S3, Ep 102: Matt Supinski of Hallowed Waters Journal

Marvin Cash: Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of The Articulate Fly. On this episode, guide and outdoor writer Matt Supinski returns to the show. Matt updates us on his fishing adventures in Michigan and shares his newest endeavor, Hallowed Waters Journal. I think you're really going to enjoy this one, but before we get to the interview, just a couple of housekeeping items.

If you like the podcast, please tell a friend. And please subscribe and leave us a rating and review on the podcatcher of your choice. It really helps us out. And a shout out to this episode's sponsor. This episode's sponsored by our friends at Nor-vise. Their motto is tie better flies faster, and they produce the only vise that truly spins. If you tie articulated patterns, you owe it to yourself to check out their new shank Jaws. Their first production run sold out in minutes. But Tim and Tyler have reloaded to check out the new Jaws and Nor-vise's other great products. Head over to www.nor-vise.com today. Now onto the interview.

Well, Matt, welcome back to The Articulate Fly.

Matt Supinski: Thanks for having me, Marvin. It's always good to talk to my good southern brother.

Marvin Cash: There you go. And you know, just curious, been talking to folks. How's your 2021 guide season treating you?

Matt Supinski: It's treating me always good. You know, I'm doing the magazine right now, Hallowed Waters. So my guiding is, you know, I'm so busy, over busy, so I'm trying to do two, three jobs at one time. And so yeah, it's really nice because a lot of my clients now are clients that I've had for a long time because I've been guiding for a while and so couldn't be busier and couldn't be happier.

Marvin Cash: Well, there you go. And of course, you know, in the fly fishing world, summers are always challenging, but it seems like this year we got less water and warmer temperatures. You know, what are you seeing up in Michigan?

Matt Supinski: Yeah, so we went from the worst drought in probably 150 years, I guess. Record keeping drought, if they say. And then like last week, Noah showed up and he gave me a signal to start building an ark. And it started raining and I knew it. Like, we just go from extremes. Typical climate change weather. You know, we go from droughts to floods, floods to droughts, heat waves to cold waves.

So yeah, I mean, it's just like tonight we're gonna go down to 50 degrees. A couple days ago was 92 degrees. So there is no normal. And what's really interesting today is, you know, everybody goes, well, what is it like normally in July? Dude, there is no more normal. So just FYI, there isn't any more normal. So if anybody calls me one more time and asks me about normal, I'll tell them I'm not normal. So how the hell could the weather be normal, you know?

So yeah, it's kind of tough. It's gonna be kind of a big curveball for a lot of outfitters, I think. You know, I know out west the heat is devastating those people out there. I know that they've had tons of droughts in Montana and all over. It's going to be a whole new era and it's not going to be the same era that we're used to. So we better start embracing climate change and we better start. I know climate change is a dirty word down where you're from, but it's true.

And I used to be one of those guys that doubted climate change. Now you can call me a tree hugger or whatever, you know, whale saver. But when you work outside 365 days a year and then fish outside and see the changes that I've seen in the last 10 years, it's pretty amazing. And there's just no political plant. So it's pretty crazy. And there's no more normal.

We're seeing a lot of fluctuations, especially our migratory fish. Our run timing is all over the place. So, you know, the migratories are going to probably be hit the hardest because, you know, they're so temperature dependent and diurnal time periods of sunlight, pineal gland development, sperm development in the bodies. Everything is going to be really interesting. And when you're seeing droughts in Iceland, you're seeing heat waves in Iceland and Scotland. And the volatility is just absolutely crazy.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, I would imagine too, that really cool weather really complicates these hatches that you're so famous for in the upper Midwest.

Matt Supinski: Yeah. So what's really crazy is that we lost this river inside. Been guiding on it for 27 years. We've had the strongest Gray Drake hatch. I named my operation for it. The Gray Drake is a six lunar, it's mayfly, about a size 10. And it's like, sort of like a Brown Drake, Green Drake, very similar to it, and it's this area, the Pearmarkets of White River, Spring Creek, the Muskegon, the Rogue, has probably the heaviest Gray Drake hatch probably in the world, to be honest with you.

I talked to a couple entomologists and the only other places that have that, that deep are specific are like the Baltic states along the Baltic Sea. The rivers there, Norwegian, Swedish rivers, they like wooded areas. A lot of moisture in the soil, a lot of trees and sandy structure on the bank.

So this year we, last year we had probably the most incredible, massive Gray Drake hatches that lasted for four weeks. So if you've ever seen the Green Drake hatch, like on Penn's Creek, at Pope Hattie for instance, you take that, time about a thousand, and that's what we have with the Gray Drakes. And they're consistent every night for, every night and morning for, for four weeks, five weeks, almost to the point where the water turns to sawdust. And you just can't fish for like weeks on end because it's just too many mayfly.

This year we lost them completely. So I didn't even see one Gray Drake this whole year. Not even one. Where normally our whole lodge is covered with them. There was not one. Because what happened, the drought was so specific. I wrote a blog in my Hallowed Waters page, the magazine journal page. I have a blog called the Ebb and Flow, which pretty much sums up what the weather's been doing to us.

But so the bank dried up completely 10, 15 feet out from the bank. And the Gray Drake Ciplonaurus nymphs migrate towards the bank two, three months before they hatch. And they migrated at normal time. And then the river dried up and it killed all the nymphs. So there was no hatch whatsoever. Like just mini steel, like in small pockets.

So this is what's going on now. I mean it's like, you know, I heard reports in the Delaware the hatches were absolutely disgusting. They were terrible. A lot of what we've had built up for 100, 200, 300, 400, 500 years of millennia are going to be changing. And it is what it is. So it's going to be adjustment and trying to protect wild trout as much as we can, wild salmon and steelhead, and gonna be a battle going forward.

Marvin Cash: Yeah. And that's even before we talk about, you know, how Covid impacted your operations at Gray Drake Lodge.

Matt Supinski: Yeah, well, same thing we were shut down by law for, like, over two to three months. And then, you know, Covid hasn't gone away. I mean, this new delta variant is there. And so, yeah, I mean, I don't know what's gonna happen this winter. We're gonna go back to the dark plague days again. And it's crazy. So, yeah, between that climate change, I keep looking at my shotgun case every day, and it's looking more tempting, but thank God Jesus got my back, so brother, I'm okay.

Marvin Cash: Well, there you go. And, you know, one of the things, because I know you were shut down, and I know you're still refitting your lodge now, and so when folks come to fish with you, they can't stay with you. But one of the things you did kind of in your Covid downtime was you launched Hallowed Waters Journal and was really curious about, you know, where did you get the idea for the magazine?

Matt Supinski: So I've been a magazine junkie probably since I was oh, God, 11, 12 years old. When I used to bag groceries, I used to find. I used to go to paper drive, so going to a Catholic school. You always had paper drive. And there was always a guy that pulled up with a big, you know, that you targeted your clients when they pulled up. By all, that guy has a lot of Playboy and Hustler magazine. That guy has a lot of shooting magazines. That guy has a lot of fishing magazines.

So there was one guy that always pulled up and he always had boxes of fishing magazines. And I used to target him, and most of were like, Field and Stream and Outdoor Life. It's for the Spanish. But then he had, like, old issues back to, like, the 70s of Fly Fisherman magazine. And I grew up reading those magazines, and they were like, you know, those are my bibles.

And when I got my first article published back in when was it? '88, I think in Fly Fisherman about. It was called Big Limestone Trout. I met a guy named Nick Lyons. I'm sure people have heard of his name. And he had a company, Lyons Press, which published all the major books on the market. And I met him at a trade show. I was actually I was the food and beverage director at the Sheraton Washington hotel in Washington, D.C. and he was there for a book convention.

And I was writing this article, like, forever and ever and ever because I was infatuated with writing, and I already got published right out of college in National Geographic magazine, believe it or not. I had a little small essay in there, and I had an act for writing. I really enjoyed it.

And I had this article that I wanted to get published in a flight so I could be a, quote, celebrity fly fisherman. And I met him at the show, and I saw that he had a big suite up in the towers of the hotel. And I came up to his room with a tray, room service cart with white linen and flowers and Dom Perignon and shrimp and lobster and crab on the shell and on the ice and all kinds of smoked salmon and caviar. And of course, I could get whatever I want out of the kitchen, being a food and beverage director.

And knocked on his door, And I said, Mr. Lyons, this is on behalf of the hotel. Welcome to the hotel. He's like, wait, wait, wait, what's going on here? I said, oh, by the way, I just happen to have this manuscript in my pants here in my back pocket. Can you take a look at it, please, and give me some advice? I'd love to get it published.

So he was so kind, and he sort of took me under his belt, and he edited this thing so much. And this is before the days of the computer and, you know, all that stuff and document. And he sent it back to me the first time, and it looked like somebody just murdered a chicken. And there was just blood all over it from all his red ink. And I was like, oh, my God, should I shoot myself now?

And but he said, you got enough here for a book and at least four or five articles. So we whittled it down. He submitted it to John Randolph. Then it's like Fly Fisherman. And I got my first check in the mail for what was it back then? 400 bucks back then. It was like, whoa, man, $400. And I got published a couple issues later.

And then he said, you're gonna be a great writer and just keep doing it because you like it. And I just kept getting doing it. So, bottom line, a long story short, those magazines had so much character, so much content, so much passion, so much heart and soul back then.

And I don't know if you've noticed, but the last 10 years, they've gotten very limp. I mean, the content is kind of limp, and everything's kind of, you know, sterile and commercialized and watered down. And so me being the romantic Don Quixote, the nostalgic guy, I launched a magazine that sort of reminded me those old issues in the 70s and 80s and 90s.

And, you know, frankly, a lot of people just don't subscribe to magazines anymore. I mean, I could, you know, I've written. I think I've last time I written 289 magazine articles for all the major magazines, fly fishing magazines and other magazines. Outdoor Life and Field and Stream. And even up until the last couple years, I'd write a big article or get a picture on a cover or something. I, you know, have something like that. And I say to people, I say, did you see my article? And they're like, no, I don't subscribe to that magazine anymore. That magazine's really gone downhill so bad. I don't even market anymore.

And I'm not naming any names because, I mean, it's just a general tendency across the board in the industry because the print costs so much money. And for these guys to make any money off print, you've got to have tons of advertisements. You got to keep content down to a minimum. You have to keep your pages down to a minimum. So magazines that were once 150, 180 pages are now 50, 60, 70 pages max. 90% of the content is advertising.

So it's kind of disheartening. I said, I'm going to launch a magazine that's going to have a whole experience in depth, technical, artistic, science, history, art, lore, every art form of fly fishing, but totally focused it on my three loves, trout, salmon and steelhead. And all over the world. My following all over the world is crazy right now. I mean, Europe and all over the place is really embracing Hallowed Waters in a big way.

And oh, yeah, we've had three issues. Our fourth issue comes out this fall. But the reception has been over the moon. I got a tremendous review in Trout magazine by good guy Kurt Dieter, who's a wonderful man and passionate brown trout fisherman. And so, yeah, it's good. It's really something I love to do. I really love to write.

Some people write to get published and to be to book trips and to do things of that nature and be a celebrity. I do it because I just sincerely wake up every day and love to write 3,000 words. And that's why I blog. I started a podcast. I don't know if you listen to it. But yeah, that's what I love to do. And if you love what you're doing. You'll never work a day in your life.

Marvin Cash: There you go. And so where did the name for the journal come from?

Matt Supinski: You know, I just took something. I'm a big nostalgic guy and to me, every river sacred. Every river is hallowed, every stream is precious. And my magazine is all about the fish and it's all about the waters. And the fly fishing art form is just, just sort of a means, you know, the end is the fish and the water and the beauty of it. And that's what I'm trying to capture. I'm trying to capture beautiful photography. Very, very in depth prose and, you know, all that introspective analysis.

Not only the technical part of fly fishing, the beauty of these flies in the art form, but everything else that goes with it. And even wild foraging for wild mushrooms and cooking and other. One of my passions. And so, you know, I think that if you love that spectrum of it and worship every fish and don't treat them like another tick or take number and I think you'll. Whether you're fishing this stream in downtown Detroit, or you're fishing a stream in the Kola Peninsula off of the Arctic Circle or in Iceland, you know, they're hallowed water because they have a trout in it. And if the trout is just swimming in it, it's a damn hallowed water.

And I just published a blog about the poor Czech Republic. Brown trout are addicted to crystal methamphetamines. I don't know if you've seen it, but yeah, and these streams that, you know, the streams that run right through cities like the Bow River in Calgary, like a lot of these rivers that run right through Georgia. I mean, all the stuff that we're pumping into our daily refuse of sanitation disposal toilets, eventually get to the water and they found out that, you know, that has influence on the way the fish swim, etc.

So the bottom line is if we respect the water, if we respect the fish will have longevity in fly fishing forever, I think.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, very interesting. And you know, kind of doing the research for this interview, you know, my understanding is that Hallowed Waters Journal is rooted really in your relationships with your writing and fishing mentors. And you mentioned the relationship you developed with Nick Lyons. But who are some of the other folks that mentored you with your writing or your fishing?

Matt Supinski: Yeah, so I was really, really fortunate. And it was just like, probably my uncle in Poland was my biggest mentor. When I lived on the farm between the ages of 8 and 11 years old, on a farm off the Baltic Sea in Poland. And we had a beautiful cross stream that ran through it called the Vipsa River. And it was like a spring creek river style that had wild brown trout. And then it had runs of he run browns and Atlantic salmon, which were kind of becoming endangered and think at that point because of the communist rule at that point.

But he was a big mentor because he was a purist, I'd say. He was gay Morton. And he had German and Czechoslovakian shotguns, which were like the creme de la creme at that time. He did a lot of hunting. He had German shorthairs, but he also had Hardy bamboo rods and a Hardy Spey rod. And all his flies were Hardy Wheatley, you know. Right. A cut out of that tradition.

So the first patterns I really learned a lot were the Iron Blues and the Pale Wateries and the Queen of Waters and, you know, all those old traditional English patterns. So he was a big mentor to me because I lived, working on a farm. I lived to go fishing on the river that ran through our farm.

And then when I when I started to get into the hotel industry, I was living in Washington D.C. and I fished Pennsylvania every weekend. She's for probably 10 years, 11 years. And people that mentored me big time. Where I ran into a guy named Vince Marinaro, wrote In the Ring of the Rise and A Modern Dry Fly Code. And I met him one day on the retort. He's a really curmudgeonly grumpy guy. Just hated me and hated everybody. Sounds like me some days, but I'm praying to not do that.

And by the way, you know, and he was just like he just really didn't want me around. But I thought, you know, the best way to get somebody in somebody's pocket, as they say, or in other ways. Other way of putting it, when men and women have a relationship. But well, I don't know. But anyways, bottom line is, I want to get in his pants in his pockets, to be his little guy in his pocket. There's a whole thing in the hotel industry, the man in the pocket. You always have to have a man in the pocket.

And I said, you know, you've got to have a weak spot. And so I found out he had a weak spot. He loves Italian wine. Italian guy. He loved smoked salmon. And so I brought him some $300, $400 bottle of wine and some Scottish smoked salmon for no doubt. And I sort of like, like baited him. I was baiting him and like, wow, where'd you get that? I'm like, it's all yours if you could be nice to me and show me what you're doing.

And so I sort of bought my mentorship with him because he didn't like anybody. And then he like invited me to his place and showed me his jackets and his bamboo rod making. And then all of a sudden, you know, he's like the nicest guy on the planet, you know. And then the poor guy died from cancer and it was kind of tough, but.

And then Ed Shenk, the great Ed Shenk, I met him so many times at Yellow Breeches and the Allenberry and Bonnie Strand, Bonnie Brook, wrote on the court and got to know each other over the years. I fished with him in Quebec for Atlantic salmon. And he's just the nicest guy on the planet. He did so many nice compliments to my selectivity book and my Nexus book and instead passed away just recently in the last couple years.

And so, you know, those were big, big influences in my life. And then when I moved to Michigan, when I did my last hotel in, the guy that was fishing the river that I settled on was a famous guy named Carl Richards, who wrote Selective Trout with Swisher and Richard. And you know, we got to fish the river, but we got to fish the caddis hatches. He was in the book, in the process of writing Super Caddis Hatches and his other caddis work, and we're inventing a lot of the ground zero caddis fern. So I talk a lot about caddis in Hallowed Waters magazine.

And you know, there was a lot of fundamental groundwork, you know, stuff that was going on there. So with him. And then, you know, I got to know Ernie Schwiebert quite a bit and then found out that Carl Richards went to Ohio State and Ernie Schwiebert went to Ohio State and went to Iowa State. And it was kind of a cool, you know, I shouldn't say that very long because I'm in Michigan, so I gotta watch my car windows saying stuff like that. But so, yeah, it.

I had these great mentors and then we had a summer home in the Catskills. So I got to meet Lee Wulff and I got to fish with Art Lee, who are my two Atlantic salmon gurus. Oh yeah. I mean life is nothing but a journey of mentorship and being grateful for people that have showed you the way.

Marvin Cash: I mean, that's a really special set of folks you've talked about. I mean it's really kind of from, you know, that period in time, kind of the who's who in fly fishing. Do you think younger anglers have this similar type of mentorship opportunities today?

Matt Supinski: I don't think so. Because basically their mentorship is YouTube and a lot of things where it's such a technology driven era, that we live in. So their mentorship is that guy right on that big screen and, and that person like, and there's so many great YouTube guys out there, which is sort of similar mentorship, to be honest with you. I mean they're going to watch, you know, Dave Jensen's YouTubes and Kelly Galloup's YouTubes and all these great YouTubes out there and Todd Moen and, and that's just cool stuff.

And I think it makes mentoring a lot easier. There's not a personal relationship really there, but mentoring comes in a lot of different forms and fashions and there's nothing wrong with that. It just allows mentorship to be more broad range. Whereas in my situation it was just running into them just because of geographical circumstance.

But it's, I can't emphasize enough for younger generation to read, read, read, read as much as you can. There's so many great blogs out there today. There's so many great online publications. Reading is the heart and soul of the art form. Not really a sport. I think sometimes we treat our tri fly fishing as another one of these action sports. It's like mountain climbing or biking or let's just grab a fly rod and whack it around the air.

I just watched what? Gordon Ramsay's Uncharted. Have you seen that yet, Marvin, on National Geographic Wild?

Marvin Cash: I have not yet.

Matt Supinski: Oh, it's a great series. I like Gordon Ramsay. I like cooking shows. And he came out when I worshiped Anthony Bourdain, by the way. Anthony Bourdain was. I watched him every episode, probably 10 times. He was crazy. He was cocky, was aloof. He was fun. All his, no reservations. And all his stuff that he did was the creme de la creme. The poor guy. When he committed suicide, I was devastated.

And I think Gordon found that niche and he took it to the next level and he's got incredible cinematography. And he's now going to, like, I just walked. Oh, and by the way, I just saw him last week, last Sunday. He was in Asheville, North Carolina, and he just did one. You got to go to National Geographic Wild and see his episode that he did in North Carolina. My God, that was the most beautiful photography of wild Smoky Mountain rivers that he was on. It was called the Great Smoky Mountains.

And he met up with all these steps, and he did foraging for wild mushrooms. He did crawfish fishing. He did trout fishing, I think probably looked like the Davidson River or somewhere. So what he's doing, he's going into these wild places and he's cooking outside. And he did all this recorded over Covid so. Because everything was done outside. So he he did whitewater rafting. He did, you know, all kinds of snorkeling for crawfish. It was just, like, really cool.

But that kind of stuff inspired me. I don't even know what I was talking about here. What was I talking about? I got carried away here.

Marvin Cash: We were talking about mentoring.

Matt Supinski: Mentoring. Yeah. Yeah. So here we go. So here's a guy like that that has the ability, and he took what Anthony Bourdain, who was a great mentor, you know, of so many people, and now he's taking it to the next level. And so, yeah, these are all mentoring. But, you know, to have personal mentorship is so rare today. And if you do find it, if you find it from your Trout Unlimited club, your Federation Club, your fly fishing museum, whatever, grab onto it and nurture it if you can for your young ones, because it's so important.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, shifting gears a little bit to kind of talk a little bit more about the magazine. Tell us a little bit about the format for Hallowed Waters Journal.

Matt Supinski: Yeah, so, you know, still a mom and pop magazine. You know, I edited and published it. My wife is a design editor and lays it out. Lori. She does a fantastic job. In one year, we've really taken that magazine up and knocked it up. And I think a lot of it's because I had so much exposure to magazines over the years, being departmental editors and regional editors and things like that.

But so the format is basically, you know, my topic is trout, salmon and steelhead, the passion and the journey. And we try to stick on a seasonal level. The winter issue was packed with winter stuff, but basically, like, four main features that touch on trout, salmon, steelhead.

The spring issue was a 265 page mega issue because it was a spring summer issue and it was about mayfly. It was devotion to mayfly. Let's face it, when we started fly fishing, it's about matching a fly that's on the water. You see a trout or smallmouth or whatever come up and grab your fly or bluegill. And that was the art form that started in 1490 with Don Juliana and back to England.

So I tried to say, you know, I try to have four big main features and, and Christ, we got a little carried away. You're not going to see as much content because I think I'd be dead if I had to do what I had to do for the spring issue. But, you know, some of our pieces were 25,000 words, so they were like a book in themselves.

But I have four main major pieces trying to center on what's going to be happening for that season in both trout and salmon world and the migratory world. And then I have 12 individual departmental columns from the rice farms to tasting toyer 7tail nymphing, which is about nymphing. And I do everything from Euro nymphing, traditional European nymphing, to English nymphing.

And then I have a streamer meat locker piece. I have a ecology piece about the science. I interview biologists and scientists. I have an archival historian. I use, you know, museums and guys in the Catskills that research old, you know, the foundation of American fly fishing. I have pieces on the art of the fly. I have pieces on arts and books, artists. I just featured A.D. Maddox in the last issue. She has a beautiful art gallery just opened up in Livingston, Montana.

And you know, gear, I have the fedora flea flicker gear section. I'm gonna be doing a Spey review. I just did a feature on Spinoza Rod Building Company, a bamboo rod building company out of New England. So yeah, it's very diverse play.

And I have the Epicurean Forager, which is my culinary section where I feature my recipes, in there and bring issue is the devotion to Atlantic salmon and some salmon issues, recipes and yeah, promoting sustainable, smart aquaculture. Smart, eco friendly aquaculture.

So yeah, we're trying to make a lot of statements and it's nice because when you get the magazine, there's something in there for you. If you're just a dirty nympher or you're just a pure dry fly guy, or you just a pure spade eye, or you're just a pure streamer meat guy, there's always going to be something in there for you. And whereas a lot of magazines, if you don't like these three or four destinations, then you know, you're shit out of luck.

And so I'm trying to keep it your backyard focused because Covid said, hey, let's dish our backyard because we ain't going to be hopping on a plane anywhere soon. So I'm trying to keep it backyard focused. But then I have a lot of, you know, European, South American, Canadian, a lot of Canadian influence. I did live in Canada for a while as a little boy. So I lived in United States, Canada and Poland before the time I was 12 years old. So I had a lot of international exposure before everything.

But yeah, it's a pretty cool gig. The podcast is gonna be a hoot, that we. I just recorded the first episode with Tommy Lynch, the famous mousing streamer guy, and had a blast with that one. And I'm doing a ten part series called Big Brown Trout Hunters. And Tom Rosenbauer said he's gonna do one with me, but he's gonna do. We're gonna be small brown trout hunters. So we're gonna be older guys that like small brown trout like 8 to 10 inches. So can we call big, big reward trout smaller packages or something like that, you know, so, having fun. It's about having fun and spreading the passion and the joy.

Marvin Cash: Got it. And where can folks find the podcast?

Matt Supinski: They could find it at, Spotify Podcast. Just go to podcast.com Hallowed Waters podcast, and you'll see it. Just Google it. And then I think it's all over. The other. The guy who designed it for us, has spread out on the other things, but most people are listening to it on Spotify right now. It's on Anchor FM. So Hallowed Waters, is found there. Yep.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, I'll drop a link to that. Yeah, Anchor is Spotify's podcasting brand. And you know, back to the magazine for a minute. I noticed that you have some advertising but you really have a subscription based business model.

Matt Supinski: Correct? Yeah. And we're modifying everything at this point because we're going as we, we're learning as we play and so yeah, we're going with, we're going into both frontiers and we're also going to print also. So we are now in the process of converting to print at the same time, going through maybe Amazon or going to other venues.

But the biggest thing is people like digital, but there's so many old school dudes, the old timers that really want paper in their hands. And and that's a huge segment of the market, man. You go to fly fishing shows, you don't see a lot of guys running out, running around in Olympic suits at these things. There's a lot of old timer dudes and these guys want print form.

So my biggest problem is I love your concept, but I ain't gonna read that crap because it's all on digital damage. So I want something in my hands like a polar bourbon at night, sit and smoke my pipe and I'm like, I hear you the most thing you want to do is listen to people.

And my goal, I'm a Swanson food. I want to get my Swanson TV dinner in every single household in the United States. So if you got a microwave, if you got a stove, if you have an oven, damn it, I'm going to make sure you got a chance to get, get my Swanson TV dinner in your house, which my Swanson TV dinner is Hallowed Waters Journal. If you're a pipe fisherman, you should have it.

And so yeah, we're going to probably do some limited edition printing involved and some commemorative hard copies because technically if I go print a 264 page magazine with 600 color images, that's a book man. And so we're going to do a lot of that also. So we're in the process of doing everything.

Marvin Cash: Well, interesting. And so how much is your digital subscription a year? Just so folks have an idea.

Matt Supinski: Yes, $19.95 for four issues. And comes out quarterly, comes out every three months. And, and seriously, the length of these, the length of the magazine, probably take you 3 months to read it by the time you get to the, to the next magazine. So it's, you know, I think the price value is there. Yeah, we're not speaking, we're not making any money. It's point cut. We're having fun and hopefully we're going to take it to the next level where it will become a household name.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, it's interesting too because you mentioned earlier that the last issue was weighed in at a little bit over 260 pages. And you know that that's not sustainable. So what is going to be kind of the size target for future issues of the Journal?

Matt Supinski: Yeah, I think like, you know, 140 pages. Like, you know, I'm using the old Fly Fisherman model, as my standard, because that's what they used to be in the old days. And while I say Fly Fisherman does a phenomenal job, he's still one of the super guys out there. I mean he does incredible work and Fly Fisherman is always dear to my soul. But I used to like American Angler a lot. I rod in Rio. Eastern Fly Fishing does a great job. Atlantic Salmon Federation Journal. There used to be a magazine called Wild Salmon and Steelhead, which I've written for in the past. Fly fishing journals published out west. I mean, damn, there's so many, there were so many great magazines, but a lot of them are falling by the wayside these days.

And so we're going to be adjusting as we go. The nice thing about digital format is I can insert videos in there which are so cool. I could do wheel. So the beauty of three month publications and lifetime publications is that they're real time. And the problem with a lot of books today is there, you know, you contract, you sign a contract, two years later you submit a draft and three, four years later you get this first run and then you by the time book is published today, something takes six, seven years to publish. And they're old news, man, because life patterns are changing every day.

The concept ecology has changed every day. Rivers are changing every day. The fish evolution, is changing every day. We are in such a drastic mode of ecological evolutionary change at a rapid pace. With climate change, everything's going to change a lot from year to year, from excuse me, from month to month, week to week. So the nice thing about being contemporary and being up to speed all the time and publishing book quality information is you have the ability to put something out in three months, you know, which is kind of cool.

Marvin Cash: Yeah. And I mean, and I think that's the great benefit of digital, right? I mean it's this phenomenal delivery system if you have the right stuff to deliver.

Matt Supinski: Exactly. And you know what else is really cool is the ability to blog and podcast to support the institution. So the institution is Hallowed Waters Journal, the Hallowed Waters podcast, and my Ebb and Flow Hallowed Waters blog, which I'm doing these two or three a week. And they're pretty substantial blogs if you read them. They're storytelling with some seriously cool slide patterns and some serious deep, tactical info in those.

If you put all three together, it's a full time job. At this point I'm probably making 3 cents an hour. I could be making a shitload more money, you know, flipping burgers at Burger King. But it's the passion and love, and I do a few trips every week. And it's finding that complete picture.

Because if I could sit by a computer all day like I did for the spring issue, I thought I was going to lose my mind. And, you know, that therapist of mine kept calling me back and saying, you're not done with your therapy yet. I got a couple more treatments. So it was getting crazy. But yeah, it's really important to get out. I think a lot of publishers and editors don't spend enough time outside.

And so with the guiding that I do for my select clients, and the ability to do this, I think it's a nice retirement job that now that I hit the hallowed waters, going down that hallowed river, in my early, early mid-60s, it's a nice gift to have.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, absolutely. Because I remember, you know, the first time I fished with you, probably about six or seven years ago, you were cranking 200 days plus on the water.

Matt Supinski: Yeah, that was insanity. And it doesn't give you any substance to your mental state. And but, you know, you were just with me a couple weeks ago. My mental state has not changed very much. You're probably writing a whole blog on that one or a book at that point. But yeah, so it's, you know, it's called, refining things and. And that's where I'm at the refinement stage at this point.

Marvin Cash: Yeah. And so, you know, beginning of July, I know you started working on the fall issue and, you know, when do you expect it to come out? And kind of. Do you have a rough idea of what people should expect to see?

Matt Supinski: Yeah. So we're going to look at, like October 15th is our normal fall issue time. And it's going to be a Spey and fall trout issue. So I do a lot of Spey fishing, a lot of cleaning flies for salmon and steelhead. So we have a lot of that in there. We're also going to be doing some fall trout. Fall Adams hatches, across the board, basically migratory fish. So people, all trout fishermen become salmon and steelhead fishermen. It just seems to be that way and they all have this addiction for it. So if you cast a fly for trout, you're usually probably going to cast a fly for a salmon or steelhead. Very basic fox you know, Lake Erie, steelhead, Lake Ontario, British Columbia, Washington State. Hopefully it'll cool off by then. Those four guys that just destroyed this summer.

So, yeah, it's going to be about that. Plus, you know, fall is a great time to focus. It's one of my favorite times. Blue-Winged Olive hatches and fall satisfactors and midges. So yeah, it's gonna be. I'm gonna try to keep, as you know, other magazines do, they try to keep their content seasonal. Going to try to keep it seasonal, but just with one extra step, and go the extra mile into really getting down and dirty, skinny and seasonal and technical and trying, to do touch on concepts most people haven't touched on.

Marvin Cash: Yeah. And so it sounds like you spend about three months putting together each issue and then all the readers spend three months reading that issue while you're making the next one. And I know it's you and Lori, but tell folks a little bit about kind the of process of, you know, how the sausage is made.

Matt Supinski: How the sausage is made.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, well, in terms of like, you know, you're the copy editor. Lori does the layout.

Matt Supinski: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. That's sausage. I thought you meant. I thought you meant my smoke sauce. No, no, I'm never going to tell anybody how I make my smoke sauce because that's a family secret.

Yeah, so I, I start writing, laying out the magazine. I start writing the content, the core, the magazine of the article. And then I humbly ask these great people that their expertise in that area to contribute their thoughts on that concept. And I try to synthesize all that together with the fly patterns and the destination concept that these articles entail. And then I have featured writers in each of the columns that feature their art form, their craft.

And then Lori, as we go along, starts to lay it out, and put the photography together. And then, you know, then we edit, then we do multiple editing and then we do layout design. And then at the end, we add flight patterns to fly plates to the articles. And then we shit, our pants and panic and wet the bed and wait for the 15th to get it out and then we, just collapse. And it's very, it's a very harrowing experience, let's put it this way. But we managed to pull it off and the reception has been through the roof, so I couldn't be happier.

Marvin Cash: Yeah. And I think you're using what Flipsnack is the platform you're using to deliver the digital issues.

Matt Supinski: Yeah, Flipsnack has been. I mean, it's really user friendly, to a certain degree. Some people hate it, some people love it. We don't know what we're gonna do for season two. We're still looking at a couple other different options. We might do it ourselves. We don't know yet. This is all so new to us. I mean, I look at all these great online publications like Covey Rise, and all these guys have been around for 12 years, 14 years. I'm the new kid on the block, man. We, I'm still walking around diapers and wetting the bed, man. I don't even know what that's going on here.

So we pulled off a pretty glitzy and pretty credible magazine in less than a year. I'm still shocked, I'm still ready to, for the walls to come tumbling down. But what I think shows in the magazine is the enthusiasm and passion that the people that put it together have for it, including all the special people that have been so kind to contribute. And my passion ain't going away anywhere nearly soon. So you could just see the magazines that are just laboring to try to get content out, the books that are laboring to get content out, and then you can see the ones that there's there, there, there. There's Jesus flowing through that magazine, brother, and you better love it. You know what I'm saying?

Marvin Cash: Yeah. Is there any other writing or guiding news you want to share with our listeners before I let you hop this evening?

Matt Supinski: No, that, you know, I think if you really want to get a feel for the magazine, go to Hallowed Waters, go to the Ebb and Flow blog and learn a lot about that there. And then, you know, I think then the podcasts are going to be a hoot. The first one I did with Tommy was so much fun. And it's, I'm going to try to get personalities that are just going to keep you hopping and shipping the whole time. And we're not, we're not politically correct at all. We're gonna say all kinds of crazy stuff. And you know, unfiltered is, is when you really let it, have let it out. And that's, that's when the creativity comes out, when you're unfiltered and unplugged and unfiltered. And so, yeah, we're gonna have a good time. But it's about serious fishing. It's about, you know, we take it, we take it to the extreme level and that's what we're where our goal is.

Marvin Cash: Got it. And you know, for the podcast you're gonna do, you know, you're gonna regularly put out series, but they're gonna be maybe a little bit lumpy and kind of how they come out.

Matt Supinski: Yeah. So we're gonna do, you know, we're gonna do series. But then in between I just did a podcast about Hemingway, you know, about Ernest Hemingway who spent so much time in Northern Michigan with a cool guy up in Northern Michigan that researched a lot about him and things of that nature and you know, so yeah, we're gonna have little and have a, you know, different alerts. You know, I'm gonna have interview guys in Iceland and Russia and all my favorite places that I like to go and it's what's going to be all over the map.

It's gonna be pretty cool. And I've, you know, probably have a couple chefs on it, and that like to fly fish. So celebrities. Seth, you know, people that I've guided. Yeah, it's gonna be mixed up and there's always gonna be something new and exciting. So we're not enough power, not enough hours in the day, brother. It's. Yeah.

Marvin Cash: And I'll drop show notes to the Journal and the podcast.

Matt Supinski: That'd be great. And also it's really important for all my readers and to share the information as much as you can. So blogs and podcasts are only as good as people reading them and listening them. And I do a lot on social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, please share them as much as you got. Retweet them because, you know, everything today is Google search engine. I'm an old white Polish dude trying to out figure out this whole Google gig. And there's dudes that have went to school and gotten degrees in this stuff. So I'm driving an old beat up Volkswagen bus at this point and I need to get up to Lamborghini. So share, share, share, share, share, share and keep sharing.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, and to talk about old school, you know, you have quite a few books and, you know, I think the ones that jump out at me are Steelhead Dreams. And I know that's been published in a lot of a couple of editions and then Nexus and Selectivity. Where's a good place for folks to track down your old school writing?

Matt Supinski: You know, Amazon I mean Amazon and eBay, places to go. Amazon is the book market today. It just is what it is. I mean publishers rely 99% on Amazon today and Amazon's going to take over the world I think at this point. So we're all fraudulently wearing Amazon on our foreheads for pretty soon.

But yeah, I mean, fly shops, don't like to carry books because it takes up, you know, takes up space. I thought I talked to Tom Rosenbauer the time rose that day. Or corporate stores won't even share. Oh, stock is books because it takes up space. You know, it's about space marketing. And books take up space. People don't want to carry books because nobody reads them according to, you know, a lot of people. So Amazon always has them. eBay. I saw how I saw you let dreams go for like $1200 or $1800 the other day, on eBay because it's out of print.

So there's, there's still, there's still places where you can get really good books, eBay. And there's so many really great used book dealerships online. So you could find a lot of really good deals. I shop those used book stores online and there's so many great things you can find on there. So now's the time to buy books. Like now's the time now not to buy a new car because there aren't no new cars. Everything used today. But now is the time to buy books because you could find so many great, you know, first edition Selective Trout and In the Ring of the Rise and stuff. So go back and. But there's read, spend more time reading. You'll be so much a better fly fisherman.

Marvin Cash: Yep. And I've got links to all of your books that are still in circulation, in the show notes and on the website and I'll link to those too for you.

Matt Supinski: Wonderful, wonderful. Thank you so much.

Marvin Cash: And you know, before I let you go, you know you have a lodge in an outfitting business you want to tell folks about how to learn more about Gray Drake Lodge and Outfitters.

Matt Supinski: Yeah. So just go to graydrakemichigan.com. We're in the process of revamping our website because I put so much attention into my books and the magazine and now the lone pony in my website. It's like, you know, if you want to see the Smithsonian Institute of Websites, you just go to graydrakemichigan.com and you might see Darwin pop up over there because it's kind of antiquated, but it still has tons of information and it's where you go. So we're gonna. We're gonna revamp it and make it more simpler because you could spend days on my website.

But yeah, I mean, it covers everything. We do trout, salmon, steelhead, Atlantic salmon, Pacific salmon, fall steelhead, summer steelhead, winter steelhead. Little tiny streams, big tailwaters. We do trips to destinations. I'm going to start my Nexus tours next year, hopefully if there's no more Covid outbreaks. And, you know, I did one to Iceland last summer just before COVID and I was going to do one at Tierra del Fuego, and I was gonna do one to Quebec, and I was gonna do one too for Russia, but they all got derailed. And so, yeah, we're gonna. We're gonna still do it. And keep having fun.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, there you go. And if folks could only pick one digital destination to follow your adventures, where should they go?

Matt Supinski: So Hallowed Waters is on Instagram and Hallowed Waters is on Facebook also. And Hallowed Waters is on Twitter. So if you go to all three, you can get my blogs, you get all the video stuff and things I do there. But yeah, I, you know, I post. When I post on one, I usually post on all, because some people like one more than the other. And, yeah, I was out this morning on that little creek I took you to, by the way, and it was crazy this morning. I mean, it was. There was a Trico hatch from hell. We just had tons of rain, and every pool had. I was like. It was Gaga. I mean, there were 14, 15 inches rising that I had seen in weeks on that creek, so. You should have been here this morning, Marvin.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, with my floating Rapala.

Matt Supinski: Right. I didn't see any floating Rapala today.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, fair. Fair enough. Well, listen, Matt, I appreciate you taking some time to chat with me and re recording this. As I mentioned to you before, it's like, out of 350 pieces of content, the first time we did this, for some reason, we sounded like we were talking to each other in the, last flight, scene in Star Wars before they blew up the Death Star.

Matt Supinski: Well, it's cursed because, you know, our lodge, by the way, is built on an ancient Indian burial ground. Did you know that?

Marvin Cash: I did not know that.

Matt Supinski: Yeah, so when we. When we built it, we had this college student show up here one day, and he says, hey, do you mind if I dig around your backyard. I go, what do you mean, you're looking for dead bodies or something? And he says, no, you know, I have these old maps, these old Hopewell Indians and Chippewa Indian, Iroquois Indian. And I have maps where, like, all these burial grounds are along the Muskegon River and in your backyard, in this area on this road, you could see these mounds that were set up by the geographical region.

And he started digging at the end of our driveway. And we'd seen these big humps there. We didn't know what they were. They looked like, like, underground, you know, like. I don't know what you call them, catacombs or something. They were just, like, perfectly shaped. And then he said, oh, yeah, there's a lot of. There's a lot of burials in there. There's a lot of graves in there. And I found hatchets, and I found all kinds of relics, and. Oh, yeah, so we got an Indian burial ground here. So maybe we're cursed. Let's hope not.

Marvin Cash: Well, there you go. Well, listen, Matt, I really appreciate it. Thanks again. And I hope you can continue to have productive Trico hatches this summer.

Matt Supinski: Wonderful. Thanks, Marvin. Great talking to you. And thank you so much.

Marvin Cash: Take care. Well, folks, I hope you enjoyed that as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you again. If you like the podcast, please tell a friend. And please subscribe and leave us a rating and review in the podcatcher of your choice. And don't forget to head on over to www.nor-vise.com to check out all the great Nor-vise products. Tight lines, everybody.