By Arnold Atkins (as told to Jeff Weber)
They say you’re either born with the “fishing gene” or you aren’t. Looking back at eighty-plus years of wandering through the American West, I’m convinced I was born with a double dose of it. My father fished, but my Uncle Paul – an outdoorsman from the get -go – was the one who lit the fuse.
A Nomadic Start
My journey began in Salt Lake City in 1943. My dad was a Union plumber and steamfitter working for the war effort, but we didn’t stay long. We moved to Texas, then to Española, and briefly to Kerrville for a failed business venture before finally settling in Albuquerque.
It was during those early years in New Mexico that I caught the fever. I remember a trip to Hopewell Lake with my dad and Uncle Paul. I was just a boy, using bait like everyone else, when I landed my first trout. Not long after, during a family visit to Arkansas, my dad rigged up a fly rod for me and set me loose on a stock pond. Within thirty minutes, I had eight bluegill on a stringer. I had found my destiny.
The Los Alamos Years
By the time I was in the fourth grade, we moved to Los Alamos. I was a bit of a “young” student—I’d been double-promoted, which made my high school years a bit stressful. I was a year younger than everyone else on the football and track teams. I wasn’t quite tall enough for basketball, so I served as the team manager just to stay in the mix.
When I wasn’t on the field, I was in the library. I read every book Los Alamos had on fishing. I’d ride my bike from one end of town to the other, dreaming of the Jemez waters. Back then, the Valles Caldera was private, so we spent our time on the Upper Chama, Rio San Antonio, the Vallecitos, and the Pecos.
Medicine and the Pacific Northwest
I eventually left New Mexico to pursue a career in medicine. I attended Rice University in Houston, followed by Tulane Medical School in New Orleans. During the Vietnam era, I spent a summer at an Army hospital in San Francisco. On my way back to New Orleans, I took the long way home—driving the coast, interviewing at medical schools, and, of course, fishing.
I eventually settled on a residency in Portland, Oregon. It was there, and later in Omak, Washington, that I practiced as a general surgeon. It was also where I officially joined Trout Unlimited. Even though the nearest chapter meeting was a 90-mile drive toward the coast, I stayed a member for years, fueled by a passion for the cold-water conservation I’d read about in magazines.
Returning to the Land of Enchantment
In 1998, I finally came home to Santa Fe. I transitioned from surgery to Emergency Medicine, which gave me the flexibility to get back on the water.
When I arrived, the local Truchas Chapter of TU was essentially defunct. But we were working hard to get it back on its feet. I walked into a meeting just a few months after moving back and never looked back. I eventually served as the chapter’s fourth president and helped found the Trout in the Classroom program, which has since grown to serve dozens of schools across the state.
Still Chasing Shadows
People ask me how the fishing has changed over sixty years. Honestly, New Mexico trout fishing has always been a treasure. The rivers might be more crowded, and the water levels might fluctuate—just yesterday, I was at the Miner’s Trail on the Rio Grande and the water was twice as high as I’d ever seen it – but the magic is the same.
Whether it’s hiking into the “Box” of the Rio Grande or casting for cutthroats in the high country above Taos, the feeling remains. It’s that same “bolt of electricity” I felt as a kid.
I’ve been retired for fifteen years now, and I’ve rarely been without a dog by my side or a fly rod in my hand. I guess that gene really does stay with you for life.
