Tell Joe Cermele that there’s something fishy about his writing and he’ll respond with a fish-eating grin.
“I’m very used to dopey fish puns and sayings,” says the longtime Field & Stream and Outdoor Living writer.
Now, after literally fishing for stories around the globe, the Trenton-born writer is launching a new regionally produced podcast on all things angling, “Cut & Retie.”
And while he is ready to slip behind the mic to share wit and wisdom, the 39-year-old former producer/host of Field & Stream’s “Hook Shots” video series wants to make something certain: “At my core, I’m a writer,” he says on a recent morning in his fish-decorated Morrisville, Pennsylvania, studio. “That’s how I got started: straight print journalism. But if you look at how media has changed, you have to be a song and dance man to make it. It is hard to be just a writer, a video creator, or podcast host.”
In Cermele’s case, his song is one about a love affair with fishing.
It starts in Trenton’s Hiltonia section, where he was raised and attended Incarnation elementary school, followed by Notre Dame High School and Rider College (now university).
“Fishing was front and center on both sides of my family,” says the son of a New Jersey Department of Corrections administrator. “My dad’s dad had a boat and fished all over the area.
“My mom’s parents owned Brunswick Sport and Hardware (on Brunswick Avenue in Trenton). My mom (a medical office administrator) spent most of her childhood living over a bait and tackle shop. She would diligently take me fishing. It was very much in the family.”
But other loves get worked in, too.
“Writing was something I naturally loved. You’re either a math or creative person. I always loved creative writing. I gravitated to that in school. I always got a poem in the magazine and failed the math class.
“I also grew up playing in bands — punk hard-core music. I grew up playing in three bands. My loves were fishing and music. I wanted to follow the music field and run a recording studio. (But) I found out (recording companies) didn’t wanted punk rock kids jamming up the place. I switched gears and thought I’d like to write.”
As a Rider student, Cermele says he was originally interested in following a multimedia track, but he switched to a writing program where he “could see myself writing about fishing and that could lead to travel.”
He says with the support of Rider professor Rich Turner, “I could do an independent study on competing outdoor publications. That led to meeting people at New Jersey Angler magazine, and I reached out to them regarding an internship.”
However, he says at the time the publishers were not used to getting interest from 21-year-old writers and ignored him.
The doors opened when Turner called the magazine office and guided the publishers in how to create an intern program.
“I got all sides of the business,” Cermele says of the experience. “I’d drive across the state for a bass weigh in and go to flea markets and sell magazines. Then they said, “If you have a fishing story idea, go for it.”
A series of articles followed that helped him prepare for a lucky break.
Cermele says while working another job at the now gone Triangle Arts in Lawrenceville, he mentioned his fishing interest and article to a customer who happened to be the wife of Pennington-based author and editorial director of the Outdoor Magazine Group, Lamar Underwood.
After they were introduced, Underwood informed the young writer that Saltwater Sportsman magazine was moving from Boston to New York City and guided Cermele to an internship and career with a publisher whose imprints also included Field & Stream and Outdoor Living.
“They hired me full-time after graduation,” says Cermele, who saw his first national magazine story appear six months later.
About those early days, Cermele says, “I knew nothing. I had limited experience. But back then there was enough money in publishing and (publishers) would take chances. They were willing to train me.”
They also baited him with challenges, such as sending him on low-budget fishing expeditions: $150 to fish along the Florida Keys; $200 per day in Montana; and $3,000 total for Alaska. The effort earned him the moniker “the budget guy.”
In addition to keeping his eye on a budget, Cermele also began using another eye to launch a new Field & Stream online venture, “Hook Shots.”
The solo-produced and written video series featured Cermele on various fishing expeditions with locals around the nation.
Samples scanning the show’s 11-year run are available where Cermele will tell you he’s “freezing his ass off in Pulaski, New York, for some steelhead (trout),” joining a handful of Minnesotans proving how ridiculous it is to fly fish for muskies, or heading to Cape May, New Jersey, when “a young man’s thoughts turn to catching black drum fish.”
He says the success of the series came down to a few simple factors: He knew how to operate a camera and work cheap.
That combo gave the publication have a fresh online presence as well as helped the writer/host in some unexpected ways.
One was to discover a way to lure viewers away from the formulaic fishing television shows that “started on the boat, catching the fish, and then ending on the boat.”
Instead, he says, “I wanted to showcase the fishing from start to end and show whatever happened. Plenty of people are doing that now, but in 2008 that wasn’t the case.”
Then there was something more important.
“One the hardest things is to have a voice down,” he says about both writing and speaking on camera. “I think my voice was found when I started doing a video.”
“I wasn’t creating a persona and was talking like I talk. It was like the music I liked to listen to. It had the attitude of ‘Take it or leave it.’ When ‘Hook Shots’ started and people were digging that voice, it bled into my writing.”
That voice will also be heard in the weekly podcast premiering late in October, “Cut & Retie.”
He says the name is connected to the fishing slang for changing a lure. “You cut and retie because you’re snagged. It’s a term ubiquitous to all anglers.”
It also fits him adjusting to media changes.
During the time Field & Stream began going completely online, Cermele moved to the outdoor lifestyle company MeatEater and retied his video show into a podcast that included longer interviews and community engagement.
After Field & Stream lured him back, he grew weary of the online click rating system and reworked his arrangement to provide several segments per month while he tests the waters with his new venture.
He says while he doesn’t want to “pigeonhole” himself with the format, he’s found “an hour to an hour and a half is the sweet spot. It’s fishing program, it’s hard to talk about fishing for an hour. I guess that is the punk music mentality: Hit me with a song and get out of here.”
Looking to release the programs on Friday mornings on Spotify, Google Play, and other platforms, he says, “We’ll go anywhere with this and keep it mixed up. I know people all over the world.”
And while he says others talk about getting celebrities to boost ratings, he disagrees. “A good conversation is what matters. I intend to have some local people on. I love to engage listeners. I’ll go out and fish with a listener. It’s tied to a community.”
It is also tied to what hooked him in the first place.
“It’s similar to music,” he says about the allure of casting a line with bait on the water. “You’ll never know everything.
“There is something to learn about out of every fishing trip. And there is an addiction to that gathering of knowledge.
“In the simplest terms, it’s learning what you need to fool fish, making a wild brown trout eat a dry fly.
“But it is also the camaraderie. I love the community aspect of the fishing. I love fishermen. I love people. I love learning from fishermen. That’s what my career’s about.”
“Cut & Retie” premieres on October 28 and can be located on general podcast platforms. He can also be followed on Instagram at @joe.cermele138. See the below story for Cermele’s catches from the Delaware River.
