A Championship Script
What made Atkins’ victory in the
2017 Cup so impressive was how effort-
less he made it look. From his dominant
pattern and technique, to his class and
polish with the media, to his cool-head-
ed demeanor during the high-pressure
event, it was as if Atkins, 27, had script-
ed the storyline for the 2017 Forrest
Wood Cup long before it began.
Indeed, the Florence, Ala., angler
had rehearsed this championshi p-win-
ning experience in his head a thousand
times. He didn’t necessarily know it
would happen at the Forrest Wood
Cup. He had no idea it would take
quietly honing his fishing craft on the
water.
However, once he toted the Forrest
Wood Cup home from South Carolina,
Atkins became a bit more vocal about
what his intentions have been all along.
“This is what I was meant to do,” he
adds. “I don’t know how else to explain
it. Financially, I went out on a limb this
year just to fish the Tour. I feel like God
has a plan for me, and I have faith in
His plan.”
Following Atkins’ ninth-place show-
ing in his FLW Tour debut on Lake
Guntersville this year, his name quickly
surfaced on pro fishing’s new-talent radar.
44
place at Lake Murray. And he certainly
had no clue that chucking a pencil pop-
per over cane piles in 25 feet of water
was going to earn him $300,000. All he
really knew, without a shadow of a
doubt, is that someday tournament
bass fishing would be his profession.
“It was just meant to be,” Atkins says
candidly about his win. “Becoming a
professional bass angler is all I’ve want-
ed to do since I was a kid.”
Atkins is well aware that professing
that his destiny was to be a professional
bass angler could be mistaken for arro-
gance, which is why he’s kept it mostly
to himself for the last 10 years while
FLWFISHING.COM I OCTOBER 2017