Daily Inspiration: Meet Jason Atkins

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jason Atkins.

Hi Jason, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I’ve been in love with the outdoors from nearly the time I was born. My parents have a picture of me playing with a fishing rod in my crib and I’ve been fanatical about it ever since.

I spent the summers either with my grandparents at their lakehouse in Tapawingo, at my great grandparents farm in northern Missouri and at our lake cabin on Taneycomo in Branson. I spent my days fishing, shooting my BB Gun, gigging frogs, and helping on the farm.

In the fall my father took me with him deer hunting once I was old enough to (kind of) keep up with him. We also went rabbit hunting quite a bit later in the winter.

Around 8 years old my grandparents moved to live on a cruiser cabin boat at the Lake of the Ozarks. I got to go spend a couple weeks there every summer and it was the highlight of my year. I caught fish until my thumbs bled from unhooking so many fish.

In school I would only check out and read nonfiction books about fish and animals. I remember getting in trouble one year because the teacher told me I had to read a fiction book, I told her that was stupid! I wanted to read about animals!

Just to illustrate how serious I was about fishing, when I was around 12 my grandparents bought a place in Florida and invited my family down. They met us at Disneyworld and then we were supposed to go back to their place on the coast. Well I had checked out every book I could get my hands on about fishing in Florida and I was stoked about it! When we arrived in Orlando I was so upset we HAD to go to Disney first. I actually threw a fit and cried about it I was so mad…..Ha!

In high school a great friend of mine from our church named Lee Ghodes, took some of us guys on a trip to the Quetico wilderness in Canada. It was pure wilderness, absolutely life changing. For a while after that we made regular trips up there.

My childhood and formative years were a huge blessing. So many opportunities to learn and experience the outdoors from family and friends. It would be a crime to ask for a better one.

I’ve always just felt connected to the outdoors and wild places. As long as I can remember I felt that God made creation just for us to enjoy AND look after

I got married at 20 to my beautiful wife Tara and had children a few years later.(Fisher now 22 and Chloe now 19)

Although I still made a little time for deer season with Dad and occasional fishing trip, most of my time was spent taking care of the family and working my day job.

As my kids got older I started making sure they got to experience outdoor adventures like I did. We made quite a few family camping trips to Bennett’s Spring State Park to fish for those (easily caught) trout. In the spring I’d take the kids turkey hunting and deer hunting in the fall. We’ve made quite a few memories together on outdoor adventures

A few years ago my kids, my father and I all made the trek up to the Quetico wilderness together. It was a satisfying full circle kind of moment!

Around 2010 I started taking cooking wild game pretty seriously, I put out a few cheesy videos on Youtube and eventually started seriously documenting it on social media. I grew a little bit of a following for a while and met some great folks online that share my love for making the most out of the outdoors

Anyway in 2017 my mother and I had a business selling home goods on Amazon. It was doing ok but homewares really didn’t excite me too much and I knew it was time to put my love and knowledge of fishing and the outdoors to good use. So I started Atko fishing tackle.

Now there was already a lot of tackle companies out there, but that was sort of the problem. There’s a lot of companies that make tackle to catch fisherman, there’s a few that actually make tackle to catch fish, but only Atko makes tackle to SLAY THE BEAST!!!

We’ve been slowly growing our product line since then. We only put something out once we’ve thoroughly tested that it can handle our kind of abuse. The blue collar, work hard and play harder kind of abuse. Because we try to fit in more adventures than we actually have time for (or can afford….lol) our gear gets neglected quite a bit. So if its going to have the Atko name on it, it has to handle that kind of life.

We now have an extensive line of braid, hooks, leader line, terminal tackle and our newest product Slay Sauce Bait Enhancer™ that are being used all over the country by folks who target beastly fish.

In 2021 my buddy Jeffrey Bicknell and I started seriously targeting big catfish around here. We put in a crazy amount of hours perfecting our craft and that really helped me dial in Atko products even more. When you’re looking for the fish of a lifetime every time, you only want gear that you have 100% trust in.

We did pretty good and won some online tournaments. We even have a few world records to our name including my IGFA All Tackle Length World Record Flathead Catfish caught right here on the Missouri River in Kansas City! Of course it was caught using Atko Leviathan Braid and Beast Slayer Circle Hooks

Atko has been steadily growing over the years. Many customers have also become friends! Thats actually been the best part of this business-meeting some of the coolest people!

Most of our business is done online through our website to a very loyal customer base from Alaska to Florida. We do also have our gear in two local tackle shops-Forty Woods in Blue Springs and Big Daddy’s Lota Bait in Lake Lotawana as well as other serious tackle shops across the country.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Ha this question makes me laugh. No… Definitely not. When I had a young family to take care of it could be very difficult to answer the call of the wild AND make sure everyone was taken care of.

I have always felt a deep responsibility to my family, so I made sure everyone else’s needs were met before I took off on an adventure in the outdoors. Many times that meant cutting myself short on sleep and getting by on gear that was lacking. But it was definitely worth it. I always say I pack a lot of living into life. I see this life and all of creation as an amazing blessing to be part of, we should all make the most of it.

Of course life always has ups and downs but as long as my family is ok, then I am too. But when something bad happens to your loved ones it can really blindside you.

On August 10 of 2022 I got a call that shook me. My son Fisher was on the line and he didn’t sound good. He said he had been hit, his back hurt and he didn’t know if he was ok or not.

You see he was headed back to MU on his motorcycle he had just restored. He was on I70 headed East at Adams Dairy Pkwy in Blue Springs. Traffic had come to a halt. He slowed down and was almost to stop when he looked in his rearview mirror to see that the car behind him wasn’t stopping. The car plowed into him at 65mph. Witnesses said he flew 40 feet through the air and landed on the the other lane. He said he knew enough to tuck in his hands and head and relax is body as he was struck.

When he stopped tumbling he stood up to figure out where he was and people were screaming at him to lay down and not move. One of those people were holding the phone so he could talk to me until the ambulance arrived.

That was the scariest thing I’ve ever gone through. Driving to the hospital with my wife not knowing what the outcome was. When we arrived we first saw met the state trooper that was in charge of the accident. He looked at us and said “I’ve seen a lot of these” “This is a miracle” “your son should be in much worse shape, they’re running more tests but it looks like he’s going to be in good shape all things considered”. Although Fisher was missing a lot of skin on his back and had some broken vertebrae, he left the hospital on his own two feet 3 hours after arriving. We had to go by the fire station to get something left in the Ambulance and the firemen couldn’t believe he was with us. It was a miracle

A few weeks later I caught that world record flathead catfish.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
Well like I said earlier, our fishing tackle company Atko, makes tackle specifically for fisherman that are on the hunt for monsters. Some tackle companies make tackle to catch fishermen, a few make it to catch fish, but Atko makes tackle to SLAY THE BEAST!

We only release tackle that we are totally stoked to use ourselves. We test thoroughly by treating it bad. When it passes our test we then hand it off to other Beast Slayers around the country that fish non stop. Atko is being used from Alaska to Florida and bunch of places in between. Sea monsters, river monsters, lake monsters and giant inshore beasts have all put Atko line and hooks to the test.

Our newest product “Slay Sauce Bait Enhancer™” has been a crazy hit. Its a liquid you put on your bait or lures that makes it more attractive to predatory fish. I didn’t set out to create a bait sauce it just sort of fell in my lap. I actually was in disbelief myself at first when I was testing it out.

My very first test batch I put on a sponge and tossed out. I immediately caught two channel cats. I knew then I was on to something. I spent the rest of the summer refining the formula and making it more powerful. I sent it out to some of the best fisherman I know and they kept coming back with crazy results.

One guy used it to catch 8ft sturgeon in Idaho, two brothers were using it in a catfishing tournament and said “I don’t know what the deal is but we’re only catching fish on the bait soaked in your sauce!”. My favorite was that the Homer, AK halibut fishing derby was won with the Slay Sauce on one of the last days of the summer with a 163lb halibut!

We’re working on creating our apparel line. As kid from the 80’s and 90’s I appreciate how the surf and skate brands became as much about a vibe, or lifestyle as they did about technical gear. I personally think this is something the fishing community is missing.

We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
I was just little guy, probably around 4-5. My grandparents lived out at lake tapawingo and they were going to be gone for the weekend so they invited my parents to come stay at the house and enjoy the lake.

Well we ended up getting out there really late. I remember it was dark and the moon was up bright. I begged my dad to take me fishing. He was like “its way too late!” . I was relentless until he caved and we went down to the lake. I had this little kids Snoopy themed fishing pole and ended up catching a catfish so big that little reel wouldn’t hardly reel it in!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://AtkoFishing.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maneatswild/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jason.atkins.7547