Flats Class TV founder returns to Charleston to talk fishing | Fishing

C.A. Richardson has enjoyed a commanding view of inshore fishing for many years from atop a poling platform or on the deck of flats skiffs in waters from Texas to New York.

Richardson, a 6-foot-5 Charleston native who moved to Florida as a child and has lived in the Sunshine State for 55 years, has shared the lessons he’s learned for the last 16 years as host of the popular Flats Class TV.

“Flats Class started in 2002 as a seminar series where I was recruiting a lot of the professional redfish tour pros to go from retailer to retailer with me and educate people on how to catch redfish on light tackle, artificials and fly presentations. It evolved five years later into a television show and here we are on Season 16 of Flats Class TV,” said Richardson, who was the featured speaker Feb. 5 at The Post and Courier’s Cast It Forward seminar at Firefly Distillery.

Flats Class is carried on Bally Sports Florida and also on the streaming service Waypoint TV.

“And then, naturally, we’re on YouTube as well. Flats Class YouTube has grown really quick for us,” he said. “It started out where we were just doing fishing tips, strategies and product reviews. But now we’ve actually expanded a lot of field trip stuff, like we will be doing one here at the Release Over 20 event for Cast It Forward. We’ll do fun stuff for MirrOlure, for Z-Man, plant tours, Hells Bay Boatworks. I just built a do-it-yourself gun range in my back yard and we did (a YouTube video) for that as well.”

When Richardson began the TV show, he said he had “absolutely zero” media experience. He said he was was not comfortable speaking in front of people, but during a speech class in college a professor told him to talk about something he liked.

“So all my speeches those two semesters were about fishing. When I got through, he said ‘you could do this for a living.’ It was kind of natural for me to go down that path,” Richardson said. “Even my son (who works with the show), he’s exactly the same way I am. We’re just good at articulating what we want to get across to our audience, both Cam and I.”

Richardson is based in the Pine Ridge/Beverly Hills area, a little north of Crystal River, on Florida’s west coast.

“I still guide. I’m an everyday waterman. I think that’s the thing that keeps me sane,” Richardson said. “I love being on the water with clients. I’m not saying I’m looking to work 300 days a year on the water. But I still get 150 days on the water with clients every year, and that’s a good mix for me.”

Richardson said his experience as a guide and a professional angler help him translate the lessons he’s learned from one area to another.

“For someone like myself who has fished all different types of marsh, when I come to Charleston I already feel like I’m at home,” Richardson said. “I’ve fished this same type of topography and environment and creeks and river features. I fish this stuff in northeast Florida. I fish it in the lowcountry of Georgia. I fish in Louisiana.

“The challenge here is how much water moves. Your tide range here is so much greater than other places. You have to understand it’s the bottom and top of the tide where you have to fish where the middle of the tide is where I’m comfortable. (The middle of the tide) is where it moves our water and positions the fish. Your fish take a break in those windows. That’s one caveat that makes it tougher here. But every time I’ve been to Charleston fishing on my own or fishing with a guide, I’ve always had an unbelievable experience. Fishing has always been good.”

Richardson said the tips and tactics offered on Flats Class TV work almost anywhere, especially for trout and redfish.

“No matter where you go, they’re kind of the blue-collar fish. They are the fish everyone relates to from Virginia all the way down the Atlantic Seaboard, around to the Gulf Coast and all the way to Texas,” he said.

“We all have those same species and a lot of the tactics and a lot of the same type of lures are very effective on those fish. I think that’s what makes Flats Class a really successful television show. It’s because it can appeal to so many people, where a lot of the South Florida shows focus so much on bonefish, on tarpon, on snook, and that really limits the audience.”

Richardson said he was just becoming acquainted with Release It Forward, an initiative begun by Eye Strike Jigs co-founder David Fladd of Summerville. The concept began as an effort to get anglers to release spotted seatrout that were over 20 inches long in an effort to improve and increase the quality of the stock. It also has expanded to include flounder and sheepshead.

“It’s kind of an initiative that has been in Florida for a long time,” Richardson said. “We have more stringent regulations in Florida and we understand that by releasing the larger trout that have the greater egg volume that you’re guaranteeing future catches that you never could if you were keeping those trout.

“In many places in Florida, your catch creel can only be three fish (10 in South Carolina) and only one of them can be over 19 inches. They all have to be between 15 and 19 inches (14-inch minimum size in South Carolina). Where I live we have five trout per angler between 15 and 19 inches and you can keep one over 19. Guides can’t keep fish as part of the customer creel. None of that stuff happens any more and our trout fishery has really bounced back.”

America’s Boating Club

America’s Boating Club Charleston will hold boating safety classes March 12 and April 16 at 1376 Orange Grove Road, Charleston. Classes begin at 9 a.m. and end around 4 p.m. A class also will be held March 26 at the Berkeley County Emergency Services Training Center in Moncks Corner. Successful participants earn the S.C. Department of Natural Resources Boater Education Card. The cost is $25 for adults and youth 12-18 are free. Call 843-312-2876 or email lynes@tds.net.

Quail Forever fundraisers

The Mount Pleasant Chapter of Quail Forever is raising funds for the Build a Wildlife Area program during the Willie McRae Wildlife Benefit that will be held Feb. 18 from 5-10 p.m. at the Cotton Dock at Boone Hall Plantation in Mount Pleasant, and during the  Call of the Uplands that will be held Feb. 19 from 6-10 p.m. at Charleston Yacht Club. Visit scquailforever.org or email taskins@hotmail.com.

Swamp Fox NWTF banquet

The Swamp Fox Chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation will hold its 38th annual fundraising banquet and outdoors exhibit on March 5 in the Exhibitors’ Building at the Exchange Park, located on Highway 78 in Ladson. Doors open at 5 p.m. with dinner starting at 6:15 p.m. Tickets are limited and being pre-sold. Contact Contact Wayne Grace Jr. at 843-834-7779 or Karen Whaley at 843-870-3480 or email swampfoxnwtf@gmail.com.

Charleston Inshore Anglers

The Charleston Inshore Anglers’ 29th annual “Big Ed” Sheepshead Tournament will be fished April 30. The captain’s meeting begins at 5:30 pm. April 28 at American Legion Post 147, located at 968 Folly Road. The weigh-in also will take place at Post 147 from 4-5 p.m. April 30. The entry fee for the tournament is $40. Contact Kevin Mischke at 843-324-1006; Nick Kvestad at 843-557-2811 or Gene Broderick at 843-224-6826.

SALTT Fishing Seminars

The Student Angler League Tournament Trail (salttfishing.com) holds monthly fishing seminars on the second Tuesday of each month from 6-7 p.m. at Harvest Church, located at 3552 Old Kings Highway, Murrells Inlet. Speakers include charter boat captains and local fishing experts.

SALTT also will hold a bass fishing seminar from 9 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Feb. 19 at J&K Outdoors, located at 1301 Highway 501 East Street in Conway. The seminar is limited to 50 participants and pre-registration is encouraged. Tickets are $11 and every student angler gets a $10 store coupon. Reservations can be made at salttfishing.com/seminar-bass.html.

SALTT is a training ground for students in grades 1-12 interested in competitive fishing for redfish or largemouth bass. Three fall and three spring tournaments are scheduled out of Georgetown’s Carroll Campbell Boat Landing. SALTT also puts on the annual Brody Bates Youth Redfish Open Scholarship Tournament which will be held April 2 this year out of Buck Hall Landing in McClellanville.