Hank Veggian

Sep 714 min read

Eric "Smallie" Scrivner Outlasts the Competition on Wisconsin River

Scrivner Wins Wisconsin Riverfest, Fischer and Westerman Take Top Team Honors

The Wisconsin River watershed posed a new challenge this weekend to anglers in the Kayak Adventure Series presented by GoPro: How will you fish a river system that has more sandbars than it has rocky structure?

Anglers had cool nights followed by daytime temperatures in the 70’s, clear skies and clear water when figuring out the answer. Would they target Largemouth Bass in slower waters? Or would they dial in what one local outfitter calls “The Crash” – schools of Smallies hunting in packs to herd bait on the river sandbars, like dolphins pushing redfish in the surf?

Jump to Full Photo Galleries – {} On the Water {} Awards & Winners {} Off the Water

They found their answers during an amazing weekend with ideal weather for the Wisconsin Riverfest presented by Feelfree Kayaks. It was worth the wait. Finally, after two consecutive Kayak Adventure Series tournaments that were hounded by the remnants of hurricanes, anglers enjoyed good river flows, lake levels and breathtaking scenery.

Hosted by the Sauke Prairie Chamber of Commerce, the Wisconsin Riverfest was the fifth tournament weekend of the Kayak Adventure Series inaugural season. It began like every other weekend, with Opening Ceremonies, seminars, family events and fishing; it ended like every other weekend, with a Closing Ceremony festival, awards, food and fellowship.

In between the two there was amazing kayak fishing competition on some of the most scenic waters of the upper Midwest. The Realtree Fishing RealTime Leaderboard powered by TourneyX lit up with submissions on Friday and Saturday as individuals and teams made casts toward their separate goals.

Whether it was the top Lady Angler presented by Women’s Fishing Federation or the Top Youth Angler presented by Crescent Kayaks, the X2 Power Top Team, or the Torqeedo top individual and any number of other awards, the Wisconsin Riverfest at beautiful Sauk Prairie, WI provided anglers with the perfect weekend for a float trip.

Top spots across the leaderboards received trophies, cash, and additional prizes at the Wisconsin Riverfest included:

· the Boonedox Big Bass Bling - biggest bass of the event

· the Day 2 Dark Horse - angler who jumps the most spots from day 1 to day 2

· the Omnia “Tackle for Trash” award - gift certificate to Omnia Fishing

· GoPro's Go Big Bass - Biggest bass captured on GoPro wins Hero 12 Black

· Crescent Kids Winner - Prizes from GoPro & Z-MAN Lures

· the Aggressively Average award for the angler who finishes in the middle of the pack

· CrossKix Century Belt for the anglers who post 100” or more

· Raffle - Feelfree Kayak, raising money for pediatric cancer through the PUNT Foundation

Torqeedo Individual Division

A cold front swept through Wisconsin the night before the fishing started on Friday, and as one would expect, the Smallies adjusted to it better than did the Largemouth Bass. Early submissions to Friday’s “Afternoon Sesh,” the half-day of fishing that starts the event, revealed photo after photo of gloved hands holding down Smallmouth Bass. But not in every submission…

In fact, the angler holding the top spot after the first hour of fishing was Matt Matthias, and a 17” Largemouth was the biggest of his four fish. Kristine Fischer held the second spot after the first hour, but then Chong Vang and Nicholas Burns posted the first five-fish bags and took over the top two spots after two hours.

As the afternoon turned to early evening, more limits came in. It was a wild finish to the day, and so much so that Fischer dropped from second to fifteenth place at one point as anglers posted longer and longer limits. First, it was Aiko Vang who took the lead with 85”, only to upgrade to 90.50.” Behind him, anglers like Jordan Westerman, Chong Vang, Jeff Little, and Matt Matthias climbed the ranks as they staked out spots before the Saturday fishing began.

Anyone who knows Kristine Fischer knows she would not take her drop to fifteenth place overall on Friday lightly. A relentless competitor, she hit the water with a vengeance on Saturday morning, Within two hours of fishing, she had climbed back into second place overall with 88.50”, a mere 2.25” behind first place angler Aiko Vang. Her teammate Jordan Westerman held the third spot with 85.75” in the early going, too.

In mid-morning, the top spots were exchanging culls, as Vang measured up to 91.50” and Fischer culled up to 91”. In the meantime, Scott Stuhlmann had dialed in a big limit, posting 88.25” to take over the third spot, while Nicholas Burns also returned to the top five with 86.”

That was where things stood when Minnesota angler Eric Scrivner posted 93.25” to take over the top spot at mid-day. The top three anglers were Scrivner, Vang and Fischer, and each had a big Smallmouth Bass of over 20” for their anchor fish, with Scrivner’s 21” being the difference. Additionally, J.T. Hickman had vaulted into fourth place with a limit of 88.25” to make things even more interesting and Elvis Lee bested him at 88.75" which was 88.75 more than he had on day one, making him the Day 2 Darkhorse winner.

At this point only five inches separated sixth place from first place...it was going to be a tight finish.

Fischer never climbed any higher than third thereafter, and for a good reason: she left the water after fishing for only a few hours. As she told Kayak Adventure Series:

“I only gave myself until around 9 a.m., because I had to get on the road to attend to an urgent matter. Jordan and I came down [from Northern Wisconsin] on Wednesday, so we wanted to fish as close to the northern boundary as possible. We found a two-mile long stretch that we could fish and take in and out from a single launch. I caught about twenty fish on Friday but only submitted four. I got on the water Saturday and I had a spot along the bank with a wolfpack of Smallmouth on it. I caught my 20.50” in a different spot, in the first ten minutes, and then I caught an 18” plus off of that bank.”

Fischer’s bait of choice was a jig, which she threw in different weight sizes with a flipping rod. “I also had a walking bait tied on that caught them in practice, but didn’t use it in competition.”

After Fischer left the water, she had to drive and watch other anglers creep up the standings. As we shall see below, her teammate Jordan Westerman remained on the water, and found the bites their team needed.

In the meantime, Eric Scrivner was putting together a big limit on his way to taking the win. He won by saying he unexpectedly caught some of his biggest fish in shallow water.

Those big fish included a 19.25” Largemouth Bass. As he told the crowd at the awards ceremony, it was in a shallow water area “where fish were all chasing bait.” While he was on the Kayak Kushion hot seat, he learned he won the Boonedox Big Bass Bling for the 21” Smallmouth Bass that he caught. Of that fish, he said

“I give a little credit to Kristine Fischer for this [catch], because she put out that video [inaudible]…I was trying to flip a log jam and not doing great with it, then I drifted off into a shallow area and flipped towards where bait were jumping…. and this one just scarfed it up and took me on a ride.”

The Top 10 Click here for full results

1. Eric Scrivner (MN) 95.75” -

2. Aiko Vang (WI) 92.75” -

3. Kristine Fischer (NE) 91”

4. Scott Stuhlmann (MN) 90”

5. Elvis Lee (MN) 88.75

6. JT Hickman (IN) 88.25”

7. Nicholas Burns (IL) 88”

8. Mike Eygendaal (WI) 87.75”

9. Chong Vang (WI) 86.50”

10. Tim Dendor (IL) 86.50”

Boonedox Big Bass - Eric Scrivner 21 inch smallmouth

With his win, and big bass, Scrivner won $3600 in cash/prizes ($3000 cash) and put his name in the running for the the Kayak Adventure Series AOY race, presented by Farwide Outdoors. The Angler of the Year wins a prize package nearing $10,000, with the main prize being an electric motorbike ($5,000) from UBCO.

X2Power Team Event Click here for full results

If you looked at the Torqeedo individual event standings after two hours of fishing on Friday, you would have noticed Kristine Fischer in fourth place and Jordan Westerman in fifth place overall.

Combine their scores, and you would have had the first place team score in the X2 Power team event halfway through Friday’s Afternoon Sesh. Fischer and Westerman made up Team “Where the Muskies At?”, who staked an early lead of 117.50”. behind them in second place Team Rhythm $ Blues,, consisting of Benjamin and Randy Wagner, who had posted a combined 52”. The Wetboi, Fish Thieves and Rivermen teams rounded out the top five as anglers dialed in the late Friday bite. In total there were 12 teams (24 anglers) who took part in the team competition.

Towards the end of the Friday Sesh, team “Where the Muskies At” climbed to 134.50” and then 151”, courtesy of Jordan Westerman’s late culls (they closed the day at 153.75”). Team Fish Thieves kept pace with the leading team’s culls, first by climbing to third place with 73.50”, and then taking over the second spots with 100.5” and closing the evening with 129”. Teams Rhythm $ Blues, Wetboi and Dink Removal Services rounded out the top five for Friday.

Friday set up a great team derby, and Saturday did not disappoint. The teams came out swinging.

“Where the Muskies At?” quickly raised their limit to 174.25” in the first two hours as Kristine Fischer finished her limit and then dialed in some culls. Team Wetboi rose to second with 150” as Jeff Little and Josh Chrenko culled fish too, and by mid-morning the Realtree Fishing real Time leaderboard lit up completely.

A dark horse emerged. The ironically named team “Dink Removal Services” rose from fifth place to third in the morning, and at mid-morning they moved into second place behind the leading team of Fischer and Westerman, trailing them by a mere 6.75”. By noon, they closed the gap. “Where the Muskies At?” were in first place with 176.75” and “Dink Removal Services” had culled to 173.50”. No other team was within 10” of the leader. But with a productive bite, anything could happen…

In the end, Fischer and Westerman held on and won by a score of 177.25” to 175.25” for the Dink Removal Services. They took home a combined $1500 in cash and prizes. And as noted above, with Fischer off the water early, Westerman had to grind out bites for the win as the other team closed in. As Fischer told Kayak Adventure Series after the event:

“Jordan and I have spent a lot of time fishing northern Wisconsin together. We figured everyone was practicing and we shouldn’t register but we have a knack for river Smallies. We both flip for them and fish similarly by reading the water, so after day one we thought we might have a chance.”

Special guest Jeff Little and his teammate Josh Chrenko spoke at the Bass U Brunch on Friday and then they hit the water to compete as team Wetboi. When it was over, they took third place honors in the team division. As Little noted at the awards, he caught his fish with crankbaits around structure like “bluff walls and rip rap, and some of the natural rock” as well as a finesse pattern. Chrenko jokingly noted that he found a pattern in what he renamed the “tickle grass” in the river where he found some bites.

Team Dink Removal Services earned a second place trophy for their relentless effort to catch the top team, a feat they nearly pulled off had it not been for Westerman’s heroic solo efforts. They surged because they fished together on Saturday, wearing out the same water. As team member Collin Lamkin noted “yesterday [Friday] we split up, but today we did a float together. Their team chemistry was apparent, as Scott Stuhlmann add “We fish a lot together.”

It was a trait shared by the winning team of Westerman and Fischer, and one that paid off as they alternated strong efforts. At the awards, Westerman noted “yesterday [Friday] I got lucky and Kristine didn’t post a limit, but she did great today.”

Reflecting on the Kayak Adventure Series experience after their team’s victory, Fischer noted that “I like the community Drew [Gregory] organized, and I got to meet a lot of people. I could see myself coming back, it was such a good time, and I love river fishing.”

Team “Where the Muskies At?” enters the Kayak Adventure Series Team of the Year standings with a strong first showing. They'll fall one event short of the "minimum" (2) for Team of the Year, as our regular season is now over and the best two AOY scores will be combined with the Open Finale "Broodstock" score to determine the best 3 event totals to earn Team and Angler of the Year titles.

Z-Man's Micro Finesse Division

The angler with the shortest overall limit wins the Z-Man Micro Finesse Division. It's a unique challenge that has become a hit on the Kayak Adventure Series this year and for two consecutive events, Glenda Celestino dominated this division as she perfected micro-bass techniques. Would she make it a three-peat? Or would John Dalton, who won it at Shoaliepalooza, take the top spot? Some real (micro) hammers were in this winner take all field of 19 anglers.

Saturday’s fishing started out like the other divisions, with anglers posting limits and jockeying for position. In the early going, Tennessee angler John Dalton took the lead and Wisconsin’s Brian Coyne had the second spot.

Behind them was Benjamin Wagner, who had a four fish measuring a total of 26”. If he could find the smallest bite, he could take the lead.

And that was what he did when he posted a 5” Smallmouth Bass in the late morning. With a limit of 30.25”, he would be hard to beat. In the meantime, Coyne had overtaken the second spot, with a limit measuring 37.50”. At that point, only 9 out of 19 registered anglers in the Z-Man Micro Finesse Division had posted a fish. What would happen in the afternoon hours?

Dalton would storm back to take second place, with a total limit length of 34.50”. As he told the crowd at the awards ceremony, he landed his fish by throwing a follow-up lure to catch smaller fish that followed his larger baits to the kayak.

Wagner won the Micro-Bag Division by fishing topwater lures. As he told the audience at the Riviera Pizza and Bowl: “I was casting a three and three-quarter inch lure yesterday [Friday] and catching five-inch fish. I targeted bigger fish yesterday and I knew it wasn't working, so today I targeted micro-bass since I already had some small ones, and it worked.”

Wagner took home a check for $425 in the winner-takes-all event, as well as a custom Ketch trophy.

Top Lady Angler

The Top Lady Angler award is presented by the Women’s Fishing Federation, and with some accomplished women anglers registered for the Wisconsin Riverfest, it was going to be an exciting race to watch. But there could be no doubt as to who the favorite to win was, as Kristine Fischer brings a record of accomplishment to the water at every event that few anglers – men or women – can match.

Fischer’s “Where the Muskies At?” team won the X2 team division, and Fischer placed third overall in the Torqeedo individual division. As a result of her third place finish, she won the Top Lady Angler award as well. She reflected on the win during our exclusive interview:

“I was a co-founder of the Women’s Fishing Federation, and while I have stepped away to focus on Bassmaster events, I am very proud to have cofounded that. I love what Amanda Brannon is doing with the Women’s Fishing Federation organization.”

With the win, Fischer joins Edie Wilkinson and three-time winner Glenda Celestino as Top Lady Angler champions in the Kayak Adventure Series.

Crescent Kids Division

The Wisconsin Riverfest saw a father and son team do well in the tournament standings. Dad in this case was Elvis Lee, who took fifth place in the individual division with 88.75”. In the meantime, his son Oliver landed 82.25” to win the Crescent Kids Division presented by 5-Star Heating & Air. His score also landed Oliver in 20th place against the entire field!

As dad told the crowd at the awards: “This was our first time in Wisconsin and everything looked the same, sand bars and sand blasts everywhere. So we came around a bend and we saw some grass and It reminded us of home waters In LaCrosse so we figured there’s gotta be something over there. We both went over and there was a wolf pack. We both made casts with the same color bladed jig, same trailer. I ended up catching the smallest one, and he ended up catching the biggest, an 18.50 smallmouth.”

Oliver took home a great prize package for his win as the Top Youth Angler. It included prizes from GoPro and Z-MAN Lures.

Other Awards & Winners

Raffle Kayak for Pediatric Cancer

FeelFree Kayaks provided the raffle kayak, a Moken 12.5 PDL, to raise money for pediatric cancer through the P.U.N.T. Foundation. The money raised covers lost income when a parent whose child has cancer quits their job to support their child’s treatment. At this event we raised another $1250 for pediatric cancer!

Special thanks to Roland of Feelfree Kayaks and Mike McKinistry, the Bassquatch Hunter for supporting this charity raffle!

Wisconsin angler Dustin Thern won the Omnia Tackle for Trash prize for removing a barrel from the Wisconsin River. It takes time and a conscious effort to clean up at least one item from the water each time we fish. Let's continue to promote and award those like Dustin who lead by example. Dustin won a $125 gift card to Omnia Fishing.

Friday's Bass U Brunch

The Bass U Brunch event was presented by Bass University and held at the Wilderness Fish & Game store. This chapter of the event featured talks by Josh Chrenko (Achigan & Smallie Talk Podcast), Kristine Fischer (@midwestfishergal), Jeff Little & Drew Gregory. 40 anglers attended and were served a hearty breakfast. Surely they learned a thing or two with the speakers at this one.

Special Thanks

Thanks to Smart Toyota of Madison, WI, for bringing trucks for anglers to demo. Check them out if you are in the area for all of your vehicle needs!

Special thanks to Rustic Ridge Cabins for their incredible hospitality and beautiful log homes to rent. If you're in the area there can't be a better place to stay central to all the sites and attractions!

Special thanks to Ketch Products for making some incredible trophies. If you want quality In trophies and measuring boards, look turn to Ketch Products.

Special thanks also to Amanda Brannon, or Reel Tournament Management, for her tournament directing, and to Jake Heppner and Billy Chambers for continuing to make the Awards and Theater experience even smoother for our fans. Josh Wilkes of Source Krate for helping so much behind the scenes and Brad and Matt from the Catch Podcast for coming to experience and cover the event. It was great to also have Collin Lamkin Riverman, of RivermanTV, was also in attendance. Go check out his channel here.

Finally, massive thanks to & the entire team from the Sauk Prairie Chamber, who really showed us all an incredible time and what the spirit of their city is all about. Thanks to Brandon at the Riviera Pizza and Bowl for hosting the awards and to Vintage Brewing for holding our Opening Ceremonies. Thanks to Jacob Ruff and the Badger State Kayak Championship for joining us and special congrats to their champion Nick Burns who beat out the 40 best anglers in the state!

Looking Ahead

Kayak Adventure Series is not just a tournament – it’s an experience.

Experience it for yourself when we visit your area. Our next stop is our open finale we call "Broodstock," in Bowling Green, KY on October 4-5! We'll be giving away $40,000 in just prizes alone and announcing our AOY and TMOY as well as the first ever Broodmaster Champion!