Blue Hen Outdoors Podcast
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Blue Hen Outdoors Podcast
Episode 67: Joe Cermele
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This episode I am blessed to have Joe Cermele on the podcast, we talk about how he got his start in fishing and the industry, how he has got to where he is at now and a lot of fishing as the start of spring is the time for chasing fins
Welcome back to another episode of the Blue Hen Outdoors Podcast. I'm pleased to have with us tonight host of the cut and retie podcast, Mr. Joe S Rmeli. How you doing tonight? Good, hunter. How are you, man? Good, good. Can't complain. The weather's finally getting better.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. I also meant to ask, is drinking allowed on your show? Because it's it's cocktail hour at the Sermelli residence, so I have a bloody Mary. Is that all right?
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, that's fine. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You can drink fine. Yeah, dude. No, I was just I was just outside before we started. Um I feel like it's like um it's very deceiving, you know what I mean? Like we're getting like uh two days of 75 and then it'll be 40 again for a while. So you just kind of it's that's March for you, though, you know.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah, especially this time of year. It's like it goes up and down, up and down right before April hits, and then it's like okay, heat waves start coming.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I know. I I complain about not having spring anymore, but I feel like that is the case, it's like spring for a week and then just becomes summer. So I'm hoping I'm hoping April stays nice and cool. A lot of good stuff this time of year. So oh, yeah, for sure. Let's start with how did you get your start into fishing? My start into fishing, uh geez, man. That's something that's uh that's always been there uh on both sides of the family. So my grandparents on my mother's side actually owned a bait and tackle shop in Trenton, New Jersey. And uh yeah, my uh my my my grandfather on my dad's side was you know an old Italian, loved to shoot it, cook it, catch it, and cook it, and uh was was always uh an outdoorsman, mostly a fisherman, same with my dad. So I kind of had it from both sides. I I think I spent more time as a as a young kid fishing with my dad and grandfather, but in fairness, um, you know, later in life, my parents were actually divorced. My mom spent just as much time taking me fishing after school and baiting hooks and you know dealing with dead bluegills that I insisted on bringing home as my dad did. So really, man, it was it was there on both sides of the family from a very young age. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01You mentioned you're from up in Jersey. Did you start uh saltwater fishing up there at first, or were you a freshwater guy at first? And then you kind of dabble in both now.
SPEAKER_00I mean, a a little bit of both. I you know, when you're when you're very young, saltwater is uh a little bit limiting, right? I mean, you know, um other than playing around on the bay and like an old bow rider that my grandfather had, you know, a little bit of that as a really young kid. For the most part, it was stock trout, bluegills, largemouth. Um, but something that was really big in my family in the summer was we would rent little rowboats and uh go out crabbing, blue claw crabbing, which is something I still love to do and do all summer long. And now I do that with my kids on my own boat.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, I remember growing up. So I'm down in Delaware, and me and my dad, he's kind of the same story as you got me into fishing, freshwater bluegill bass. And then as I was growing up, he got a couple boats, and we used to go crabbing all the time out of uh Easton down in Maryland.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, how do you do it down there? Because I've written about crabbing before, and it's such a niche thing. So, like the way I do it is chicken on a string, man, and like the slow pull and scoop them in the net before they get away. But every time I bring that up or write about it, guys from further south, like more so in Maryland, are like, nah, that's not how you do it. You run the whole trot line, and you just so everybody has their own sort of of way of doing that. I feel like what's the Delaware way?
SPEAKER_01So at first, me and him kind of did a mix, like we'd have like probably a dozen and a half to a dozen pots that we'd throw out, yeah. Let them soak overnight or like let them soak like for half the day, and then we'd run a trout line, like they do down in Maryland with the chicken x and yeah, yeah, for sure, man.
SPEAKER_00That way, I I've I've done we'll throw some traps when we go and go pick them up on the way back, but for me, it's like the the the sport is the handlining, and then you make fun of the you know, whoever loses the most, like I you missed with the net, or it's it's just so many memories, man. I've been doing that for so long. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Oh, trust me, my it'd be funny if my dad'd be like, All right, your limits 10 today. Because like I'd miss a couple on the trot line because sometimes I drop off early, or it's like you're getting one, and it's like you have one right behind it, and you're like, Oh shit, and it drops off before you can get to it. But he's like, You got ten, or I'm throwing you overboard. Yep, yep, yeah. So, what would you say is your favorite thing to go fishing for up in New Jersey or just in general?
SPEAKER_00I get that question a lot. Um, and it's it's a lame answer, but there is no answer because I'm the kind of guy whose favorite thing to fish for is whatever I'm fishing for right now. So I I've always made the joke that like if I'm trout fishing, say, and somebody's like, hey, I could snap my fingers and we could be striper fishing, not interested. I'm in trout mode right now. That's that's what I you know want to do. Um, so I don't know if I had I I really don't have one favorite thing, similar to how I don't have one favorite band. I don't have one favorite thing. But you know, if I really had to peg it, it's funny. I think it's saltwater, it'll always be striped bass or rockfish as you call them. Incorrectly. I call them I call them stripers. Okay, okay. Then it's for you gotta go the Maryland guys. I don't know what a rockfish is, it's stripe. So I think saltwater, um, it'll it'll always be stripers, but um, I really love brown trout, wild brown trout. Okay, though I gotta say, man, in the last 10 years or so, there's a lot of competition for me between wild browns and snakeheads. Like, I have fallen head over heels for snakeheads. I think in the heat of summer, I spend more time snakehead fishing than anything else these days in freshwater.
SPEAKER_01Okay, yeah, that's what so like around here, they're like I know there's a couple big areas that you can go for snakehead where I'm at. Yeah, but I've never really gone or caught one. I'm just like, dude, I want to catch one so bad, they're so cool. They're like little dragons in the water.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they're also delicious, and you're talking to a guy who doesn't eat a ton of freshwater fish. Like, I I grew up fairly coastal, so I always had black sea bass and fluke and all that stuff. So I don't eat a ton of saltwater uh freshwater fish. Gotta say though, snakeheads, 10 out of 10 as far as freshwater fish go. They are they are excellent.
SPEAKER_01That's what I've heard. I've had some I have some buddies that they'll go gigging for them or boat fishing for them in the uh upper bay, like around lower Susquehanna area. Yeah. And they'll just send me piles of them when they're flying them up. I'm like, damn, thanks for the invite, man. I keep telling me guys, I want to get some snakeheads, but yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00But uh, yeah, I mean, look, uh it's detrimental for some people, some people hate hate the whole thing, but the reality is they're not going anywhere, and the population, even where I live, further north than you, it just keeps getting bigger, you know. So it's I I've I've fully embraced it. I think they're so much more unique than like a largemouth bass or or even a smallmouth bass. It it it forces you to fish in areas that you would have never touched, you know what I mean? It it's kind of like the hunt aspect of it, yeah. So um, yeah, I'm I'm a I'm a freak for snakeheads.
SPEAKER_01I also kind of look at it now as like that's because like how Florida has like the largemouth and peacocks, that's kind of like our version of that. It's like yeah, you're just as good as catching largemouth, but yeah, at the same time, they have their own little ticks and tricks to them.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, oh yeah, and that's a that's a great analogy. I mean, you know, do these things really coexist well? It's sort of up for debate, but again, you can complain all you want about how one or the other shouldn't be there, but they are there, and complaining about it won't change that they're there. So I but you know what? It's funny, man. Ten years ago, um, that argument that I'm making now, like, you know, if you can't beat them, join them, fell on a lot of deaf ears. But I'm sure you're seeing it in Delaware too. Oh, yeah. The popularity of snakehead fishing just grows more and more each year, you know.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah. Every time I go into the probably within the past I'd say five to six years since I got home from college in 2020, 2021. I um every time I go in the one of the Bayer Tackle stores, like the local ones around here, I just see more and more and more and more snakehead stuff. Like, oh, try this new big snakehead lore, or oh, try these new topwaters, or oh, try this out.
SPEAKER_00And I'm like several companies. I'm very good friends with the guys from high octane lures, is one of the ones down there, and that was the first one that I really became aware of that you know, these guys are essentially making bass lures with incredibly beefed up hardware, you know, to handle those fish because they're just have harder mouths and things, but you see more and more of that every year. So I I I think I think we're already sort of getting to the point of where they're just accepted, similar to common carp, right? That's an invasive fish too, but there's carp everywhere, nobody thinks about it anymore. They're just here, right?
SPEAKER_01There's just anything that's here, exactly.
SPEAKER_00We're we're getting there with snakeheads.
SPEAKER_01Now, do you just do conventional or do you do fly fishing, or do you just kind of like do it all?
SPEAKER_00I do whatever I feel like on any given day, Hunter. So, yes, I I do it all. I fly fish. Um, I I I like to joke that I'm the kind of angler who will feel like fly fishing today, so I will. And then the next time I go out, I might feel like soaking a shiner under a bobber, and then I'll go do that. Um uh that's that's just always the way I have been. I've not I've never looked down on other kinds of fishing or discounted them. I mean, there was a very long period of my life where with trout, all I wanted to do was fly fish. If I was trout fishing, I was fly fishing. Uh, I've since gotten over that. Not that I don't fly fish for them anymore. I do, but um, I actually just came back from uh from a few days in western Pennsylvania uh trout fishing on one of the big rivers out there. Um I had a fly rod. I I told myself that it'd be nice to catch a couple on the fly, but I just caught them all in jerkbaits and had a really great time doing that. So um, yeah, man, I will fish with anything, doesn't matter to me.
SPEAKER_01That's the first I've heard people catching trout with jerk baits.
SPEAKER_00So it's it's uh something that I picked up. Uh I've spent a lot of time on the White River in Arkansas. And if you sort of know the history of the White River and its trout fishing, you know, this is a that's a southern river. And when when the the trout fishery got introduced there, there was certainly a fly culture that developed around that. But you also had a lot of southern good old boys who they they fished for trout the way they knew how, which was fishing for how they would fish for bass or redfish or something like that. So that's where you saw the emergence of like the the Smithwith Ratland rogue as like a top producer of big wild brown trout. And I've spent some time with some really good guides and friends down there. And um, yeah, man, I've fully embraced that idea when fishing for wild trout that if you are okay with sacrificing numbers, I don't care how many I'm gonna catch today. That is not the point of my day. I just want to catch the biggest ones I possibly can. You throw a five, six-inch stick bait, you will. And uh, that's something that I enjoy very much. I really love fishing big, big water for brown trout, especially a lot of the rivers in the northeast that have brown trout in these sort of marginal waters, rivers that might be a lot more known for smallmouth or walleye or muskie. So there's not necessarily a lot of trout in that system, but because of feeder tributaries and things, some get in there. And that's that's my favorite way to trout fish right now is is big water with sort of low odds, but throw big or go home and and try and catch a really, really big one. But it also applies to a small stream. You pick any stock trout stream or wild brown trout stream anywhere. If you don't mind sacrificing numbers, man, and I so many people have said to me, like, you want me to go down to the stream here and throw a five-inch mega bass? I'm like, Yeah, you might not get a bite in three trips, but when you do get one, it's probably gonna be the wild brown in a caliber you didn't even think existed in there. So yeah, yeah. I'm uh and and that comes from you asked about fly fishing. I think that's a spin-off of spending so many years throwing big streamers. I fell in love with that, uh, you know, when that was a new thing in the early 2010s, you know, the early 2000s when that was first coming into its its own. I fell in love with the idea of throwing these giant ass streamers for brown trout and did that for years and then um sort of started playing on both sides of the fence. So I still I still love that. I mean, I take my son trout fishing all the time for small stream trout, and that's we have a great time. But on my own time, I love a big river and I am throwing big, whether it's a streamer or a jerkbait. I want to catch a brown over 20 inches. I'd rather catch two big browns in a day than 20 little ones, you know. But right, that's not knocking people who Euro nymph or whatever it is. I mean, you will you do what makes you happy, but right now that's kind of my jam, man. Like I love big, gnarly brown trap.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, for sure. You mentioned you'd been around a couple cool places. What would you say is some of the coolest places or place that you've been for fishing or experience that you've had somewhere?
SPEAKER_00Man, yeah. I mean, I've been I've been somehow, Hunter, I've managed to stay full-time in this career now for 21 years this year, which I still truly, after all this time, wake up and go, how the hell did you pull that off? You know, and I've been I've never taken it for granted, and um have been extremely blessed because of my job to to see places I never ever thought I would see. So that's a really tough question, too, because man, I could I could I could talk about steelheading in Milwaukee, like almost in downtown Milwaukee, and going, Holy shit, I can't believe like this is an urban setting and these urban parks, and here's all these steelheads. That was cool. But then I've also been to the Amazon. Now, like, how do you compete with going to the Amazon? But really, if I had to if I had to pick something that surprised me the most, people ask me all the time, you know, similar, what's the favorite place you've ever been? Um, many years ago, I got invited to a place called Cree River Lodge in far northern Saskatchewan, way up, man. It took forever to finally get to our our our destination. But it was this great lodge on Cree River. And if I if I remember correctly, the gentleman who ran the lodge was the only guy who had guiding rights to something ridiculous, like 250 square miles of water. And up there, it was just this system of river that would back up into sort of a lake, and then river is a kind of almost like a delta in a way. And we went up there to pike fish, and you know, in the lower 48, there's some pike culture. Uh, for a lot of people, that's a nuisance fish that gets in the way of muskies or smallmouth or bass or whatever. Um man, I mean, when you get to a point where you are pulling a fly away from a 38-inch pike because you're like, I've caught plenty of those. I I'm waiting for a bigger one. That is a pretty cool thing, and I think of all the places I've been, it it at least felt like one of the most unspoiled. Um, and it was it was just incredible. It was just incredible, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah. The um yeah, that's cool. I never would have would have followed that all the way up there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. It's uh it's not a cheap place to go. I I've longed to get back, but uh it often surprises people when they say of all the places you've been, you'd put pike fishing in Saskatchewan up that high. Yeah, I would. And to this day, there's there's you know, three or four places where I'd I'd kill to go back to, you know, um, and and maybe someday I'll get there. But that is certainly one of them.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, the um so I know this is kind of a hot topic we kind of touched on that. You are a big striper guy for saltwater. What's your opinion on all the striper issues that have been going on up and down the east coast?
SPEAKER_00Well, that dude, that's a that's a that's a loaded question if I ever heard it. And I I think I think the true answer to that is um, and people might disagree with this, there are so many things to consider in that argument that it's it's very hard for me to just sort of say, well, here's here's what I think, right? Um I I think what's happening with stripers is a combination of of several factors. Is overfishing and release mortality one of those factors or two of those factors? Absolutely, 100%. I mean, look, man, the bottom line is we are obsessed with stripers, everybody wants to catch stripers, but I also think that there are some environmental things happening here, and you could choose to accept it or not accept it. And I'll give you an example. So when I worked for Field and Stream full time in New York City, our archives were there. And when I was an intern and and younger, I mean, sometimes during my lunch break, I would just go in that archive and pull a bunch of hard copies. I mean, we had every issue from 1871 to the most current, right there. You could just grab and take to your desk and look at. And I I remember noticing, because I would look for stuff about New Jersey in the 20s and teens and you know, early stuff. If you look back from the 1900s through about 1950, a lot of the Jersey coast that is striper country now was straight up bull red country. New Jersey was a red state, right? And then something happened and a shift happened, and there were a lot of factors there too. But the bull run reds slid to the south, and then the stripers slid to the south. So now if you look, there are so many striped bass in Quebec up in Canada, further north than they have ever been in our lifetimes, right? Traditionally, by the book, the Miramichi River in New Brunswick, Canada was about the northern range of a striped bass. And not many people are talking about this. And if you look up in the Canadian Maritimes, Atlantic salmon is the king, right? So they hate the stripers because the stripers are up there eating all their precious Atlantic salmon. So all of that is to say, I feel like one of the things that sort of gets left out of the issues with striped bass is also just a shift in where they are, because a lot of us are still stuck in the mindset of they winter in the Chesapeake, they come up, they run the rivers, they spawn, they summer in Massachusetts and Maine, and just up into the bottom half of the Canadian Maritimes, and then in the fall they all come back down and life is good. But there's evidence to show that that's not what they're doing anymore. There are hundreds of thousands of stripers way further north than they have ever been. So why is that? You call it global warming, it's a controversial topic. Is the ocean getting too hot? It could be it could be a bunch of things, but all that is to say there's there's a part of me that feels like some of the issue here is that things are changing environmentally that is sort of altering what we want them to do and when. So then you question yes, is the population down in Rhode Island and Massachusetts? Yeah, absolutely. But are all those fish gone or are they in Quebec? There's also been studies that have have had tagged fish pop up as far offshore as the Hudson Canyon. Why is a striper in the Hudson Canyon? Are they all there? I don't know. Science doesn't know. But I think that there's a lot more environmental changes. I mean, the fish follow the food, they have to live. I mean, I can't tell you how often I hear from guys who tuna fish in the fall, like you guys are all struggling on the beach. We were 18 miles offshore today. There's striper, all the stripers you want, they're all out there. By the book, they shouldn't be. So I don't have a definitive answer. I I think this is a long-winded way of saying that we all want to point to one thing and say, that's the problem right there. That's the issue. I think there are so many factors in that that it is almost impossible to drill it down to one thing, including for the record, commercial fishing. A lot of guys say, Well, if you just get rid of commercial fishing, that'll be problem solved. Will it? Like, do you know that? So it's it's it's a hard thing to to peg in one shot. But I will say, on the record, um, as a guy who has not I've killed one striped bass in the last 10 years, and that was my son's first keeper, right? And um he asked if we could if we could take One home. He he loves to eat what he catches. And I said, Yeah, I'm not going to deny you that. Like, that's going to be a big deal. If we get one that's keeper size, but we're not making a habit out of that. I'll do it for you because that's a special fish. That's your first keeper saltwater striper. And that's the one and only to date that he has ever kept. And he's fine with that. So as a guy who pretty much gave up on keeping stripers a long, long time ago, I would have personally no problem with no kill. Catch and release only, no kill. I have no problem with that. But I also understand why a lot of other people do. There's charter comp, there's there's there's charter fishermen, there's livelihoods wrapped up in this fish. But if you want something definitive out of me, like what would I like to see, what would I do? Catch and release, no kill. I I personally would be okay with that.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I agree with that as far for like maybe like a two to four-year plan. Try to have like a yeah, catch and release only forums, try to get the numbers back up and bounce them, bounce them back to where we usually see them, how they are or have been around in our areas. But like you said, I mean, they're they're going always far north as some parts of Canada that people never would have thought of. Uh it's funny you touched on that Bull Reg used to go as far north as New Jersey. It's like that's what I always thought was cool about Delaware. It's like we have the most southern part of the northern half of the coast, and then the most northern part of the southern half.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. But do you have now? It's funny, man. I wrote a surf fishing book, it was the first book I ever wrote. It was just sort of a basic surf fishing 101, but the publisher wanted it to touch on all coasts, and I remember having the hardest time finding really solid info about surf fishing in Delaware, and um I gotta admit, dude, Delaware to me, I know it's a short coast, but it's kind of like a blind spot for me. Like, yeah, is there good striper fishing in you know Cape Henlopen anymore? Do you get bull reds in Rehoboth? I am so lost on it's like that blind spot. I know what happens in the Outer Banks and in Virginia, I know what happens in Jersey, but I don't even know really what Delaware sees anymore.
SPEAKER_01As far as I know, I mean, we whenever the big peak run is, like when they're coming out of Chesapeake and going north, and when they come back down south, they catch a lot off the shore of uh stripers, but usually it's mainly more bluefish. We'll get kind of like um the more southern half of the coast, like going more towards Ocean City, Maryland or like Ace Tig Island area. You can catch more bull reds usually depending on the time of year. Um, we'll have the occasional like cobia wander through.
SPEAKER_00Well, dude, cobia. I mean, okay, and and again, I I'm not like the this like global warming freak. I just think it's undeniable that something is changing because we can legitimately target cobia in the summer in New Jersey. That was not a thing when I was a kid. There were like there were no cobia here. I spend my whole summer sheep's head fishing. Now, I you know, and maybe there were always a few here, but that population has exploded. So it's similar to what I'm saying about how that bull red population seems to decades ago have slid down, and then the stripers slid down. And now I feel like stripers are sliding up, and these southern fish are sliding back up. There were there have been a couple of years here in Jersey where guys were catching reds left and right. I mean, I I have caught, and not not I should I should say, in case my buddy listens to this, not me personally, but I have been on the boat for multiple red drum catches in New Jersey. You can't set your watch by it right now, you can't go out and say, I'm targeting those, but there are more and more here. So to me, it's it's this shift up and down, up and down, and and maybe it's global warming, maybe it's just a cycle. I mean, things are also just cyclical. That's the way some things work, you know. But yeah, we're seeing way more southern species here in the last five, ten years than we did when I was a kid, no doubt. Oh, easily.
SPEAKER_01But to answer the question, we did we do get a little bit of a mixed bag through here, but mainly I'd say it's bluefish, flounder, um a couple wikis depending on the year, and like kingfish, croaker. Yeah, like those are like the big ones we'll see like throughout the whole summer, unless you're like you're going out on the boat somewhere.
SPEAKER_00But how's uh how's to uh tog out of Indian River in the dead of winter? Is that still a thing? I used to know a lot of guys that would come down to Indian River to go out on tog boats in like January.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, it's still a thing, yeah. Depending on how the inlet freezes or how the winter is. It um it's a big thing down here still. Yeah, it's funny you mentioned that. I'm actually hopefully able. Well, I've I've kind of got into spear fishing the past couple years. Oh, nice. Yeah, so I've been trying to plan and figure out when I can get down there to go. Well, also waiting for the weather to get right because my west to's only five millimeters, it's not seven for the colder water, right? But um, I won't try to get some tog and flounder this year out of the inlet.
SPEAKER_00Nice. That's one realm I have not uh dove into. I like spear fishing, is I mad respect, none for me. I just can't I can't get into it. Oh, it's fun.
SPEAKER_01It's to me, it's like a whole totally different world down there.
SPEAKER_00It's like oh, yeah, I have a lot of friends that do it, and um, it's always funny because you know, you'll have a bridge or something, and and you fished it for years, and maybe it's not too good or not as good as you want it to be, and then you you know you'll talk to a Spiro, and the guy will be like, There's five million 30-pound stripers down there, dude. You know, like just to see it from a different perspective. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, that's another thing, too. It's like our back on the striper topic. It's like, okay, are they deeper too, like than what people think?
SPEAKER_00Possibly that that I don't know, but I but I I I do know for sure that there are more of them for and this is only speaking for New Jersey. There are more of them further offshore every year. I mean, I can't tell you how many how many times in the last few falls it's a big controversy here because people are catching stripers left and right. 90% of the boats are out past the the three-mile line, like they're they're they're they're breaking the law, but then that's where they are. They're seven miles offshore, eight miles offshore, you know. The stripers, though, aren't doing anything wrong, they're surviving and following the food. They're they're doing what they're supposed to do, they're where the food is. So that's my point. You know, we say, Oh man, there hasn't been a good bass bite on this beach or this jetty in years. Okay, but the that that doesn't necessarily mean it's because all the fish are gone, they're just seven miles offshore, you know.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah. How'd you get your start into your career that you have now of being like an outdoors uh industry person, like doing the podcast, getting into what you're doing now? Yeah, I mean, when I first saw you, slash kind of discovered you. I was watching um Dossboat when you guys did that a couple years ago with Me Eater. That was really cool.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, truthfully, man, the video and the podcasting that was all an afterthought. When I when I came out of college, I graduated in 2005. Um, I had no well, first of all, what was a podcast then? Nobody even knew what that wasn't even really a thing yet. Um, and and neither was video. I mean, that was in the fledgling days of YouTube. Uh at my core, dude, I'm a writer. Like that's that's that's what I am. And certainly being a decent writer can help you make better podcasts and help you make better videos, so it all sort of ties together. But my my dream in college was to just be an editor slash writer at a national fishing publication. And um the short I could I could spend hours giving the whole story, but really the shortest version is um, you know, it was a lot of right place, right time. And if you look back in 2005, when I was graduating college, there weren't exactly a lot of 20 somethings looking to get into fishing media. Now, 26 years later, case in point is you, my friend, like everybody wants to do this, right? So the competition isn't is insane. But when I was when I was your age or you know, younger than you, you said you graduated in 2021. Um there was nobody clamoring for this. It was a bunch of older dudes, you know. And um I I got very lucky. I did an uh an independent study in college on uh competing outdoor publications, which got noticed by a local magazine called New Jersey Angler. And I saw I started uh as an intern there when I was still in college. And man, I did anything and everything, you know, covering some club bass tournament, driving down to Cape Main, New Jersey to cover the South Jersey Shark Tournament, going to fishing flea markets to sell subscriptions, what whatever I could do for them. Um, and sort of one thing led to another, I met some some right people and got my resume and my writing in uh the right hands at the right time, and wound up um with an internship at Saltwater Sportsman magazine in New York City, my senior year of college. Worked my ass off. That worked out really well, and they hired me right after graduation. So I came right out of school to a full-time uh editorial role at uh Saltwater Sportsman. One thing sort of led to another. The uh the company that that owned us also owned Field and Stream. They were on the same floor on the other side of the the hall. And um when the company got sold in 2020 in 2006, they moved Saltwater Sportsman to Florida. I didn't particularly want to go. And this is the early days of web. So, you know, field and stream, I knew the guys there, and they came to me and said, Hey, look, if you don't want to go to Florida, man, we're like we're trying to hire another person for our website. And I said, sure, and moved over to Field and Stream with the ultimate goal. My my my real dream was to become the fishing editor at Field and Stream. And uh, I never thought that would happen to this day. I can't believe it did. I I held that title, I was the youngest person to ever hold that title, and I held it for 11 years. But at the time, John Merwin was the fishing editor, and that that dude, I mean, that's an OG. John Merwin was a legend in fishing media. And I I thought it'll it'll never happen. John will hold this, you know, forever, or you know, or till he passes away, whatever it may be. And by some stroke of luck, you know, a few years in, John Merwin decided I'm done, I'm I'm retiring. And I I grabbed that spot and uh still am very proud of that. That somehow for 11 years I I succeeded John Merwin and was the youngest fishing editor in the history of the magazine. And then within that, that's when I just kind of got bored, man. Like writing was great, but I was always like, All right, what what else can we do? I sort of saw the evolution of YouTube and social and and how things were kind of going. And I just got a video camera for Christmas one year and went to my boss and said, Can I make a fishing show? He's like, Yeah, sure. Go, yeah, go ahead, make it for our website. Worst case scenario, it doesn't work out. Well, that was the hook shot series, and I did that, produced it, hosted it for that entire 11 years, 180 some episodes. Um, and uh started podcasting there. And then when I had the opportunity to move to Meat Eater, um I I jumped at that chance because they were very forward looking in terms of of media, you know. Field and stream was was sort of sort of beholden to print, you know, it was print first, and and I always have a soft spot for print, but print was not the way of the future. We both know that. You know, print is struggling now. So to have a couple of years to work with an incredibly talented production staff at Meat Eater, we did Doss Boat. I had a series there called B-side Fishing. I produced, we had the Bent Podcast, um, was uh was a a really cool stepping stone for me. Ultimately, Meat Eater ended up not being, I think, the best permanent home for me. Uh, but no love lost there. It was a great learning experience, and I gotta say, after all these years, I'm I'm really happy now being independent and and doing my own thing. Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_01How has um how has cut and retie been going for you? Did you ever see it going how it's been going?
SPEAKER_00Well, man, it's it's kind of my living now, so I I hoped it's going how it's going because you know the only the only thing the one thing you step away from when you're working for a corporate media brand is the security, right? So I could make hookshots and make podcasts and make bent and DOS boat, and you you want all that to be good. You put blood, sweat, and tears into all that, but even if it sucks, man, you're getting a paycheck. You're a full-time employee. That's not that that's not the case now. Um, but that said, I could not be happier. I mean, you know, cut and retie just crossed the three-year mark, and without you know, talking numbers, suffice it to say, I am extremely happy with where it is in a fairly short amount of time. And a lot of that is a testament to what I what I've already done. I mean, those are hookshots fans, those are hookshots podcast fans, those are people who found me through Bent. So, you know, it's um that's an accumulation of 20 years of people, God bless them, watching the ridiculous nonsense that I've put out there in the world and them staying with me. My audience, it's an extremely loyal group of people that I love dearly. And I almost I don't even like to call them an audience, it's a community. You know, I've always been very good at building a community around what I do. I like to interact with people, I like to meet people, I like to have a conversation with you to you know, to the the the best ability I can. And um while while being independent and having to worry about how these things make money is all on me now, and that is stressful, no doubt. Look, man, I'm not a salesman. I I I'm a writer and a content guy, you know, but you you have to do what you have to do. It's a different kind of stress, but I can look you in the face and tell you I've never been happier than I am right now. And going back to working for somebody else's brand full time, putting your blood, sweat, and tears into somebody else's brand would be extremely difficult for me now that I am where I am.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah. That's what I'm trying to do here with my thing is like just build a because I do hunting and fishing and like everything between with my show.
SPEAKER_00Do more hunting, bro. That's where the money is. I'm just taking from the guy who has I I I as a as a side note, you know, I worked for Field and Stream and Meat Eater. Field and stream, the stream's right there. But and this is not this is not a knock, this is just the truth. If you talk to the sales guys there and the people, whether it was 1961 or 2026, the hunting side always brings in more money than the fish side. So you know, you're yeah, and it it's in a way it's refreshing to not compete. Like, I'm not with somebody who you know, you're comparing your wins and losses on the fish side with the hunting side, which are not equal. Hunting always beats fishing. So I'm I'm just saying, stick do do hunting, man. Like it's trust me.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah. I'm definitely more of a bigger hunter than a fisherman, but I mean, it's something to do in the summertime. I'm not knocking it or just like, oh yeah, it's something to pass the time, but it's like, no, I enjoy doing it in the summertime, it's something that keeps me out, and it's sure. Like I was saying, like I just like how I've built a community of everybody that has their own way of doing things, or has like just I keep saying I just want to cast the broadest net I can in the outdoors industry, period. Yeah, because I know a lot of people have different inputs, different ways of doing things, different ideas, different opinions on things. Sure, sure. So I'm like, just bring it on here, man. We'll we'll talk about it, and uh I I love sharing it with everybody.
SPEAKER_00If you can build a community around what you do, you're winning, trust me. Yeah, I have always said, um, and I I stand by this, it's it's I I believe it. I would rather have 1,000 people listening to me who are part of the community, like we all feel like friends and really engaged, than one million people listening to me, and the vast majority of them aren't really paying that much particular attention. I I find more value in a close-knit community, you know. So if you can achieve that, you'll be okay. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Do you have any good fishing? I mean, I know you probably have a bunch of good fishing stories, but do you have any really good ones that you'd want to share on the show, real quick?
SPEAKER_00About what? Like, what I mean, yeah, dude. My whole world is fishing stories. Like, what kind of angle are you looking for here?
SPEAKER_01Uh, just um as like kind of like maybe learning experiences, funny things that have happened, things that you didn't see before that would you're like, oh, like how you mentioned with the stick baits with the trout to me. I was like, Oh, I never thought of that before.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'm I'm trying to think here. You you would think that that something like that would just sort of roll right off the cuff, but um, you know, I I I I tell I tell fishing stories kind of for a living, and it's funny when you get put on the spot with tell me the a fishing story, it's uh it's it's it's harder than you might think. Yeah, but um, I'm trying to think of something that that that really sticks with me, man. Um let's come back. Can we come back to that? You got another question, Hunter? And we'll we'll come let me let me noodle on that because it's it's just tough because it's like is it is it a catch story? Is it something ridiculous that happened? Is it you know the uh the the the the the uh a fail? I don't it's it's tougher than you might think to just spit one out.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, I know what you mean. Is there anywhere that you haven't gone fishing or any fish that you haven't caught yet that you would like to?
SPEAKER_00Lots of them. Will I go to any of them or catch any of them? I don't know, but lots of them. Um here fun funny story. So my my wedding, which was a lot of years ago at this point, was fish themed. So we had play my wife, god love her, let me design the place cards for each table. So you come to the reception and you'd be like, Oh, we're sitting at the brown trout table. And on the back of the brown trout card, it would say, This is one of Joe's favorite fish, blah, blah, blah. Well, one of them was uh one of the fish at our on our at our wedding was the Timan, Mongolian Tyman, which is the biggest trout species in the entire world. And for so many years of my life, I thought, man, I have got to get to Mongolia and ride a camel to the end of the earth and catch the biggest trout species in the entire world. And would I still love to do that? Absolutely. I would love to go to Russia. That's a little dicey right now, but I'd love to go to Russia and fish the Kamchatka Peninsula for rainbow trout. Yeah, I would love to go fish Goliath tiger fish in Africa. I would love to do Golden Dorado in South America, which is just, I mean, that's relatively simple compared to the other ones I just mentioned. But um, you know, this is just this is just the reality. It's it's an industry thing and it's a life thing, man. I was very blessed to fall into the fishing industry at a time when money was flowing a lot better than it is now. So I mentioned going to the Amazon. Berkeley took me to the Amazon. I mean, Berkeley took about seven writers for a week to the Amazon when I, you know, back in the day. Those kinds of trips just don't happen anymore, man. You know, money has gotten tighter, things are things are very different now. So um it's it's that that doesn't really happen anymore. And I'm my my my goal with my content is to make enough money to pay my mortgage, feed my kids. Am I rolling in it? Shit, no, dude. No, so like me just fronting my own money to go to Mongolia and catch a timing, uh not necessarily in the near future for me. Right and then you also factor in that you know, a lot of those those dreams were my dreams when I was in my 20s and 30s before I had kids. When I was traveling for a week every single month, I would be somewhere to film a hook shots or whatever it may be. So, you know, how many will I will I really achieve? You know, I don't know. I almost feel like in some ways, the older I get, I'm 43 now, my goals have shifted. Where I realize, yeah, that would be really neat to go to Mongolia or go to Christmas Island for GTs or go here or there. But man, there's so much, even if they're not new species, there's so many places that I'd love to experience within our own country that I've never been to. You know, I I And I've never been afraid to fish for oddballs. Like as an example, the last time I was in Alaska, I've been to Alaska a handful of times. Last time I went there, I spent a week up there pike fishing. Now, who the hell goes to Alaska to pike fish? Everybody goes there for steelheads, salmon, halbot, linkot, all these glam species. But I always love that. I always love going to the right place for the wrong thing, you know. So, really, as much as it's it'd be nice to think about going back to South America or going here or there, and you know, more power to the young guys. I have so many industry friends who are younger than me that are in positions where every time I turn around on Instagram, they're here and there, and and that's awesome, man. Do it while you can, because if you have a wife and kids eventually, the shit gets a lot harder. Um, yeah. But yeah, man, I mean, there's there's there's things. Great example, bull trout. I've I've never I've never really caught a bull trout, you know, and there's a handful of places you can do that. There's a lot of regulations on them, so you got to pick your battles and know where to go. I don't need to fly to Mongolia to catch a bull trout, man. I just gotta get off my ass and go do it. But that's right here in the lower 48. That's not that hard. I've just never gotten around to doing it, you know. Little little things like that. Cutthroat and Lake Tahoe, where they stand on the ladders and throw the flies for the cut. I've been saying I'm gonna do that for years. That's way more attainable to my old ass than than riding the camel into northern Mongolia, just calling it like it is, you know. Right.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah, oh yeah, for sure. Do you want to loop back to the uh fetch and stories question?
SPEAKER_00Or yeah, sure, man. So let's see. What I I I it it's it's incredible to me that I struggle with this one so much, but uh it it it it it it it certainly has has put me on the spot. Um because here's what's gonna happen, because it's happened before. I'm gonna pick one and I'm gonna tell it, and then as soon as this is over, I'm gonna go, okay, this one is absolutely a better one. Um, so let's see. All right. So I'll tell you about the most scared I ever was fishing.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00And this was uh very long time ago. Good friends of mine, Kirk Dieter and Tim Romano. Tim is a legendary photographer. Uh Kirk is the editor-in-chief of TU's magazine these days. They invited me out to Colorado and uh to fish the Colorado River. And at the time, this was just when I was getting really big into streamer fishing and uh had never fished the Colorado River before. So I was in much worse shape then physically than I am now. Like I was a uh I was a big boy for most of my life. So we we go out to Colorado and we get to this spot and they say, Look, man, we can't really float this piece. So we're gonna have to kind of hike this canyon up and then we're gonna fish our way back. Like it it kind of sucks, like it's it's it's pretty treacherous, but nobody gets up there. So if if you're willing to do it, it's gonna be some sick fishing when we get there. So I said, okay, well, how bad could it be? Well, it was it was bad enough that I'm like scaling vertical cliffs, like holding on to little shrubs and nubs of shit. So we we finally get to the upper reaches. Now I'm out of shape, I'm exhausted, I'm I'm dead. Like every muscle in my body hurts. So we finally get up to where we're gonna start fishing, and we're gonna start fishing our way out. And uh they're like, ah, you made it, dude. Like now it's gravy, we're just gonna slowly wade our way out and do our thing. We're fishing, I don't think it could have been 10 minutes. And on the other bank, there's this bull moose that is coming down the ravine at 100 miles an hour. I mean, he's just like charging down to the water and he gets all the way to the edge of the water. And I I I shit you not, there's got to be a class four rapid between us and him. I mean, like heavy white water between us. And this moose comes down and puts one hoof in the water, it's like testing the water. Well, Kirk Dieter just leaves, doesn't say anything to anybody, he just starts leaving and heading downstream. Tim Romano's shooting photos of it, and he's going, There's no way that things cross in the river, dude. That's like a class four. There's absolutely no way. Well, the next thing we knew, like it was nothing, this moose is coming at us hard across the Colorado River. Now I'm the fat ass, right? Tim is like, you know, that big and like in really good shape. Dieter's gone. Tim just self-preservation runs past me over all this scree and and and vertical rock faces. And I truly, hunter, I thought I was gonna die. Like I could not breathe, I could not move as fast as them. They blew by me and left me there. And this moose came straight across. And I mean, he was literally right on my ass. I mean, not 30 feet behind me, probably less, 25 feet coming hard. And I'm just like, I don't know what to do. I turn around and punch it. Like, I don't, I don't know what to do. And I turned around, my heart is beating out of my chest, and I looked at it, and for no particular reason, it just stopped running and turned around and walked off like none of that had ever happened. I was the most frightened I ever was while fishing. So there you go.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, those moose are no joke, too. I've been up to uh Maine and New Hampshire a couple times camping, and um we had the bright idea let's go spotlight in one night just to go see what's around at night. And we saw a baby moose, and we were in a suburban, and the belly of the baby moose was like a good foot and a half, two feet above the hood of the suburban. I'm like, holy crap, he's gonna be huge.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I've had more run-ins with moose in my career. I've like, I've I have seen two black bears in the wild, and like they don't bother me, like whatever. I've been to Alaska, Montana. I've never seen a grizz not from afar or up close, thank god. I mean, I've been to some pretty heavy bear country spots on the Russian River and stuff, but um, that's not the that's not the only time that was the worst encounter I ever had with the moose, but they are 100% scarier than bears, man. Like, I have more close encounters with moose than bears.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah. Well, I got one final question for you tonight as we get ready to wrap up. It's my favorite question that I ask all my guests that come on. Okay, it is what is your why that keeps bringing you back for more?
SPEAKER_00What is my why that keeps bringing me back for more fishing? Yeah, okay, it's a good question. At this point, dude, fishing has become my identity, right? Like, I have been fishing my whole life, I've loved it my whole. I have two passions, music or had two passions, music and fishing. So if you talk to me in high school, if you were interviewing me while I was in high school, I would have told you that my dream was to play in like a very successful hardcore punk band. That was a dumb dream, that wasn't going to happen. Luckily, I could always write and I always loved to fish. So it was not until college that I realized like I need to pick a career. I love to write. I'm a journalism major. Why not pursue outdoor journalism? That's that's the thing. So I did that, and I've been so lucky and so blessed to somehow maintain that for 21 years now. That now, dude, like I don't have any other hobbies. Like, I have I've made so much content between podcasting and writing and videos that that fishing is just is just who I am, and for some people, it becomes almost a bane, like they don't even really love it anymore, they just fish because they have this successful YouTube channel or whatever, but they fall out of love with it. Uh, if you if you pay attention to my content, like if I had to say, what is the one overriding message of all of my content for 21 years? It has been don't ever scoff at your own backyard. You know, we all want to go. You asked the question about where do I want to go? Yeah, we all want to go to Mongolia. We all want to go to Golden Dorado, and and we should, you know, travel, see what you can. Life is short. Get out there and experience new fisheries as much as you can. But I have never scoffed at, nor stopped fishing in, nor fallen out of love with my own backyard. I fish the same shit pickerel ponds now that I did when I was 10 years old. Dude, there's other than the Delaware River, there's not a lot of exactly world-class freshwater fishing where I live. These lakes around here, they're nothing. If anything, they're worse than they used to be because there's more people fishing them than there ever was. But I still go. And I always say that once you fall in love with fishing in your own backyard, you know, that's that's when you know maybe it's time to hang it up. And I can I can tell you, I I truly have not. Like I just genuinely love fishing, and you will make your own challenges, you know. So maybe the pickerel pond or this lake, it's not the greatest thing in the world, but maybe I'll go there and only throw a glide bait for an entire season because I don't care if I scratch, but I want to see, is there still a six-pounder in here? Six-pound bass? Is there still a 28-inch pickerel in here? I don't know. Um, I I I I crave it, and fishing is like air, dude. This winter was terrible. Talk to my wife. It gets to a point where it's it's like an injection of oxygen, man. You go too long without it, you know, and it doesn't have to be anything special, it could be something down the street. But um, I know a lot of people in this industry who have have gotten to a point where, yeah, they'll travel, they'll go to Mongolia, they'll go to South America, but they don't have time for the lake or the pond or the puddle or the canal or the creek or whatever in their own backyard. And uh, I'm not with that, man. I've always I you know, if all you have in your backyard is decent carp fishing, figure them out, you know. Learn to fly fish for them, learn how to bait them, do the euro method, whatever. You take what you have and you you tailor it to you and you make it a challenge. You know, all you got is big red horse suckers, figure them out, you know. So I I've always felt that way, and I I I I live by that, man. Like I tomorrow morning I'm gonna get up at six o'clock and I'm gonna go fish a lake that I have been fishing since I was nine years old, you know, and look forward to it just as much tomorrow morning as I did when I was nine, you know. So um I don't know, man. What keeps me coming back? It's like if I if I quit all this and just then what now what? I like I fishing is synonymous with me, you know. My my whole professional life and and and adult life has been tied to fishing. So I I hope I hope I can keep it that way, you know. Oh, yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_01Any final thoughts, shout outs you want to give before we head out of here?
SPEAKER_00No, man, no particular shout-outs. Um, I will say though, we should get together. I Delaware, I have never wet a line in the state of Delaware. Really? I know it's tiny. I've been to so many states, I have never once wet a line in Delaware. So maybe this year we need to change that.
SPEAKER_01I was gonna say we definitely need to change that this year. We can get you gotta get you down here.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, I'm totally down to do it, man.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, for sure, man.
SPEAKER_00Well, I was just gonna say, I usually I usually end by saying, Well, since we're so close, just hop over the bridge and come on down, but yeah, or or dude, or or like you haven't caught a snakehead yet. I can help with that. You want to come up and just and you want to hop up and just cross the bridge, you don't have to go very far over it, and we'll get into some snakeheads.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, for sure. I'll let you know. Yeah, but uh thanks again, Jay. I appreciate the time tonight. I appreciate all the stories and fun we had, and thank you all again for tuning in to another episode of the Blue Hen Outdoors Podcast.
SPEAKER_00Appreciate it so much, Hunter. Take care, man.