasp a crab that’s quite unhappy about being pulled from its home is one of Clark’s core lessons. Image by Tom Adkinson
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“Pull that rope up fast! Don’t stop! Don’t slow down! Oh, look! That one has to be a keeper!” she calls out to a youngster pulling a crab basket up toward the dock.
If you do exactly as she says, everything works. I let my modest athletic inclinations overrule Clark’s directions, which meant that my first attempt to throw a cast net to catch some shrimp was almost worthy of “America’s Funniest Home Videos.”
Crabs accumulate in a plastic basket as Clark’s clients continue to pull in baskets with keeper-sized crustaceans. Image by Tom Adkinson
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Clark knows not to keep crabs that are too small, and a tattoo on her right calf always is available for confirmation. Image by Tom Adkinson
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Clark’s personal story about how she became a crab whisperer – which she shares readily – is unlikely.
Despite growing up in coastal Charleston, she said she never went to the beach until she was 17. She never caught a crab until she was 37. She never intended, or expected, to make a living by sharing her late-blossoming love of the outdoors.
It was poor health that got her outside. Her life had been decades of being a bartender and bar manager, a lifestyle of late nights, poor diet and bad habits. She quit smoking cold turkey in 2016, but her health deteriorated.
She felt she needed to get active, so she agreed to go when a cousin invited her to go crabbing. She was captivated – like a crab in a crab basket, a shrimp in a cast net or a redfish on a hook.
“My days were automatically better when I got outdoors,” she said, explaining that being beside the water was her regimen every day and that her family and friends began asking her to take them along.
A client who followed Clark’s instructions makes a successful first pitch of a cast net in search of shrimp. Image by Tom Adkinson
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Her enthusiasm was so high that those friends and relatives said she should start charging for the experience. She declined. Then, a friend surreptitiously created a Facebook page for “Casual Crabbing with Tia,” and booking requests began arriving. She said she refused for a year but finally acquiesced in 2017.
From then on, Clark’s hospitality beacon has been burning brightly. She lost a hundred pounds, she now serves on environmental boards for the South Carolina Aquarium and the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, she has friends across the globe and she is responsible for who knows how many crab omelets, crab cakes and crab salads her clients have made.
Trip-planning resources: CasualCrabbingWithTia.com and ExploreCharleston.com
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