About
Welcome to my journey! I am Matthew Supinski. I’m insanely passionate about fly fishing for Trout/Atlantic Salmon/Steelhead. I am also on a journey to understand their behavior, ecology and habitat of their rivers and lakes in order to become a better fly angler, fly tyer, and hunter of these fish we love. I am a fly fishing ghillie and instructor, author, podcast host, free-lance writer and photographer, innovative fly tier, lecturer, culinary trained chef and consultant.
Since the age of five I have been mesmerized by rivers and their flowing hallowed waters where Trout, Steelhead, and Atlantic salmon call their home. I have written 6 books about them and have penned several hundred magazine articles in all the major publications dedicated to these amazing sporting creatures of natural perfection. My Hallowed Waters, which I started during the pandemic, was about having freedom of expression and sharing a passion and soulful journey with others, without hopefully the vanity and commercialism we too often see and unfortunately bring to a reflective, spiritual and quiet personal journey that fly fishing is.
My writings and podcasts are a cerebral journey on how we look at the fish and waters as being the sacred foundation for our tactical passion and technical, thinking angler’s spirit for fly fishing. As fly fishers who love these cold-water species, we at Hallowed Waters must be concerned with climate change, which will continue to create upheavals in the biodynamic stability of the evolutionary established ecosystems and diurnal cycles of the rivers and fish. Our increasing global human populations place usage pressure and greed issues that relentlessly skyrocket and impact all waters. Along with civilization’s urban sprawl development and technology encroachments into all things wild, we are at the tipping point of no return if we don’t act now to preserve. Thus, we must value the fish and waters as being our “canaries in a coal mine” for all living things on earth. Hence, we can never worship these waters and fish enough, and insist that our natural resources managers give them the utmost protection and conservation laws each river and species need.
My fascination with the scientific and empirical process of fly fishing, combined with its artistic value and creativity to become a passionate predator and hunter of these fish, is what I try to bring to the Hallowed Waters experience. My book writings such as my “Steelhead Dreams “ “Selectivity – The Theory and Method for Fly Fishing Fussy Trout Salmon and Steelhead“ and my: “The Brown Trout-Atlantic Salmon Nexus” books amongst others; along with my in-depth Hallowed Waters Podcasts, have always had a very analytical and inquisitive perspective in the true Marinaro/ Skues/ Wulff tradition, which I in reverence to these mentors, try to uphold.
The passion and emotion still stirs in me and has never slipped away- it only gets more refined and deeper over the years. It was instilled at a very young age when catching my first brown and brook trout in the Allegany foothills, and mountain range of New York’s Southern Tier. The big salmonid passion started when I landed my first steelhead on a Lake Erie tributary, and our home waters of the Niagara River. Later living in Europe, I caught my first Atlantic salmon off a Baltic river as a nine-year-old boy, on a river that ran through our family’s farm with my uncle’s Hardy Bamboo spey rod. Since then I have been obsessed with all these magnificent creatures. Therefore, what we publish and write about is the powerful emotional love of fly fishing as it used to be –and most importantly meant to be.
Books and writings are a big part of Hallowed Waters. I have been fascinated by fly fishing books since my youth. I spent hours at the library studying books like “Selective Trout” by Swisher and Richards, “The Modern Dry Fly Code” by Vince Marinaro, and early books on steelhead by McMillan and Combs. Later in life, my mentors and influencers further fueled my passion. The Salmo salar addiction was further enhanced by the book “Atlantic Salmon”, by Lee Wulff. Wulff and Art Lee, both residents of the Catskills, were persons whom I have had the honor and pleasure of being mentored by with my many conversations with them up in the Catskills at our family’s summer home.
My addiction to spring creeks really blossomed when I was in my 20’s in the hotel business in Washington D.C. On the limestone spring creeks of the Cumberland Valley in Pennsylvania, I had the pleasure to fish several times with the late great Vincent Marinaro, who was introduced to me by another iconic author: Datus Proper. Ed Shenk became a very good friend, since the time we met on his beloved Letort Spring Run. And later, we shared our passion for Atlantic salmon in Quebec. Another person I met back then was the famous editor and author: Nick Lyons. He was a huge mentor for me, and really taught me how to develop a writing style. He also got my first article published in Fly Fisherman Magazine, where I was a regional editor for 25 years.
Later, when moving to Michigan to manage a hotel, Carl Richards and Dick Pobst; both masters of the hatch matching game, were my fishing partners on my home waters of the Muskegon River, as we chased the caddis hatches-here they authored ground-breaking books on the subject. One person I really admired and was influenced by was Ernest Schiewbert, who traveled the world and wrote such iconic books as “Matching the Hatch” and “Nymphs”. I was much honored when Tom Rosenbauer, in his wonderful introduction he did for my “The Brown Trout-Atlantic Salmon Nexus” book, compared my writings to Schiewbert-truly humbling.
With all these amazing influencers and mentors in my lifetime, I can only hope to give back and mentor the same, and share knowledge with like minded passionate fly anglers. I hope to educate the generations to follow, and those new to the game today that are looking to grasp the soulful, empirical journey that fly fishing for trout and salmon brings to us. Our goal is to bring you annual hard cover chronicled books with new contemporary writings, along with anthology writings that I have written, in conjunction with the many Hallowed Waters iconic contributors.
Cheers!- Peace, Matthew Supinski