We recently connected with Jason Atkins and have shared our conversation below.
Jason, looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?
Well that’s a pretty easy question to answer…..my father. He was one of 12 kids in an Irish Catholic family and his father died when he was 17. Needless to say he worked hard his whole life. I’m blessed that he shared work time with me. I remember one of my earliest lessons in work. I would follow him around as he was tilling the garden and pick up any rocks that popped up and put them in a bucket. I was around 5 years old. I’m sure in reality I only grabbed a handful of rocks, but at the time it seemed like I was really doing something.
It’s funny because in my early teenage years I was rather lazy, but by the time I was in my late teens I had an after school job and would moonlight as a landscaper…literally. Many times we were planting trees by the headlights of our trucks. On my wedding day(I got married just few years out of high school) I got up at 4:AM to finish a landscaping job. Anyway, the work ethic stuck I guess you could say.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
Well I founded the fishing tackle brand Atko in 2017. There’s a lot of tackle brands out there and like the saying goes “most stuff is designed to catch fisherman”, well Atko tackle is designed to SLAY THE BEAST! We take making gear for our customers very seriously. We cater to the fisherman that is looking for the next bite to be the fish of a lifetime, a state record, a world record. We make sure they have the gear to tough enough accomplish just that.
When it comes to products my rule is, I won’t bring anything to market that I’m not completely stoked to use myself. Sometimes that means I miss out on trending opportunities, but this way I know that everything bearing the Atko name is up for the task at hand and won’t let our customers down.
We also put our products into the hands of very serious fisherman for testing before releasing to the public. Only then will you find it on our site or in your local shop.
And speaking of that we have some really amazing products in the works for Spring of 2026. I can’t talk about them yet, but it’s going to be a great year for Atko and our loyal customers!
And speaking of customers, I must say one of the great benefits of being in the fishing industry is that fishing really brings folks together. So many customers have become real life friends. I feel extremely blessed to have served so many great people and look forward to many more in the future.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
First off Curiosity…..If you have questions about something, invest the time to learn about it and figure it out. learning “how to learn” is a skill that gets better with practice. My brother and I have a saying “once you know how things work, you can pretty much figure out how EVERYTHING works”. In other words, once you become really familiar with one subject, you’ll learn the next thing much faster and easier. This is because you learn to focus on the important things quicker.
Next is Resourcefulness…..You’re never gonna know exactly what to do, how to do it, or have everything you need to do it. So sometimes you just gotta make it work. Learning to use what you do have at your disposal to get the job done is crucial. If you wait for everything to be perfect to move forward, then you’ll never get anything done.
Last but not least is something that took me way too long to learn and that’s Relationships….Relationships are the building blocks of everything good in life. I’ve always been a loner. I can spend a week alone in the woods not talking to anyone and be just fine. But put me in a crowd and it wears me down fast. So naturally I never spent much time investing in relationships with other people when I was younger. But in the past decade or so it hit me how important relationships are to life. As a Christian I learned that our most important calling in life is relating to others in a way that reflects how important every individual is as an image of our Creator.
On a basic level I’ve also learned that you need other folks if you’re going to accomplish anything cool. And I’m blessed to have some really great folks in my life that have shaped and are shaping the future of Atko. I’m extremely thankful for all my customers, business partners and friends that have contributed to Atko’s success.
Okay, so before we go, is there anyone you’d like to shoutout for the role they’ve played in helping you develop the essential skills or overcome challenges along the way?
I spend a lot of time trying to learn from others. Books, podcasts, audiobooks, and courses….I’m always learning from one or more. That being said I don’t think anyone has impacted my thought process more than Alex Hormozi. Especially his ideas on offers. He really preaches packing as much value into your products as possible. That’s something that really resonated with me. You know in today’s world we all feel like we’re getting ripped off pretty often. I try to subvert that norm by making our customers feel like they are getting more than they pay for.
And really that’s the behind the scenes goal of Atko. We aim to interrupt our customers life in a way that makes them step back with surprise on just how positive their interaction with Atko was. We want them to feel like their day and their life is better for having us in it. I can’t think of a higher calling than that.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Atkofishing.com
- Instagram: @maneatswild
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/
Image Credits
Photos by Jason Atkins, Jim Weber, Jeff Bicknell and Jeremy Lashbrook
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
